1 - National Labor Relations Board

Representation Cases 59
In a case 4 7 involving a petition for a unit of individuals being
trained under a program established by the employer pursuant to
the Manpower Development and Training Act, to prepare them
for work at the employer's glass plant, the Board concluded that
the trainees were "employees" of the employer within the meaning
of the Act. The trainees, by virtue of the employer's commitment
to employ them in its plant upon successful completion
of their training, were found to occupy a status analogous
to that of probationary employees rather than to that of typical
vocational students who have no commitment for employment upon
completion of their training. The Board noted that the employer
had applied to the Economic Development Administration
for a loan under provisions of the Manpower Development and
Training Act for the purpose of constructing the glass plant involved
and, in order to qualify for the loan, had agreed that it
would locate its plant in an economically depressed area in the
State, conduct "a valid and meaningful training program" to develop
manpower skills for residents of the area, and employ in
its plant those who successfully completed the training. Although
the training program was funded by EDA through agencies of
the State and was "supervised" or administered by agencies of
both the State and Federal Governments, the controls exercised
by the Government agencies over the operations did not, in the
Board's view, militate against a finding that the trainees were employees
of the employer. The employer remained the effective operator
of the program, in that it selected the trainees and the
instructors, and controlled the day-to-day operations. Having
found the trainees to be employees within the meaning of the
Act, the Board further found that an existing contract between
the employer and a labor organization covered them and constituted
a bar to the petition.48
The significance of a prior history of bargaining as a factor
in determining the appropriate unit was considered by the Board
in a number of cases, among them being Buckeye Village Markets.
49 There one union requested a unit of all employees at the
employer's grocery store, excluding employees in the meat and
delicatessen departments, and another union requested a unit of
all such meat and delicatessen employees. The Board concluded
that separate units were not appropriate and that only a store-
47 Leone Industries, 172 NLRB No. 158.
° Ch airman McCulloch and Members Fanning and Jenkins for the majority Member
Zagoria, dissenting, was of the view that the trainee's relationship to the employer was
that of student-teacher rather than employer-employee, and that the contract was not a bar
because at the time of execution there were no employees, only trainees, in the unit covered
49 175 NLRB No. 46.