Catalina, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 14, 1958

120 N.L.R.B. 412 (N.L.R.B. 1958)

412 DECISIONS OP NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire record in
'the case, I make the following:
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The aforesaid contractors having contracts with AEC and the Engineers at
Sandia Base are engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and
(7) of the Act.
2. The Respondents Metal Trades and Office Workers are labor organizations
within the meaning of Section 2 (5) of the Act.
3. Respondent William F. Leverenz is an agent of the Respondent Metal Trades
within the meaning of the term as used in Section 2 ( 13) and Section 8 (b) (4) (A)
of the Act.
4. By inducing and encouraging employees of employers other than Sandia Cor-
poration to engage in concerted refusals to perform work for their respective em-
ployers with an object of forcing or requiring such employers to cease doing busi-
ness with other contractors or with AEC and the Engineers , the Respondents named
in paragraphs 2 and 3 above have engaged in unfair labor practices within the mean-
ing of Section 8 (b) (4) (A) of the Act.
5. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices affecting com-
merce within the meaning of Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommendations omitted from publication.]
Catalina, Inc. and Los Angeles Dress and Sportswear Joint
Board , International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, AFL-
CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 21-RC-4916. April 14,1958
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Belle Karlinsky,
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 organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act for the following
reasons:
'The hearing officer directed the issuance of a subpoena daces tecum, upon the Peti-
tioner's application , for production of the Employer ' s records showing the cost of its
knitting and sewing machines , and the wage rates and job classifications of its employees
in departments 41 and 42 The Employer thereupon filed a petition to revoke the sub-
pena with the Board, which was denied because the Rules and Regulations ( Section
102.58 ( c)) require that such a petition , when made during the course of a hearing, be
made to the hearing officer . The Employer neither filed a further petition to revoke, nor
did It comply with the subpena As the Petitioner did not press for enforcement of the
subpena we hereby revoke it.
120 NLRB No. 63.
CATALINA, INC. 413
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all employees in the
Employer's knitting department or, in the alternative, a unit of knit-
ters. The Employer contends that neither proposed unit is appro-
priate because the knitters are not craftsmen and the operations and
interests of the knitting department employees do not justify a sepa-
rate departmental unit.
The Employer manufactures swimwear and sweaters at three pro-
duction plants in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located at
Whittier, El Monte, and Fullerton, California. The Employer's
general offices, a central warehouse, and maintenance headquarters
are in Los Angeles. All labor policies and wage administration are
handled through the industrial engineering department at the Los
Angeles general office. Employees may be hired by the plant man-
agers on a probationary basis, but they must be approved by the
central employment office. All employees share the same benefits,
and may participate in all companywide activities. There has been
no history of collective bargaining at any of the plants.
All knitting operations are performed in department 41 at the
Whittier plant. The plant consists of 2 buildings within the same
enclosed area, and is organized into 3 departments, 41, 42, and 43.
Department 41 knits sweater and swimwear fabric from various types
of yarn, and performs certain preliminary and finishing operations.
All fabric knitted in department 41 is washed, dried, and given a first-
way press. Swimwear fabric then moves to department 42, which is
located in the same building, or to department 43, located in the other
building at the plant. Sweater fabric moves from the knitting de-
partment to department 42 or to the El Monte plant. Both types
of fabric are then cut and sewn into the various styles of the finished
products. Some of the swimwear styles, and about two-thirds of all
the sweater styles sent to department 42, are then returned to depart-
ment 41 for additional operations, such as steaming, pressing, or sew-
ing on trim.
Department 41 consists of approximately 75 employees, of whom
about 40 are knitters. The other employees are classified as separa-
tors (pull threads to separate pieces of the knitted fabric), slitters
(cut the fabric into proper sized pieces), washers, dryers, pressers,
inspectors, menders, testers, winders, toppers, and yarnroom helpers.
Department 42 contains cutters, sewing machine operators, and em-
ployees who do looping, mending, finishing, final pressing, and inspect-
ing. Department 43 employs persons in the same job classifications
as department 42. Beside the 75 employees in department 41, there
are, at the Whittier plant, about 125 and 225 employees in depart-
ments 42 and 43, respectively.
414 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The knitters operate about 105 knitting machines divided broadly
into 3 major categories-full fashioned, flat and circular, and flat and
trim. Fifteen knitters operate machines turning out swimwear fabric,
and the remainder produce sweater fabric. The knitters set up their
machines to produce the pattern for the styles then in production,
tie on yarn, interchange needles, and adjust the tension on the fabric
by making necessary adjustments to the machine. Thereafter, they
watch for flaws in the fabric, determine its cause, and make the adjust-
ments necessary to correct the improper operation of the machine.
The knitters, washers, and dryers work on a 2-shift basis, whereas
the other employees at the Whittier plant normally work 1 shift. In
peak periods, however, extra shifts have been required of other depart-
ments. The knitting machines are operated only by the knitters, but
for short periods of time when knitting work is slack, they may be
given other work. Other employees in the plant may be transferred
temporarily from their department to different locations in the plant,
but normally even under such circumstances do no other work than
that of their assigned classification.
The Employer has no apprenticeship program for knitters, nor does
it require that they have had previous experience on knitting ma-
chines. The parties agree that it takes as much as 3 years to become
a fully competent knitter, although the Employer asserts that it takes
almost as long to become an equally proficient sewing machine oper-
ator or presser. The Employer conducts classes for knitters on a
voluntary basis, but pays them for attendance. About half the knit-
ters employed at the time of the hearing were receiving such instruc-
tion. Similar classes have been conducted in the past for sewing
machine operators. Of the 10 employee job classifications in depart-
ment 41, 6 including knitting are hourly paid. In departments 42
and 43 also, there is no single pattern of wage payments, some classi-
fications being hourly paid, and others being paid on a piecework and
incentive basis.
The knitting department occupies a separate area in the building
which it shares with department 42. Within this area are located
all the knitting machines, as well as the laundry equipment and
pressing and sewing machines used by employees who are part of the
knitting department. Each of the buildings comprising the Whittier
plant is supervised by its own manager. Building 2, containing
departments 41 and 42, has the following levels of supervision : An
assistant building manager in direct charge of those knitters who
work on sweater fabric. He also oversees 4 foreladies, 1 of whom
directly supervises the nonknitting classifications in department 41,
and the cutters in department 42. The other three foreladies share
the supervision of the bulk of employees in department 42. There
CATALINA, INC. 415
is also a supervisor in department 41 for the knitters, about 15 in
number, who produce the swimwear fabric. This individual, for per-
sonal reasons, reports directly to the Employer's vice president for
production, as do the two building managers at Whittier.
The Petitioner urges the Board to find that the knitting department
comprises a homogeneous group of employees whose interests and
working conditions are sufficiently different from those of all other
employees as to justify a departmental unit. We believe, on the
contrary, that the record clearly establishes the integrated nature of
the Employer's operations and the close relationship, on both the
functional and personnel levels, between the knitting and other pro-
duction departments.
It may be true, as the Petitioner contends, that it is the customary
practice in the apparel industry to purchase piecegoods from inde-
pendent knitting mills, but it does not follow that the Employer's
knitting operations are comparable to such independent mills. In the
Employer's organization, knitting is only a step in the process of
producing finished garments. None of the fabric which is knit at
Whittier is sold to other companies. The sole function of the knit-
ting department is to produce semifinished material as part of the
process of turning out the Employer's end products, sweaters and
swimwear. The Board is reluctant to fragmentize production em-
ployees working in close proximity to one another and has refused to
do so even when the end products of such departments are unrelated.'
In this case, there is even less justification for relying on differences
in the types of products turned out by the various production
departments.
Other factors urged by the Petitioner as supporting a departmental
unit are differences in skills, operations, and supervision between de-
partment 41 and other departments at Whittier. Although these
exist, we find them to be outweighed by the similarities in interest
which the knitting department employees share with fellow em-
ployees. Moreover, such differences are present even within the knit-
ting department itself. Only about half the employees in department
41 are knitters, and the skills of the remaining employees there are
comparable to those of many production workers in other depart-
ments. The knitters themselves have no common supervision, as the
two knitting supervisors do not report to the same individual, and
the supervisor of the nonknitting employees in department 41 also
supervises some employees in department 42. All the knitting de-
partment employees work in close proximity with other employees
in building 2, and share all the facilities available at the Whittier
plant; all personnel matters, such as determination of hours, rates of
2 Dexdale Hosiery Mills, 115 NLRB 228
416 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
pay, and other benefits are centrally handled; there is constant move-
went of fabric originally produced in department 41 back to that de-
partment for further finishing operations; and the two methods of
payment for production workers, hourly and incentive, cut across
departmental lines. We conclude, therefore, that the knitting de-
partment does not comprise a group of employees whose interests or
working conditions justify their establishment as a separate unit.
There remains for consideration the appropriateness of a unit
limited to knitters. The Board has found appropriate units of knitters
in the full-fashioned hosiery industry.' The Petitioner argues that
separate units of knitters in the outerwear industry should also be ap-
propriate. There are, however, important differences between the
two groups. For example, there is a long history of separate bar-
gaining for full-fashioned hosiery knitters. The union which repre-
sents such knitters was founded as a craft union admitting only knit-
ters and their helpers to membership. Although it now also repre-
sent employees in the industry on an industrial basis, it continues to
require that persons admitted to membership as journeymen knitters
must have served a 4-year apprenticeship. There is no evidence of a
similar history for knitters in the outerwear industry. Further, full-
fashioned hosiery knitters are required to operate machines which
are more complex and require greater skill than those of the knitters
involved in this proceeding. We conclude that the reasons for which
the Board found that separate units of knitters in the full-fashioned
hosiery industry were appropriate do not exist in the case of knitters
in the outerwear industry. Accordingly, we find that decisions find-
ing the former units appropriate are not determinative of the issue
in this proceeding. Considering the evidence in the present case, we
find no adequate basis for establishing the knitters as a separate unit.
They are not a craft, a traditional bargaining unit, or a homogeneous
group with interests apart from those of other production employees.
The only real basis for separating them from other production em-
ployees for bargaining purposes is extent of organization. However,
we are precluded by Section 9 (c) (5) from according controlling
weight to this consideration. Under the circumstances, we find that
a unit of knitters is not appropriate. We shall, therefore, dismiss the
petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
CHAIRMAN LEEDOM took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Order.
s Angelica Hosiery Mills, Inc, 95 NLRB 1284 ; Mock, Judson, Voehrsnger Company, 110
NLRB 437.