Associated Oil Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 9, 1938

5 N.L.R.B. 893 (N.L.R.B. 1938)

In the Matter of ASSOCIATED OIL COMPANY and SAILORS UNION OF THE
PACIFIC
In the Matter Of UNION OIL COMPANY and SAILORS UNION OF THE
PACIFIC
In the Matter of GENERAL PETROLEUM CORP. OF CALIFORNIA and
SAILORS UNION OF THE PACIFIC
In the Matter of HILLCONE STEAMSHIP COMPANY and SAILORS UNION
OF THE PACIFIC
In the Matter of RICHFIELD OIL CO. OF CALIFORNIA and SAILORS UNION
OF THE PACIFIC
Cases Nos . R-477 to R-481, inclusive .Decided March 9, 1938
Water Transportation Industry-Investigation of Representatives : contro-
versy concerning representation of employees : rival organizations ; refusal by
employers to recognize petitioning union as exclusive representative of em-
ployees until certification by the Board ; controversy concerning units appro-
priate for collective bargaining-Units Appropriate for Collective Bargaining:
unlicensed deck personnel on tankers ; barge employees not included ; history
of bargaining and desires of employees considered ; occupational differences
not determinative-Electrons Ordered : eligibility to vote to be determined as of
date of posting notice of election and date of balloting.
Mr. John P. Jennings, for the Board.
McCutcheon , Olney, Hannon d Greene , by Mr. Farnham P. Gri f -
fatks and Mr. George E. Dane, of San Francisco , Calif., for the Union
Oil Company of Calif., General Petroleum Corporation of Calif.,
Hillcone Steamship Company , Ltd., and Richfield Oil Corporation.
Mr. Daniel W. Hone, of San Francisco , Calif., for the Tidewater
Associated Oil Company.
Mr. Harry Lundeberg and Mr. Milton D. Sapiro, of San Fran-
cisco, Calif ., for the S. U. P.
Mr. J. C. Coulter , of Long Beach, Calif ., for the Oil Workers.
Cllr. E. J. Stillings, of San Francisco, Calif., for the Inland Boat-
men.
Mr. W. H. Ashby, of Associated, Calif., for the Associated Seamen.
Mr. Walter T. Nolte, of counsel to the Board.
893
894 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
On October 21, 1937, Sailors Union of the Pacific, herein called
the S. U. P., filed with the Regional Director for the Twentieth
Region (San Francisco, California) five petitions alleging that ques-
tions affecting commerce had arisen concerning the representation
of employees of Tidewater Associated Oil Company, Union Oil Com-
pany of California, General Petroleum Corporation of California,
Hillcone Steamship Company, Ltd., and Richfield Oil Corporation,'.
herein called the Companies, and requesting investigations and cer-
tifications of representatives pursuant to Section 9 (c) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, herein called the Act. On
November 19, 1937, amended petitions were filed in the cases relating
to General Petroleum Corporation of California, Hillcone Steam-
ship Company, Ltd., and Richfield Oil Corporation. On November
26, 1937, the National Labor Relations Board, herein called the
Board, acting pursuant to Section 9 (c) of the Act and Article III,
Sections 3 and 10 (c) (2), of National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations-Series 1, as amended, ordered a consolidation of
the five cases for the purpose of hearing, and also ordered an in-
vestigation and authorized the Regional Director to conduct it and
to provide for an appropriate hearing upon due notice.
On November 30, 1937, the Regional Director issued a notice of
hearing, copies of which were duly served upon each of the Com-
panies and the S. U. P., and also upon the Oil Workers International
Union, Local No. 128, herein called the Oil Workers, upon the Inland
Boatmen's Union of the Pacific, herein called the Inland Boatmen,
upon the Associated Seamen's Association, herein called the Associated
Seamen, upon the Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders,
and Wipers Association, upon the Marine Cooks and Stewards Asso-
ciation of the Pacific Coast, and upon the American Radio Telegra-
phists' Association, labor organizations claiming to represent employees
directly affected or who might be directly affected by the investiga-
tion. A notice of postponement of hearing was issued by the Regional
Director on December 6, 1937, and duly served upon all of the above
parties. Pursuant to the latter notice, a hearing was held on Decem-
ber 9 and 10, 1937, at San Francisco, California, before Jesse E. Jacob-
son, the Trial Examiner duly designated by the Board. The Board,
'Tidewater Associated Oil Company , Union 011 Company of California , Hillcone Steam.
ship Company , Ltd., and Richfield Oil Corporation were erroneously called Associated
Oil Company, Union Oil Company, Hillcone Steamship Company, and Richfield Oil Co. of
California , respectively , in the Board ' s order directing an investigation and hearing.
DECISIONS AND ORDERS 895
each of the Companies , the S. U. P., the Oil Workers , the Inland
Boatmen, and the Associated Seamen were represented by, counsel or
by their officers and agents, and participated in the hearing. Full
opportunity to be heard , to examine and to cross-examine witnesses,
and to introduce evidence bearing on the issues was afforded all
parties. During the course of the hearing the Trial Examiner made
several rulings on motions and on objections to the admission of evi-
dence. The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner
and finds that no prejudicial errors were committed . The rulings
are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following :
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANIES
Stipulations were entered into by counsel for the Board and counsel
for each of the Companies , in which certain facts concerning the
nature and extent of the operations of the Companies were set forth.
The stipulations show that each one of the Companies is engaged in
the transportation of petroleum products by means of ocean-going
tankers and that all of them except Hillcone Steamship Company,
Ltd., also operate barges and self-propelled motor boats for the trans-
portation of such products within the several major ports of the
Pacific Coast . The four oil companies are also engaged in the pro-
duction and marketing of petroleum products and the transportation
operations of those concerns are incidental to such producing and
marketing.
With respect to the interstate and foreign commerce aspects of
the transportation activities of the Companies , the stipulations show
the following :
1. Tidewater Associated ' Oil Company. In excess of 50 per cent
of the products transported in tankers , barges, or self-propelled
motor boats operating out of or within Pacific Coast ports are
carried in interstate or foreign commerce.
2. Union Oil Company of California . Most of the products trans-
ported in tankers, barges , or self-propelled motor boats operating
out of or within Pacific Coast ports are carried in interstate or
foreign commerce.
3. General Petroleum Corporation of California. Most of the
products transported in tankers , barges, or self-propelled motor
boats operating out of or within Pacific Coast ports are carried in
interstate or foreign commerce.
4. Hillcone Steamship Company, Ltd. Slightly less than one-
half of the products transported in tankers operating out of Pacific
Coast ports are carried in interstate commerce.
896 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
5. Richfield Oil Corporation. More than one-third of the prod-
ucts transported in tankers, barges, or self-propelled motor boats
operating out of or within Pacific Coast ports are carried in interstate
commerce.
H. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Sailors Union of the Pacific is a labor organization unaffiliated
with any national or international body, admitting to its member-
ship all unlicensed deck personnel on tankers, barges, and self-pro-
pelled motor boats operated by the Companies on the Pacific Coast.
Oil Workers International Union, Local No. 128, is a labor organi-
zation affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization. It
admits to its membership all unlicensed personnel on barges and self-
propelled motor boats operated by the Companies within the several
Pacific Coast ports.
Inland Boatmen's Union of the Pacific is a labor organization
affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization. It admits
to its membership all unlicensed personnel on barges and self-pro-
pelled motor boats operated by the Companies within the several
Pacific Coast ports.
Associated Seamen's Association is an independent and unaffiliated
labor organization. It admits to its membership all unlicensed per-
sonnel on tankers, barges, and self-propelled motor boats operated
by the Associated Division of the Tidewater Associated Oil Company
on the Pacific Coast.
III. THE QUESTIONS CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
After the Pacific Coast maritime strike of 1934, the National Long-
shoremen's Board, appointed by the President of the United States,
conducted an election and certified the International Seamen's Union
as bargaining representative for the unlicensed maritime personnel on
the Pacific Coast. At that time the S. U. P. was affiliated with the
International Seamen's Union and was the branch of the latter organ-
ization directly concerned with unlicensed deck personnel as distin-
guished from other unlicensed personnel. The S. U. P. was repre-
sented at the bargaining conferences which followed the certification
of the International Seamen's Union and participated actively as the
direct representative of the unlicensed deck personnel. Those con-
ferences, in so far as they related to the Companies here involved, ter-
minated with the calling of a strike in the spring of 1935 and have
never been resumed.
In the fall of 1937, representatives of the S. U. P. called upon the
Union Oil Company of California and the Tidewater Associated Oil
Company to grant it recognition as exclusive collective bargaining
agent. In both instances the request was denied for the reason, as
DECISIONS AND ORDERS 897
understood by the representatives of the S. U. P., that exclusive recog-
nition would not be granted until the procedure provided by the Act
had been followed and certifications had been issued by the Board.
The S. U. P. never approached the other three concerns here involved,
believing that their position would be the same as that taken by the
Union Oil Company of California and the Tidewater Associated Oil
Company. It appears from the record that the other 'three concerns
do, in fact, take similar positions.
We find that questions have arisen concerning representation of
employees of the Companies and that such questions tend to lead to
labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow
of commerce.
IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNITS
The S. U. P. claimed that the appropriate units for purposes of
collective bargaining should, consist of all unlicensed deck personnel
employed by each of the Companies on tankers and barges operated on
the Pacific Coast. (It was stipulated by all parties that the word
barges should be deemed to mean both tow barges and self-propelled
motor boats.) The Inland Boatmen and the Oil Workers intervened
only as to the barge employees, claiming that such employees should
not be included in a single unit together with the employees on tankers.
Neither of the latter two organizations claimed jurisdiction over the
tankers, membership among such employees, or any interest in the
question concerning their representation. The Associated Seamen,
interested only in the representation of the employees of the Tide-
water Associated Oil Company, claimed members on tankers and
barges alike. This organization expressed no preference with regard
to combining barge and tanker employees in one unit or creating two
separate units and offered no evidence on the question. None of the
three intervening organizations requested, as a part of their petitions
of intervention, that elections be held. They only asked to be placed
on the ballots in the event that the Board ordered elections on the
basis of the petitions of the S. U. P. According to their respective
positions in this proceeding, none of them desire the holding of elec-
tions at the present time.
Many divergent factors appear in the record relative to the issue
thus developed between the S. U. P. on the one hand and the Inland
Boatmen and the Oil Workers on the other. Much was said by both
sides concerning jurisdiction over barge employees. While the S. U. P.
maintained that its jurisdiction over bargemen dates from its organi-
zation in 1885, no showing of any exercise of such jurisdiction was
made. The Inland Boatman claimed jurisdiction identical with that
exercised by their predecessor, the Ferryboatmen's Union, and intro-
duced testimony to the effect that the latter organization had members
among the bargemen as early as 1932. At that time, and until 1936,
898 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
both the Ferryboatmen's Union and the S. U. P. were affiliated with
the International Seamen's Union, with apparent agreement as to
their respective spheres of jurisdiction. There is- no evidence that
either the S. U. P. or the Inland Boatmen have ever bargained for the
barge employees of the Companies here involved. There is uncon-
troverted evidence to the effect that, when the S. U. P. participated in
negotiations for unlicensed personnel in 1935 following the certifica-
tion of the International Seamen's Union, the bargemen were not in-
cluded. The Oil Workers has represented and has bargained for cer-
tain barge employees of General Petroleum Corporation of California
since 1933.
It appears that the S. U. P. keeps no record of the employment of
its members; either by company or by ship, and it was unable at the
hearing to claim membership among bargemen separately from mem-
bership among employees on tankers. Although this organization
laid claim to substantial membership among the unlicensed deck per-
sonnel on both tankers and barges operated by the Companies, it did
not show that any of the employees so claimed were actually serving
as bargemen. The Inland Boatmen and Oil Workers claimed that
substantial majorities of the bargemen employed by the Companies
were members of one or the other of their organizations and main-
tained that they knew of no bargemen belonging to the S. U. P. or
having expressed a desire that it represent them.
There appear to be very few fundamental distinctions between the
duties of unlicensed deck personnel on tankers and barges. Men
trained on tankers, and who have obtained able-bodied seamen's cer-
tificates for such work, could transfer to barges and do similar work
there. It was claimed, however, that barge operators prefer men
trained on barges and that, while some bargemen had transferred to
such work from the tankers, most of them were trained on barges.
Certain distinctions do arise because barge operations are confined
within individual ports while the tankers are engaged in coastwise
and ocean travel. For example, bargemen in one port have little or
no contact with bargemen in another port and may be subject to
widely different working conditions even though employed by the
same company, but neither the contacts nor the problems of men
working on tankers are comparably localized. Such differences have
manifested themselves in wage differentials among bargemen from
port to port and localized unionization and bargaining as contrasted
with the coast-wide organization of tanker employees.
An additional factor is that the Inland Boatmen and the Oil
Workers admit to membership all unlicensed personnel on barges
whether working on deck or in the engine room or stewards' depart-
ment. Should they compete with the S. U. P. in an election involving
only deck personnel they would be abandoning the unit for bargemen
DECISIONS AND ORDERS 899,
traditionally claimed by them. On the other hand, the S. U. P. has
never admitted engine room or steward's department personnel to
membership and is, by tradition and also by reason of its present
position, opposed to the larger unit classification of barge employees.
Because of the complicating factors with respect to the question of
representation of barge employees which are apparent from the
record, because the S. U. P. has failed to show that it represents such
employees or has in the past bargained or attempted to bargain for
them, and because the record does not show that the barge employees
desire at this time to have a determination of representatives, we feel
that the unlicensed deck personnel on barges should not participate
in an election, either separately or jointly with the unlicensed per-
sonnel on tankers. In so holding, we are not required to decide the
question of whether or not under different circumstances barge and
tanker employees should be placed in one unit or separate units, and
we do not intend to preclude the possibility of a subsequent test of the
desires of the barge employees by any of the parties to the present
proceeding.
We find that the unlicensed deck personnel on the tankers operated
by each of the several Companies out of Pacific Coast ports constitute
units appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining and that
said units will insure to employees of the Companies the full benefit
of their right to self-organization and to collective bargaining and
otherwise effectuate the policies of the Act.2
V. TILE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
The S. U. P. claimed that its membership included approximately
70 per cent of the unlicensed deck personnel on tankers and barges
operated by the Tidewater Associated Oil Company, 80 per cent of
such employees of the Union Oil Company of California, 80 per cent
of such employees of the General Petroleum Corporation of Cali-
fornia, 90 per cent of such employees of the Richfield Oil Corporation,
and 100 per cent of the unlicensed deck personnel on tankers of the
Hillcone Steamship Company, Ltd. Since the S. U. P. failed to make
separate claims of representation for barge and tanker employees,
there is no way to apply the above claims to the unit hereinabove
found to be appropriate. But, while the representation claims of the
S. U. P. were challenged by the Inland Boatmen and the Oil Workers
to the extent that they were intended to cover barge employees, no
party to the proceeding seriously disputed the applicability of such
claims to tanker employees. Furthermore, the record indicates that
the tanker employees involved in this proceeding outnumber the barge
2 see Matter of Wilmington Transportation Company and Inland Boatmen's Union of
the Pacific, San Ped,o Division, Case No" R-339,-decided December 31, 1937, 4 N. L_
R B. 750
900 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
employees to a considerable degree and that the controlling factor
in the representation claims of the S. U. P. was, therefore, that of
the tanker employees.
The several Companies took the position that they were not ready
to accept the membership claims of the S. U. P. and that in any
event they were not certain that a majority of their employees de-
sired to be represented by it. In the case of the Tidewater Asso-
ciated Oil Company, the Associated Seamen claimed a membership
among unlicensed deck personnel on tankers paralleling and in many
instances overlapping that claimed by the S. U. P. We find that the
questions which have arisen concerning the representation of em-
ployees can best be resolved by the holding of elections by secret
ballot. We will direct that these elections be held as soon as pos-
sible under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director
for the Twentieth Region, who shall determine in her discretion
the exact time and place and procedure for posting notices of elec-
tion and for balloting on each tanker, provided, however, that each
tanker be posted with a notice of election, a sample ballot, a list
of employees eligible to vote, and a notice of the time and place
where balloting will be conducted, at some port of call on the Pacific
Coast prior to the port where balloting is to be conducted, or, in
the event that a tanker is to be posted and voted in the same port
without an intervening trip, at least 48 hours before balloting is
conducted.
Those eligible to vote will be the members of the unlicensed deck
personnel who are employed on a tanker operated by one of the
Companies out of Pacific Coast ports when it is posted and who are
still employed as unlicensed deck personnel at the time balloting takes
place, provided, however, that if any person so employed be trans-
ferred from one tanker to another tanker of the same company dur-
ing the time the election among the employees-of that company is
being held, he shall be entitled to vote but once.
Upon the basis of the above findings of fact and upon the entire
record in the case, the Board makes the following :
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Questions affecting commerce have arisen concerning the repre-
sentation of employees of Tidewater Associated Oil Company, Union
Oil Company of California, General Petroleum, Corporation of Cali-
fornia, Hillcone Steamship Company, Ltd., and Richfield Oil Cor-
poration, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6)
and (7) of the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The unlicensed deck personnel on tankers operated by each of
the several Companies out of Pacific Coast ports constitute units
0
DECISIONS AND ORDERS 901
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining, within the
meaning of Section 9 (b) of the National Labor Relations Act.
DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National
Labor Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Re-
lations Act, 49 Stat. 449, and pursuant to Article III, Section 8,
of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations-Series
1, as amended, it is hereby
Dzxrcn that, as part of the investigation authorized by the
Board to ascertain representatives for collective bargaining with
Tidewater Associated Oil Company, Union Oil Company of Cali-
fornia, General Petroleum Corporation of California, Hillcone
Steamship Company, Ltd., and Richfield Oil Corporation, elections
by secret ballot shall be conducted as soon as convenient, and be-
ginning as promptly as practicable after the date of this Direction,
in conformity with the rules set forth hereinabove for the conduct
of elections, under the direction and supervision of the Regional
Director for the Twentieth Region, acting in this matter as agent
for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Article III,
Section 9, of said Rules and Regulations, among the unlicensed deck
personnel on tankers operated out of Pacific Coast ports by Union
Oil Company of California, General Petroleum Corporation of Cali-
fornia, Hillcone Steamship, Company, Ltd., and Richfield Oil Cor-
poration, respectively, to determine whether or not they desire to
be represented by the Sailors Union of the Pacific for the purposes
of collective bargaining, and among the unlicensed deck personnel
on tankers operated out of Pacific Coast ports by Tidewater Asso-
ciated Oil Company, to determine whether they desire to be repre-
sented by the Sailors Union of the Pacific or by the Associated Sea-
men's Association for the purposes of collective bargaining, or by
neither.