Wilmington Terminal Warehouse Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 27, 1946

68 N.L.R.B. 299 (N.L.R.B. 1946)

In the Matter Of WILMINGTON TERMINAL WAREHOUSE COMPANY,
ALEXANDER SPRUNT & SON, INC., WATERFRONT HANDLING COMPANY,
CHAMPION COMPRESS & WAREHOUSE COMPANY, INC, and INDUSTRIAL
UNION OF MARINE AND SHIPBUILDING WORKERS OF AMERICA, CIO
Case No. 5-R-2207.-Decided May 27, 1946
Messrs Thornton H. Brooks and Kenneth M. Brim, of Greensboro,
N. C., for the Company.
Mr. James C Simone, of Newport News, Va., and Mr. B. E Davis,
of Wilmington, N. C., for the CIO.
Mr. V. E Townsend, of Jacksonville, Fla., and Messrs. Perry Harvey,
David McWhite, and Ezekial Williams, of Wilmington, N. C., for the
AFL.
Mr. A Sumner Lawrence, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon an amended petition duly filed by Industrial Union of Marine
and Shipbuilding Workers of America, CIO, herein called the CIO,
alleging that a question affecting commerce had arisen concerning the
representation of employees of Wilmington Terminal Warehouse Com-
pany, Alexander Sprunt & Son, Inc., Waterfront Handling Company,
and Champion Compress & Warehouse Company, Inc., all of Wil-
mington, North Carolina, herein called the Companies,' the National
Labor Relations Board provided for an appropriate hearing upon due
notice before Mortimer H. Freeman, Trial Examiner. The hearing was
held at Wilmington, North Carolina, on March 28, 1946. The Com-
panies, the CIO, and International Longshoremen's Association, AFL,
herein called the AFL, appeared and participated. All parties were
' In addition to the above-named companies , the petition also named two other compan es,
Wilmington Shipping Company and Wilmington Oil & Fertilizer Co., the names of which
were stricken from the petition at the hearing upon motion of the CIO
68 N. L. R. B, No 35.
299
300 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-examine
witnesses, and to introduce evidence bearing on the issues. The Trial
Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error
and are hereby affirmed. The motions to dismiss the proceeding filed
by the Companies and the AFL, are granted and the motion to dismiss
the AFL's intervention, filed by the CIO, is denied for reasons herein-
after stated. All parties were afforded an opportunity to file briefs with
the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANIES
Wilmington Terminal Warehouse Company, a North Carolina cor-
poration, has its principal office and place of business in Wilmington,
North Carolina, where it is engaged in operating warehouses for the
storage of fertilizer materials, tobacco, lumber, and general cargo. Dur-
ing the fiscal year ending June 30, 1945, Wilmington Terminal Ware-
house Company exported 98,974 tons of products, of which approxi-
mately 90 percent was received at the warehouse in Wilmington from
points outside the State of North Carolina.
Alexander Sprunt & Son, Inc., a corporation with its principal office
and place of business in Wilmington, North Carolina, is engaged in
the buying and selling of cotton, a substantial portion of which is re-
ceived from points outside the State of North Carolina and stored in
Wilmington by Champion Compress & Warehouse Company, Inc., a
wholly owned subsidiary of Alexander Sprunt & Son, Inc. In past years,
a substantial quantity of the cotton sold by Alexander Sprunt & Son,
Inc., has been exported from Wilmington to points outside the State of
North Carolina.
Waterfront Handling Company, a North Carolina corporation, has
its principal office and place of business in Wilmington, North Carolina,
where it is engaged solely in the business of supplying labor to water-
front operators who handle and store various goods and products. Of
such goods and products, a substantial amount is both received and
delivered in interstate commerce..
Champion Compress & Warehouse Company, Inc., a North Carolina
corporation and a wholly owned subsidiary of Alexander Sprunt &
Son, Inc., has its principal office and place of business in Wilmington,
North Carolina, where it is engaged in the operation of warehouses
for the storage and handling of cotton, tobacco, sugar, and miscellane-
ous products. During the past year, Champion Compress & Warehouse
Company, Inc., stored substantial amounts of cotton, sugar, and tobacco
WILMINGTOIJ TERMINAL WAREHOUSE COMPANY 301
which were received at its Wilmington warehouse from points outside
the State of North Carolina. Of the items reshipped from storage, all
of the tobacco has been customarily shipped to points outside the State
of North Carolina.
The Companies admit that they are engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
II. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America,
affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, is a labor organi-
zation admitting to membership employees of the Companies.
International Longshoremen's Association, affiliated with the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, is a labor organization admitting to membership
employees of the Companies.
III. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION;
THE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT
On November 28, 1945, the CIO requested that the Companies
recognize it as exclusive bargaining representative for the warehouse
employees of each of the Companies concerned. The Companies denied
the CIO's request upon the ground that they had a collective bar-
gaining agreement with the AFL. Both the Companies and the AFL
urge the contract as a bar to the present proceeding. In reply thereto,
the CIO contends that the contract was, so far as warehouse employees
are concerned, substantially incomplete at the date of the CIO's request
for recognition and also that AFL, at the time the contract was executed,
did not represent a majority of the warehouse employees involved
herein.
The contract relied upon by the Companies and the AFL is an
exclusive bargaining agreement executed on November 12, 1945, and
effective until September 30, 1947. As originally executed the contract
applied only to longshoremen and did not extend to employees in ware-
house classifications. However, on the day of execution, the contract
was amended by written memorandum to cover warehouse employees
in all respects other than the wage scale and job classifications contained
therein? In addition thereto, the parties on this occasion orally agreed
in the presence of a commissioner from the U. S. Conciliation Service
that, if they should not be able to agree upon a wage scale and job classi-
fications for warehouse employees, they would submit such issues to final
2 Although the contract as of November 12, 1945, contained no specific wage scale for
warehouse employees , it provided in effect longshoremen 's rates for certain work customarily
done by warehouse employees in trucking merchandise to and from the warehouse and dock.
302 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
arbitration under the arbitration procedure established by the written
agreement. Although the latter agreement did not, at the time of its
execution, resolve all issues then outstanding between the parties, such
agreement was, nevertheless, a binding contract which settled a substantial
number of questions relating to collective bargaining.3 Under these cir-
cumstances, and particularly in view of the contemporaneous agree-
ment to refer to arbitration the only remaining issue between the parties
to the written agreement, we are of the opinion that the contract of
November 12, 1945, as amended by the memorandum of the same date,
constitutes a valid exclusive bargaining agreement applicable to the ware-
house employees herein concerned.4
In regard to the further contention of the CIO that the AFL
did not, on the date when the contract was executed, represent a ma-
jority of the warehouse employees of the Companies, it is the practice
of the Board in representation cases, at least so far as the question of
a bar to the proceeding is concerned, to presume the legality of a col-
lective bargaining agreement and to refuse to admit evidence on the
question whether, at the time the contract was executed, a majority of
the employees covered by such contract had designated the contracting
union as their bargaining representative.5 Accordingly, the contention
of the CIO is rejected.
Since it does not appear that the CIO made any claim of repre-
sentation to the Companies prior to the execution of their contract with
the AFL, we find that the contract constitutes a bar to a present
determination of representatives. Moreover, although the bargaining
history of the Companies together with that of similar concerns else-
where in the industry does not preclude the establishment of a separate
unit for warehouse employees, the inappropriateness of such a unit for
the employees of the Companies is indicated by the frequent and sub-
stantial interchange of such employees between longshore and ware-
house work. We shall, accordingly, dismiss the petition filed by the
CIO in the instant proceeding.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact and upon the entire
record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders
that the petition for investigation and certification of representatives of
8 A collective bargaining agreement which, although not determinative of all issues, settles a
substantial number of questions relating to collective bargaining is sufficiently complete to operate
as a bar to a representation proceeding . See Matter of Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing
Company, 51 N. L. R. B. 661.
See Matter of Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company, supra , Matter of DeBarde-
leben Coal Corporation, 51 N. L R. B. 1412, 1414.
Sep Matter of The Lamson Brothers Company, 59 N L R B. 1561 ; Matter of United States
Rubber Company , 62 N. L . R. B. 795.
WILMINGTON TERMINAL WAREHOUSE COMPANY 303
employees of Wilmington Terminal Warehouse Company, Alexander
Sprunt & Son, Inc., Waterfront Handling Company, and Champion
Compress & Warehouse Company, Inc., all of Wilmington, North Caro-
lina, filed by Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of
America, CIO, be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
CHAIRMAN HERZOG took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Order.