Carolina Power and Light Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 12, 1957

119 N.L.R.B. 742 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

742 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
1272, 'the Board stated that "it will not permit the reproduction of
any document purporting to be a copy of the Board's official ballot,
other than one completely unaltered in form and content and clearly
marked sample on its face, and upon objection validly filed, will set
aside the results of any election in which the successful party has
violated the rule." In circumstances similar to the instant case, where
the altered ballot was clearly surrounded by propaganda, the Board
has applied the Allied Electric Products, Inc., rule and set elections
aside.4 Accordingly, we agree with the Regional Director that sur-
rounding of the facsimile ballot with propaganda does not excuse
the alteration thereof by the Intervenor. Accordingly, we find no
merit in this contention.
Finally, we find no merit in Intervenor's arguments (3) and (4) as
neither would affect our determination herein. Thus, the Board will
not attempt to assess the effect of the improper practices upon the
voters' choice, nor would the failure to object at the preelection con-
ference the afternoon before the election have erased the damage
already done by the distribution of the handbill to the employees on
the morning shift.
Accordingly, we shall accept the Regional Director's recommenda-
tion that the election herein be set aside and shall direct a new election.
[The Board set aside the election.]
[Text of Direction of Second Election omitted from publication.]
4 See cases cited in footnote 3; Bachanann Un0ridge Worsted Corporation, 110 NLRB
1195.
Carolina Power and Light Company and Utility Workers Union
of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 11-RC-980. De-
ccmber 12,1957
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before John M. Dyer, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, the Board has delegated its powers in con-
nection with this case to a three-member panel [Members Rodgers,
Bean, and Jenkins].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
119 NLRB No. 106.
CAROLINA POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY 743
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9
(c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the follow-
ing reasons :
The Petitioner seeks a unit limited to the regular full-time em-
ployees in the Employer's "northern division," excluding part-time
regular and limited-term employees, local representatives, dispatchers,
clerical, executive, administrative, professional and confidential em-
ployees, subforeman, and all other supervisors, as well as employees
in the Employer's Central Service Area and Western, Eastern, and
Southern Divisions, and all generating plants except the Goldsboro
steam plant. In the alternative, the Petitioner seeks to represent any
unit which the Board finds appropriate. The Employer agrees as to
the unit composition, but disagrees as to its scope. It contends that it
has no such designation as "northern division" coextensive with all its
operations, and that the only appropriate unit for bargaining would
include the classifications of employees named in the petition who
work in its entire Central Service Area.
The Employer is engaged in the operation, transmission, distribu-
tion and sale of electric power and energy in the States of North Caro-
lina and South Carolina. The Employer subdivides this territory into
three distinct areas. One, which is known as its Western Division, is
located in the western part of North Carolina. This area is separated
from the balance of the system by a large section of the State which
is served by another power company. The second area, which is
known as its Eastern Division, is in the coastal plains section of North
Carolina. The third area, the largest of the three, and the only one
involved herein, is referred to as the Central Service Area, and extends
from the Virginia State line through the central part of North Caro-
lina to about the center of the State of South Carolina.
Currently, there are three separate collective-bargaining units cover-
ing the Employer's employees. One unit comprises all the operating
employees in the Western Division; a second comprises all the op-
erating employees in the Employer's Eastern Division.' It thus ap-
pears that the area of each of these bargaining units conforms to a
distinct geographic and administrative area of the Employer's opera-
tions. The third bargaining unit is limited to all the regular full-time
manual employees who are employed at the Employer's Cape Fear,
North Carolina, steam electric generating plant, including the opera-
' Each of these units is bargained for by a different local of the International Brother-
hood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO. The composition of these units appears to be the
same as the unit composition agreed upon by the parties in the instant proceeding.
744 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tors at two nearby semiautomatic hydro plants 2 These plants are
within the Central Service Area. However, apart from the manual
workers in such unit, the remainder of the operating and manual em-
ployees in the Central Service Area are unrepresented.
In 1947, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the
Employer entered into a consent-election agreement (Case No.
5W-R-19, not reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and
Orders) under which an election was held in a unit of all unrepresented
employees in the entire Central Service Area. (The union therein
failed to receive a majority of votes cast in the election.) It is this
latter unit that the Employer now urges as the only appropriate unit
for collective bargaining among its Central Service Area employees.
The Employer has divided its operations into departments, some of
which in turn are divided into districts or sections. All of the em-
ployees herein sought are assigned to either the district operations
department or to 1 of 5 sections of the operating and engineering de-
partment. It appears that the district operations department and
each of the five sections of the operating and engineering department,
with which we are herein concerned, for convenience and economy
of operations, divide the Central Service Area into varying geographic
and administrative areas. Thus the district operations department,
to which customer servicemen and meter readers herein sought are
assigned, cuts the Central Service Area into 12 districts. On the
other hand, each of the 5 sections of the operating and engineering de-
partment organize their operations in the Central Service Area in a
different fashion : The meter section, to which various meter repair-
men and testers herein sought are assigned, organize its operations in
the Central Service Area into 2 divisions, namely, a northern and a
southern division. The production and system operations section, to
which substation operators, communications men, and others herein
sought are assigned, also organizes the Central Service Area into a
northern and southern division, but on a different geographic basis
than the meter section. The substation construction and maintenance
section, to which substation construction and repair crews, trans-
former repairmen, machine shop men, electrical repairmen, painters,
and other employees sought herein are assigned, organizes its main-
tenance responsibilities in the Central Service Area into six districts;
however, for the remainder of its work this section has no further
geographic breakdown, but operates the whole Central Service Area
as one administrative and geographic unit. The purchasing section,
to which various warehousemen and truckdrivers herein sought are
2 These employees are represented by Local Union 261, International Union of Operating
Engineers , as the result of a consent election conducted in 1944 ( Case No . 5-R-1737, not
reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders). At the time of the election
the Cape Fear plant was the only steam plant in the Central Service Area and generated
electricity for the Employer 's entire system.
CAROLINA POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY 745
assigned, has not organized its operations into districts or divisions,
but operates only one major warehouse in the Central Service Area.
Only the line operations section, to which linemen, groundmen, auto-
motive mechanics, and others herein sought have been assigned, or-
ganizes its operations in the Central Service Area into three divisions,
namely, northern, central, and southern. But even here, the auto-
motive maintenance and service branch of this section has not fol-
lowed the administrative and geographic pattern of the remainder of
the section; instead this branch has organized the Central Service
Area into two parts, and has assigned its traveling mechanics to
geographic territories differing from those of the remainder of the line
operations section.
The record shows that job classifications, job content, and minimum
and maximum rate ranges for each job classification are uniform for
the employees in the Central Service Area. All of the unrepresented
employees in the Central Service Area have the same holidays, vaca-
tions, sick benefits, and general working conditions. Moreover, the
Employer's group life insurance , medical care insurance plan, and
pension plan applies uniformly to these employees. Wage payments
and other employment benefits all are administered through central-
ized controls in the Employer's office in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Board has frequently considered requests for units in the pub-
lic utility field and has generally considered the optimum unit to be
systemwide. In certain circumstances , the Board has found smaller
units corresponding to administrative divisions or departments to
be appropriate. In the instant case, however, in the circumstances de-
scribed above, it is clear that the Employer has no such designation as
the "northern division" which is common to all the operating depart-
ments to which employees herein sought are assigned.3 We therefore
find that the primary unit sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate,
8 The Petitioner introduced certain publications to show that the Employer is attempting
"to create one division or area , under the umbrella title of `central service area ,' out of
what is in reality , three separate and distinct divisions . . . to defeat the self organiza-
tion efforts of their Northern Division employees ." In reviewing these publications, we
note that some of the publications were prepared by the Employer 's personnel department.
It appears that the personnel department ( no employees herein sought are assigned to this
department ) has divided the Central Service Area , for its own administrative purposes,
into a northern , central , and southern division , in the same manner as the line operations
section of the operating and engineering department referred to above. Thus , all of its
publications , including various injury reports referred to by the Petitioner , are based on
its own administrative division and without regard to the administrative and geographic
divisions of other departments of the Employer 's operations. As to copies of the employee
newspaper submitted by the Petitioner, there is nothing contained therein to show that all
of the Employer 's departments in the Central Service Area have been divided administra-
tively and geographically into only three distinct divisions as contended by the Petitioner.
Moreover , we note that employee Fish, who works in the Employer 's meter section of the
operating and engineering department , and who appeared as a witness for the Petitioner,
testified that the meter section had four charge numbers corresponding to each of its di-
visions, namely, eastern , western, southern and northern . This testimony corroborates
the Employer 's evidence that the meter section divided the Central Service Area in a dif-
ferent administrative and geographic manner from that urged by the Petitioner.
746 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and that the appropriate unit would be one which includes all of the
above-described employees in the Central Service Area.' Although
it appears that the Petitioner, in the alternative, would represent any
unit which the Board finds to be appropriate, its showing of interest
is not sufficient to warrant holding an election among the employees
in the Central Service Area. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the
petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
4 See Montana-Dakota Utilities Co., 115 NLRB 1396; The Ohio Fuel Gas Company, 115
NLRB 1132; Pioneer Natural Gas Company, 111 NLRB 502.
Traders Oil Company of Houston and Local 4-227, Oil , Chemical
and Atomic Ỳorkers International Union , AFL-CIO and Em-
ployee Committee , Party to the Contract . Case No. 39-CA-564.
December 13, 1957
DECISION AND ORDER
On November 15, 1956, Trial Examiner Arthur E. Reyman issued
his Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that
the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair
labor practices in violation of Section 8 (a) (1) and 8 (a) (5) of the
Act, and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom and take
certain affirmative action as set forth in the copy of the Intermediate
Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Respondent and the General
Counsel filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and supporting
briefs.
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed.
The rulings of the Trial Examiner are hereby affirmed. The Board
has considered the Intermediate Report, the exceptions and support-
ing briefs, and the entire record in this case, and adopts the findings,
conclusions, and recommendations of the Trial Examiner with the
following modifications, additions, and exceptions.
As set forth in the Intermediate Report, about the middle of March
1956, an employee of the Respondent approached L. Tom Fox, secre-
tary and treasurer of the Charging Union, concerning union mem-
bership and the negotiation of a contract. Thereafter, at the union
meeting of April 6, 13 out of 16 employees in the production and
maintenance unit claimed by the Union signed cards and authorized
Fox to bargain with the Respondent.'
1 Another card, signed April 10, gave the Union a majority of 14 out of 16 employees
in the unit.
119 NLRB No. 109.