Shields, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 29, 1970

180 N.L.R.B. 1001 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

SHIELDS, INC.
Shields, Inc. and Construction & General Laborers
Local Union No . 980, Laborers' International
Union of North America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner.
Case 5-RC-6961
January 29, 1970
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon the petition duly filed by the Construction
& General Laborers Local Union No. 980,
Laborers' International Union of North America,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner herein, under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Walter H. Maloney, Jr.,
Hearing Officer . Following the hearing and pursuant
to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of
Procedure , Series 8 , as amended , and by direction of
the Regional Director for Region 5, this case was
transferred to the National Labor Relations Board
for decision. Briefs have been timely filed by the
Employer and the Petitioner.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
Act, as amended , the Board has delegated its powers
in connection with this case to a three- member
panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error . They 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 and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent employees of the Employer.
3.,No question affecting commerce exists concerning
the representation of employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and
(7') of the Act, for the following reasons:
The Employer is engaged in lathing , plastering,
and acoustical tile work with its main office in
Winston-Salem , North Carolina, and a branch
office in Roanoke , Virginia . The Roanoke office
bids on , and sometimes obtains, contracts in
Western Virginia , generally within a 50-mile radius
of Roanoke . At the time of the reopened hearing the
Employer was doing plastering on only one such
project, that at Martinsville , Virginia, with an
1001
anticipated completion date, at the time of the
reopened hearing, of approximately November 15,
1969. The Employer has obtained contracts for
plastering on five other projects in this geographical
area to be started at some unspecified time in 1970.
The Employer has a contract with Plasterers and
Cement Finishers, Local 589 of Roanoke, Virginia,
covering its plasterers in some of the counties of
Western Virginia but there is no bargaining history
with respect to the employees involved herein.
The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of the
laborers and tenders who assist the plasterers who
are employed by the Employer in 37 counties of
Western Virginia.' The record discloses that the
Employer usually sends a job superintendent from
its Winston-Salem office to each project on which it
is employed. The job superintendent then hires the
laborers and tenders necessary to assist the
plasterers in the local labor market. There is
considerable turnover of labor personnel, with
laborers frequently leaving before completion of
work on a project thus requiring replacements.
There is no evidence that any laborer, resident in the
37 counties of Western Virginia requested by the
Petitioner as the geographical limits of the unit, has
moved from one of the Employer's jobs to another
or has been employed by the Employer on a regular
or recurring basis.2
On the basis of the facts presented by this record
the Board is unable to conclude that an election
should be held in the unit requested by the
Petitioner. The evidence indicates that there
presently exists no nucleus of Virginia employees
who have enjoyed repetitive employment by this
Employer, and because of the intermittent nature of
the Employer' s business in the area covered by the
requested unit there is insufficient basis for us to
conclude that any of the employees on the
Employer's recent payrolls constitute a group who
might reasonably anticipate reemployment by the
Employer in the near or forseeable future.
Therefore, in the circumstances of this case, we shall
dismiss the petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
'Employees of the Employer engaged in acoustical tile work are not
involved in this proceeding
'There was some evidence , vague and inconclusive, that some plasterers
coming in from North Carolina, had brought with them laborers who had
previously worked for the Employer.
180 NLRB No. 152