Spring City Knitting Company v. National Labor Relations Board, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, Intervenor

Spring City Knitting Company (Spring City) petitions for review of an order of the National Labor Relations Board (the Board) directing it to bargain with the intervenor here, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (the Union), as the exclusive bargaining representative of a bargaining unit consisting of all production and maintenance employees and shipping and receiving employees at Spring City’s Flagstaff, Arizona plant. The Board cross-petitions for enforcement of the order. We affirm and enforce the Board’s order.

I. BACKGROUND

Spring City Knitting Co., a subsidiary of Cluett-Peabody and Co., Inc., operates a Western Division which consists of a main plant located at Glendale, Arizona, and two smaller “satellite” plants located at Flagstaff, Arizona, and Deming, New Mexico. Spring City manufactures men’s and boys’ underwear. Each of the Western Division plants performs substantially similar operations. The Glendale plant employs approximately 700 workers, while Flagstaff employs approximately 150 workers. The issues raised by Spring City’s petition relate only to the Glendale and Flagstaff plants.

On May 3, 1979, the Union formally petitioned the Board for…