[1981] OLRB Rep. June 653
2135-79-R Labourers' International Union of North America, Local 183, Applicant, v. F. W. Woolworth Co. Limited Respondent v. Group of Employees, Objectors.
BEFORE: Ian Springate, Vice-Chairman, and Board Members C. G. Bourne and H. Kobryn.
APPEARANCES: B. Fishbein for applicant; R. A. Werry for respondent; T. Smith and C. Young for the objectors.
DECISION OF THE BOARD; June 19, 1981
The name of the respondent is amended to read: F. W. Woolworth Co. Limited.
This is an application for certification.
The Board finds that the applicant is a trade union within the meaning of section l(l)(n) of The Labour Relations Act.
By way of this application the applicant is seeking to be certified as the bargaining agent for employees of the respondent employed at its warehouse on 277 Humberline Drive in Metropolitan Toronto. The respondent, however, contends that the unit should be described so as to encompass employees at all four 6f its warehouses (or distribution centres as they are sometimes called) in Metropolitan Toronto.
The respondent is primarily engaged in the retail industry and operates both "Woolworth" and "Woolco" stores across Canada. Its head offices for Canada are located in Toronto, as is its main warehouse for Canada which is situated on Sheppard Avenue.
The respondent opened its Sheppard Avenue warehouse in 1964, at which time it had no other wirehouse facilities in Metropolitan Toronto. Notwithstanding two additions to the warehouse, as early as 1973, lack of sufficient space at Sheppard Avenue resulted in the respondent shifting some of its warehousing operations to other warehouses in Metropolitan Toronto. It is the intent of the respondent to, at some point in the future, build a new warehouse facility large enough to enable it to once again have all its warehousing facilities in Metropolitan Toronto under a single roof. As of yet, however, no land has been acquired for such a facility, and it appears that no such facility is likely to be constructed prior to 1983.
As already indicated, the Sheppard Avenue facility is the respondent's central warehouse for all of Canada. The facility contains offices for both the senior management and the office personnel associated with the respondent's warehousing activities on a nation-wide basis. Between 120 and 170 non-managerial warehouse personnel work in the warehouse. Also based at Sheppard Avenue are seven equipment maintenance personnel who are responsible for repairing equipment at all four of the Toronto warehouses.
The respondent has another warehouse on Steeles Avenue. This warehouse has about 102,000 square feet and employs 20 and 30 warehouse personnel. A third Toronto warehouse is situated on Midland Avenue. This warehouse, which serves the respondent's catalogue stores, has some 112,000 square feet and only about ten warehouse personnel.
The respondent's remaining Toronto warehouse is the one on Humberline. The applicant contends that the employees at this single facility constitute an appropriate bargaining unit. The warehouse has 106,000 square feet and employs between 25 and 30 warehouse personnel. This warehouse handles a variety of items, but at least half of its area is taken up with bulky merchandise such as furniture and large appliances. The Humberline warehouse is about seven miles from the one on Sheppard Avenue, six miles from the one on Steeles Avenue and 22 miles from the one on Midland.
All four of the respondent's Toronto warehouses receive goods from across Canada and abroad and, ship goods out to the respondent's stores. Goods are moved into and out of the warehouses primarily by independent carriers. The respondent has no other warehouses in Ontario, although it has regional distribution centres in Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Dartmouth arid St. John's, Newfoundland. The respondent also has two specialty warehouses, one in Montreal for textiles and the other in Vancouver for imports from the Orient.
There is a fair amount of movement of goods between the respondent's various warehouse's, including the one on Humberline. The shipment of goods between the warehouses is done primarily by outside carriers.
Although the respondent has a number of senior personnel who are responsible for its warehousing function, each of the warehouses also has its own local manager. Mr. Sockett, a Vice-President and Director of Personnel is the respondent's senior personnel official. Under Mr. Sockett is Mr. D. Delvechio who is Personnel Manager for the Warehousing and Distribution Centres. Mr. Delvechio is based at the Sheppard Avenue warehouse, but has responsibilities for warehousing personnel across Canada.
Although Mr. Delvechio has responsibilities with respect to personnel matters at all of the respondent's warehouses, he is involved with day-to-day personnel matters only at Sheppard Avenue, which is where he has his office. Job applicants who apply at another warehouse are interviewed by the local manager and the local manager can hire them. However, if the local manager has any questions or uncertainties about a particular job applicant he is expected to discuss the matter with either Mr. Delvechio or Mr. Sockett. For example, if a local manager encounters a job applicant who had previously worked for the respondent at another location, the manager will contact either Mr. Delvechio or Mr. Sockett to ascertain what his previous work record had been. At times the Sheppard Avenue facility has more qualified job applicants than vacancies. If Mr. Delvechio is aware of vacancies at another warehouse, he might arrange with the local manager to have these vacancies filled by job applicants at Sheppard Avenue. In such a situation, if Mr. Delvechio has already interviewed and approved a job applicant at Sheppard Avenue that individual will not be reinterviewed at another warehouse.
Employees at all four warehouses have an initial three-month probationary period. The assessment of probationary employees at the Humberline warehouse is done by the local manager, and he decides whether a probationer will be retained. Prior to any probationary employee being let go, the manager must first discuss the matter with Mr. Delvechio so that Mr. Delvechio can verify the employee's probationary status and also assure himself that the manager's decision not to retain the employee was based on proper work-related matters.
The respondent disciplines employees by way of written warnings and, ultimately, through discharges. Written warnings are issued by the local manager, although the manager is expected to seek guidance from Mr. Delvechio, in part to allow Mr. Delvechio to ascertain whether the warning is justified. The personnel files for the Humberline warehouse are kept at Humberline. Local warehouse managers make the initial decision to terminate an employee, although prior to any actual termination the manager must contact Mr. Delvechio so that Mr. Delvechio can assure himself that the manager's expectations for the employee were not unreasonable and that the employee had been given an opportunity to improve his performance.
The Manager at Humberline can grant employees time off and he is responsible for scheduling employee vacations. The hours of work of employees at Humberline are somewhat different from those of employees at Sheppard Avenue.
Prior to the filing of the application, employees at Humberline received a higher starting salary than did employees at the other three Toronto warehouses. Prior to February of 1980 the Humberline employees received different wage increments than did employees at the other warehouses. Fringe benefits are the same at all four warehouses, and indeed most fringe benefits are the same right across the country. If an employee has any questions about his pay he will raise them with the local manager.
Them is considerable material before the Board concerning the interchange of employees between the respondent's various warehouses. The great bulk of this interchange did not involv~ the Humberline warehouse at all. There was apparently no permanent transfers invoi"ing Humberline employees in 1975, 1976 or 1977. In 1978 a Humberline employee was promoted to a managerial job at St. John's, Newfoundland. In 1979 a supervisor at Midland was demoted to a position at Humberline. Also in 1979, five or six employees who had been working on the consolidation of orders from various warehouses at Humberline were moved over to Sheppard Avenue when the respondent started having the consolidated ft..nction performed by employees of a trucking company.
Them have been a fair number of temporary tranfers of employees between the respondent's Toronto warehouses. Here again, however, relatively few of these transfers appear to have involved Humberline. The only detailed information before us concerning temporary transfers involved the year 1979. In that year all of the temporary transfers involving Humberline were in the period of late May to early August when, because of a lack of space at Humberline, some furniture which otherwise would have been stored at Humberline was stored at Sheppard Avenue. At various times during this period employees from Humberline were sent over to Sheppard Avenue to do work related to the storing of this furniture. Once Humberline furniture ceased to be stored at Sheppard Avenue there were no temporary transfers of employees between the two warehouses.
In determining whether a group of employees at one of a number of locations within a municipality by themselves constitute a viable bargaining unit, the Board looks primarily to the community of interest between the employees and the employees working at the other locations. In the Usarco case [1967] OLRB Rep. Sept. 526 the Board set out the factors which are relevant to the issue of community of interest, namely: 1) nature of the work performed; 2) conditions of employment; 3) skills of employees; 4) administration; 5) geographic circumstances; 6) functional coherence and interdependence.
In the instant case, the nature of the work, conditions of employment and skills of employees at all four of the respondent's warehouses in Metropolitan Toronto appear to be basically the same, and indeed the indications are that they are similar at all of the respondent's warehouses across Canada.
With respect to the administration of the warehouses, all of the respondent's warehousing employees in Canada come under the same senior management. However, the matters of administration that bear most directly on employees, such as hiring and firing, granting time off, the scheduling of vacations and so on, are dealt with in the first instance at the Humberlire warehouse. In addition, the employees at Humberline perform their work under the immediate supervision of the local Humberline manager and the employees deal with the local manager on matter such as questions about their pay.
With respect to the issue of the geographic separation of employees, although all four warehouses are in Metropolitan Toronto, the other three warehouses are, six, seven and 22 miles away from Humberline. Because of the distances involved it is reasonable to assume that during the day Humberline employees do not have any social contact with employees at the other warehouses.
We turn now to consider the criteria of functional coherence and interdependence. There is no question but that in terms of product flow, the respondent's four warehouses are interdependent. There is also a history of a considerable number of transfers of employees between certain of the warehouses, but less so with respect to Humberline. Between 1975 and 1978 there was only one permanent employee transfer involving Humberline, and this was connected with the promotion of an employee to a managerial position at another warehouse. In 1979 a supervisor for another warehouse was demoted into the proposed bargaining unit at Humberline. We would note that moves such as these, accompanied bya promotion out of, or a demotion into, the proposed bargaining unit are not the type of transfers that generally effect the collective bargaining process. In 1979 the respondent ceased its practice of consolidating shipments at Humberline, and five or six employees involved in this function were transferred to Sheppard Avenue. However, in 1979 there were no permanent transfers out of Humberline of employees engaged in the normal warehousing functions. With respect to temporary transfers, the only indication of such transfers involving Humberline was during a period when, because of a space problem, "Humberline products" were stored at Sheppard Avenue and cared for by Humberline employees.
This not a case where a review of the relevant criteria clearly points the way to the answer as to what is the appropriate bargaining unit. However, we are satisfied that notwithstanding the fact that the respondent's warehouses show a high degree of integration insofar as the handling of merchandise is concerned, the employees at Humberline do constitute a discrete group of employees quite separate and apart from the other warehouse employees, and that the degree of staff interchange involving Humberline is not sufficient to detract from this fact. Further, although the employees at Humberline perform basically the same work as the employees in other warehouses, because of their being grouped together away from the other employees, and working under local supervision, we are of the opinion that the employees at Humberline have a community of interest of their own quite separate and apart from the employees at the other warehouses. In all the circumstances then, we are of the view that the employees at Humberline, with the appropriate exclusions, by themselves constitute a unit of employees appropriate for collective bargaining.
The Registrar is directed to re-list this application for hearing with respect to all outstanding matters.