J. W. Knapp Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsNov 23, 1976

226 N.L.R.B. 1120 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

1120 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD J. W. Knapp Company and Local 580 , International Brotherhood of Teamsters , Chauffeurs , Warehouse- men and Helpers of America, Petitioner . Case 7- RC-13511 November 23, 1976 DECISION ON REVIEW BY MEMBERS JENKINS, PENELLO AND WALTHER On May 13, 1976, the Regional Director for Re- gion 7 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found ap- propriate the Petitioner's requested unit of ware- house employees employed at the Employer's 700 East South Street, Lansing, Michigan, service center, excluding, among others, upholstery and electrical workroom employees.' Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer filed a timely request for review of the Regional Director's Decision on the ground, inter alia, that in failing to find that only an overall unit of service center employees is appropriate he made findings of fact and law which are clearly erroneous. By telegraphic order dated June 8, 1976, the Board granted the request for review with respect to the scope of the unit and stayed the election pending decision on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this proceeding with respect to the issue under review and makes the following findings: The Employer is a Michigan corporation engaged in retail sales at various Michigan locations. At its Lansing, Michigan, service center, hard and soft line merchandise 2 is received and distributed from there to the Employer's retail stores 3 or directly to custom- ers. In addition, the documents which accompany the merchandise are processed at the center. The ser- vice center also receives items from customers for repair and prepares new items for shipment to the i The unit found appropriate by the Regional Director is as follows All full-time and regular part-time employees including drivers , dockmen, cus- todians, warehouse employees , plant clerical employees , and invoice pro- cessing employees , but excluding electrical workroom employees , uphol- stery workroom employees , picture framers , confidential employees, technical employees , office clerical employees, guards and supervisors with- in the meaning of the Act2 Hard line merchandise includes items such as appliances and furniture, soft line merchandise includes items such as clothing , drapery, and carpets 3 The service center also serves four other retail stores not owned by the Employer retail stores or to customers. There are approximately 110 employees at the center, including the 7-10 up- holstery workroom employees and the 14-17 electri- cal workroom employees whose unit placement is here in dispute. The service center is a two-story building which contains warehouse space, a merchandise processing area, a transfer dock, an invoice processing area, and the electrical workroom on the first floor. The second floor of the facility contains the upholstery work- room, as well as picture framing and storage areas. A lunchroom and two restrooms, which are utilized by all the employees, are also located on the second floor. The Employer's vice president of operations and systems, Gary Johnson, has the overall responsibility for the service center. Reporting to him are, among others, the service center manager, Tim Berg; the in- voice processing manager, Terri Maki; the data pro- cessing manager, Bob Schmidt;' and the workroom manager, Jim Welton. There is also a supervisor of the upholstery workroom, William Kisor, who re- ports to Welton. The parties do not dispute the appropriateness of a unit limited in scope to the service center. The only issue herein is the inclusion or exclusion of the above-mentioned electrical and upholstery work- room employees. The Petitioner asserts that they do not share such a close community of interest with the warehouse employees sought to be represented as to require their inclusion in the unit. The Regional Di- rector, in accord with the Petitioner's position, ex- cluded the workroom employees from the unit, find- ing that their principal functions are essentially to repair or service a particular line of merchandise, as distinguished from the duties of the other service center employees, who are engaged in the receipt, warehousing, and shipment of merchandise. The Em- ployer contends that an overall unit is appropriate as its operations are integrated and all the employees perform duties which are directly related to the func- tional operation of the service center. We agree with the Employer. The 14-17 electrical workroom employees perform repairs on appliances, such as washing machines and refrigerators, and electronic equipment, such as ra- dios and televisions. These duties are normally per- formed in the electrical workroom; however, some of the electrical workroom employees perform repair duties in customers' homes, spending most of their time away from the service center in such activity.' The invoice processing manager and the data processing manager also repsort to the store controller , Henri Francius Also employed in the electrical workroom is a parts clerk , whose func- tions include checking and marking merchandise for the electrical work- room In addition , there are three or four electrical appliance clerks who are 226 NLRB No. 169 J W KNAPP CO. The record discloses that the electrical workroom employees come into frequent contact with other ser- vice center employees. Thus, the workroom manager testified that the electrical workroom employees per- form duties on the delivery dock area of the service center on an average of two to three times per week, for 1 to 2 hours at a time. These duties include in- stalling panels on dishwashers, installing icemakers in refrigerators, and repairing damaged merchandise. While working in the delivery dock area, an electrical workroom employee may call on a warehouse em- ployee to assist him in moving merchandise. In addi- tion, the electrical workroom employees regularly unpack crated merchandise with the assistance of warehouse employees to obtain parts which are need- ed to repair certain new appliances. Warehouse em- ployees also transfer merchandise from the delivery dock to the electrical workroom; when repairs have been completed, electrical workroom employees fre- quently wheel or carry the merchandise back to the warehouse area.' There is no formal training or ap- prenticeship program for the electrical workroom employees;' rather, employees who lack the requisite experience or background obtain training on the job. Nor does the Employer require its electrical work- room employees to be licensed.' The 7-10 upholstery workroom employees repair and retouch new merchandise as well as items from customers' homes. These employees are classified as touchup repairmen, seamstress, upholstery cutter, upholsterer, and finish upholsterer. There is also a picture framer who works under the supervision of the workroom manager. Normally, the reupholster- ing and refinishing duties of the upholstery work- room employees are performed in the upholstery workroom.' Nonetheless, the record reveals that one upholstery workroom employee is regularly assigned located at the employee and customer entrance to the service center, which is adjacent to the electrical workroom Among other duties, the appliance clerks receive telephone calls fi â€ž customers and act as receptionists for the service center Like the other e ical workroom employees , including the parts clerk , the electrical appliance clerks are supervised by the workroom manager 6 The record also discloses that the parts clerk in the electrical workroom has regular contact with the receiving dock employees , as the latter individ- uals receive merchandise destined for the electrical workroom and prepare the documents which are transmitted with it 7 The Employer attempts to hire individuals for the electrical workroom who have some prior experience The workroom manger testified that all of the electronic equipment repairmen have "some type of formal school train- ing" However , the record discloses that the Employer also prefers to hire employees with previous experience for other positions at the service center, including dock employees and truckdrivers s The record shows that one of the electrical workroom employees, Paul Roman , has an FCC license which enables him to perform repair duties on Citizens Band radios Such repair duties occupy a small percentage of his time 9 The record indicates that there is one touchup repairman who takes care of outside service calls , however , the record does not disclose the amount of time he spends performing such duties 1121 the responsibility of touching up and repairing mer- chandise in the delivery dock area; on occasion, he spends as much as 5-7 hours per day there. The other upholstery workroom employees also perform repairs to damaged merchandise in various areas of the ser- vice center on an as-needed basis. The upholstery workroom supervisor testified that this occurs on an average of two times per week.10 As in the electrical workroom, the Employer pre- fers to hire upholstery workroom employees who have prior experience. However, there is no specific training or apprenticeship program for upholstery workroom employees, nor are any licenses or train- ing required by the Employer." There has been some interchange of employees from one department to another throughout the ser- vice center. An upholstery workroom employee and an electrical workroom employee have been transfer- red to the dock and then returned to their previous positions.12 In addition, a receptionist presently em- ployed in the electrical workroom formerly worked in the marking room, and a former electrical work- room clerical presently works in the marking room. All service center employees are hourly paid and work similar hours. Electrical workroom employees receive from $2.30 to $5.95 per hour; upholstery workroom employees receive from $3 to $5.10 per hour; transfer dock employees receive from $2.30 to $5 per hour. The Employer has uniform labor rela- tions and personnel policies and fringe benefits are the same for all service center employees. In a number of decisions, the Board has utilized broad language indicating that retail warehouse units should include those employees who perform "typi- cal" warehouse functions. 13However, as this record clearly indicates, a meaningful distinction cannot al- ways be made between those functions performed at a warehouse which might be denominated as "typi- cal" (e.g., operation of a forklift), and other functions which are also customarily performed at warehouses, 10 The upholstery workroom supervisor also stated that on a daily basis upholstery workroom employees help warehousemen move furniture from the upholstery workroom to a truck or elevator 11 The Employer's vice president of operations and systems testified that an individual could be trained to "tear down " furniture for reupholstery in less than a week, a seamstress could "probably start producing within a day or two, and probably become proficient within a month or so", and that learning retouching would involve working with a more experienced employee for at least a week and "it would be a month or so before he could really handle all the jobs himself " The record does not reveal the training periods for the other tasks which are performed in the upholstery work- room, albeit cutters and upholsterers are more skilled employees than those discussed, supra 12 It appears that these transfers were effected to avoid layoffs during the Employer's slow period i See, eg , A Harris & Co, 116 NLRB 1628 (1956), a case primarily concerned with setting forth guidelines as to when the Board will find ap- propriate a separate warehouse unit See also The May Department Stores Company, d/b/a Famous-Barr Company, 153 NLRB 341 (1965), and H P Wasson & Company, 153 NLRB 1499 (1965) 1122 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD particularly those warehouses which perform the broader function of service centers. For example, it is apparent that, in order to achieve the purposes of the facility here involved, a variety of tasks must be per- formed, including the receipt, storage, preparation, retouching, and shipping of new merchandise, as well as the repair of used items which are received from customers' homes. The duties of workroom employ- ees are not necessarily limited to performing repairs on customers' merchandise. Rather, their tasks in- clude the preparing, repairing, and retouching of new merchandise as well as providing assistance in mov- ing merchandise at the center. Moreover, these duties are performed in various areas of the service center, resulting in frequent and regular contact between the workroom employees and others. Similarly, the em- ployees who allegedly perform "typical" warehouse functions receive and move items which are at the center merely for repair in the workroom, as well as new merchandise. On the basis of the instant record, we find that the electrical and upholstery workroom employees here involved share such a community of interest with the other service center employees as to require their in- clusion in an overall unit. Thus, while workroom em- ployees perform some tasks in their respective work- rooms which are not normally performed by the other warehouse employees, their duties appear to be those customarily and traditionally performed in ser- vice centers, and they are directly related to and inte- grated with the overall mission of the center. As pre- viously noted, the workroom employees frequently work in other areas of the service center on a regular and continuing basis, and at such times come into contact with other service center employees. The warehouse employees assist the workroom employees in moving and uncrating merchandise to enable the latter employees to perform their repairing and re- touching duties, and the workroom employees occa- sionally assist in moving items at the center. It is also significant that the workroom employees do not pos- sess skills sufficient to constitute them a craft or an otherwise traditionally separate department. In this regard, the record discloses that the Employer does not have any training, apprenticeship, or licensing requirements for its workroom employees, and many of their skills can be learned on the job, in relatively short periods of time. The workroom manager re- ports directly to the vice president of operations and systems, as do the other managers at the service cen- ter. Finally, it is clear that fringe benefits, as well as wages, hours, and other conditions of employment, are similar for all the service center employees. We therefore find that only an overall service center unit is appropriate, and describe the appropriate unit as follows: 14 All full-time and regular part-time employees employed by the Employer at its service center at 700 East South Street, Lansing, Michigan, in- cluding all drivers, dockmen, custodians, ware- house employees, electrical workroom employ- ees, upholstery workroom employees, picture framers, plant clerical employees, and invoice processing department employees; but exclud- ing confidential employees, technical employees, office clerical employees, guards and supervisors within the meaning of the Act.'s As the Petitioner has indicated a willingness to proceed to an election in any unit found appropriate, the case is remanded to the Regional Director for the purpose of conducting an election pursuant to his Decision and Direction of Election, as modified herein, except that the payroll period for determining eligibility shall be that immediately preceding the is- suance date of this Decision on Review. [Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] 14 As the unit found appropriate is broader than that originally requested by the Petitioner , the Regional Director shall determine whether Petitioner's showing of interest is sufficient before proceeding with the election 15 Although the Regional Director found that the three "assistant supervi- sors" possess certain authority regarding the scheduling of merchandise and the manpower to process it, and are involved in certain personnel decisions made by the Employer, he did not rule on their supervisory status, as the record evidence was insufficient for him to render a definite decision as to whether the judgment exercised by these assistants was independent or rou- tine in nature We agree that the record is insufficient to enable the Board to determine whether the "assistant supervisors" are supervisors as defined in the Act Accordingly, we shall permit them to vote subject to challenge