Armour Leather Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 13, 1954

109 N.L.R.B. 1311 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

ARMOUR LEATHER COMPANY 1311
cordingly, we shall make no final determination with respect to the
employees in the automatic fabrication department at this time, but
shall first ascertain the desire of these employees as expressed in the
election directed herein. We shall direct an election among the fol-
lowing employees : All employees in the automatic fabrication de-
partment at the Employer's Washington, D. C., establishment
excluding all other employees and supervisors as defined in the Act."
We shall place the names of both labor organizations involved
herein on the ballot. If a majority of the employees in the above
voting group vote for the Independent, they will be deemed to have
indicated their desire to constitute a separate appropriate unit which
the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be appropriate for pur-
poses of collective bargaining. In the event a majority vote for
Local Union No. 963, they will be taken to have indicated their desire
to be constituted a part of the existing inside glassworkers' unit pres-
ently represented by Local Union No. 963.
The Regional Director conducting the election directed herein is
instructed to issue a certification of representatives or of results of
election in accord with the foregoing.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBER MURDOCK took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Direction of Election.
9 See Ware Laboratories , Inc, 98 NLRB 1141, and R P. Scherer Corporation , 95 NLRB
1426 Packard Motor Car Co., 94 NLRB 1550 , and American Bakeries Co ., 107 NLRB 1529,
upon which Local Union No 963 relies to support its position , are plainly distinguishable
on the facts.
ARMOUR LEATHER COMPANY, A DIVISION OF ARMOUR AND COMPANY and
CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS , PETITIONER. Case No.
4-RC-2381. September 13,1954
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Herbert B. Mintz, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
109 NLRB No. 192.
1312 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent in a single unit the production
and maintenance employees including powerhouse employees at three
plants of the Employer located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The
Intervenor, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of
North America, AFL, agrees that this unit is appropriate. The other
Intervenor, Local 211, International Fur and Leather Workers Union,'
hereinafter called the Fur Workers, contends that the appropriate
unit should include all employees in the Williamsport, Noxen, St.
Marys, and Westover, Pennsylvania, plants of the Employer. The
Employer asserts that employees in each plant in Williamsport should
constitute separate appropriate units. It opposes the single overall
unit urged by the Fur Workers.
The Employer is engaged in tanning and processing leather. It
has tanneries in Noxen, St. Marys, and Westover and a powerhouse
plus three plants-a tannery, a cut sole factory and warehouse, and a
curry department-in Williamsport. In a series of cases,2 the Board
found appropriate three separate units of production and mainte-
nance employees at the Noxen, St. Marys, and Westover tanneries, re-
spectively, and a fourth unit of production and maintenance em-
ployees in the powerhouse and the three plants in Williamsport.
Since then, despite these unit findings, the Employer and the Fur
Workers have negotiated successive collective-bargaining contracts
covering, in three separate units, the production and maintenance
employees in (1) the tanneries in all four cities and the powerhouse
in Williamsport, (2) the cut sole factory and warehouse in Williams-
port, and (3) the curry department in Williamsport.
There is no interchange or significant transfer of employees between
the plants in the different cities, which are from 50 to 150 miles apart.
The plants in each city have separate bank accounts and maintain a
central office where the bookkeeping is done and the payroll is pre-
pared. The plants in all four cities do not constitute an administrative
division of the Employer's business. General labor policy is set by
the Employer's office in Chicago, but each plant is in charge of a
i As the Fur Workers has a contractual interest in the representation of the employees
involved , the objections to its intervention by the Petitioner and the Amalgamated Meat
Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL, and the Petitioner 's motion to
strike from the record all evidence in support of the Fur Workers' position are overruled.
Milprint, Inc , 91 NLRB 561.
2 35 NLRB 208, 35 NLRB 1310, 48 NLRB 1144, and 60 NLRB 393. The first two of
these cases were decided in 1941 , the third in 1943, and the last in 1945.
ARMOUR LEATHER COMPANY 1313
superintendent who, although responsible to a general manager in
Williamsport, administers personnel policy at his plant.
At Williamsport the tannery receives raw hides. Some of these are
transferred to the curry department, and the rest are processed into
leather and transferred to the warehouse and cut sole factory for
cutting and sale. The activities of the three Williamsport plants are
directed to one end result-the production of sole leather. All these
plants are located on a single tract of land 1 block wide and 2 blocks
long. The records and payroll are kept and prepared in one central
office. Although the employees in each plant are covered by sep-
arate contracts, the contracts have been negotiated simultaneously,
have the same commencement and expiration date, and are otherwise
almost identical. All the employees at Williamsport 3 have been
represented by one local. The record indicates that the employees in
the different plants receive different rates of pay and are under dif-
ferent systems of seniority and progression, but it does not show how
they differ.
The history of collective bargaining is not controlling as it has
deviated substantially from the Board's prior determinations of the
appropriate units.4 Upon the record as a whole, and especially since
there is no showing that the Employer's operations have changed
since the prior determinations, we find the unit contended for by
the Fur Workers to be inappropriate. For the same reasons, and
particularly because of the integration of the Employer's plants at
Williamsport, their proximity, and the centralization of administra-
tion, we are satisfied that the production and maintenance employees
in the powerhouse and the other plants in that city constitute a single
appropriate unit, as sought by the Petitioner.
We find, therefore, that all production and maintenance employees,
including powerhouse employees, at the Employer's three plants in
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, excluding office clerical employees,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act, constitute a unit ap-
propriate for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9 (b) of the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
MEMBERS MURDOCiT, and RODGERS took no part in the consideration
of the above Decision and Direction of Election.
8 The employees at Noxen, St . Mary's, and Westover are represented by Locals 217, 220,
and 207, International Fur and Leather Workers Union , respectively.
4 Bethlehem Pacific Coast Steel Corporation , 99 NLRB 115 at 116 ; Merck d Co., Inc,
98 NLRB 372.