1 - National Labor Relations Board

46 Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
a multistore unit of retail food clerks that the employer treat
as an accretion to that contract unit all clerks hired to staff
snackbars established at two newly opened stores. The Board
noted that there had been no snackbar departments in existence
at the time the contract was executed and that snackbar employees
were not contemplated by the unit description. In addition,
a comparison of the duties and working conditions of the
snackbar employees with those of the unit employees showed
substantial differences which established that the snackbar employees
had a separate community of interest entitling them to
select a representative of their own. The employer was therefore
not obligated to bargain with the union for the snackbar employees.
However, as to nonfood department clerks at the new
stores, the Board found them to be an accretion to the contract
unit, since their duties and working conditions were essentially
identical to those of the unit employees. The employer was therefore
held to have violated section 8(a) (5) of the Act by refusing
to reognize the union as their representative.
Similarly, the Almacs case s presented the question whether
a present election in a newly opened retail food store upon a
union's petition was barred by a second union's existing contract
covering a multistore unit in the employer's chain. Each union
contended that the new store's employees should be treated as
an accretion to its respective multistore unit. The Board found
no accretion to either unit, relying particularly on the fact that
the new store did not comprise, with either of such units, a
functionally integrated subdivision of the employer's operation.
The Board noted that the new store, being geographically distant
from the represented stores, had separate supervision; that its
employees were recruited locally and lived in the immediate community;
and that they were not subject to substantial temporary
interchange with employees of other stores. Accordingly, a selfdetermination
election was directed.
In a situation 9 where an employer and the incumbent union at
an old plant executed a contract covering the unit involved at a
new facility, while the old plant was being phased out, the Board
held that there was no question concerning representation of the
employees at the new plant, since the transfer of operations to
the new plant was essentially a relocation of the old plant which
did not cause any change in the character of the jobs and functions
of the employees, 65 percent of whom transferred with the
8 176 NLRB No. 127.
' Pepsi-Cola General Bottlers, 173 NLRB No. 121.