Colorado Interstate Gas Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 3, 1973

202 N.L.R.B. 847 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

COLORADO INTERSTATE GAS CO 847
Colorado Interstate Gas Company and International
Union of Operating Engineers, Local 340,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Cases 16-RC-5908 and
17-RC-6813
April 3, 1973
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
On April 18, 1972, the Regional Director for
Region 16 issued a Decision and Direction of
Election in Case 16-RC-5908, in which he found
appropriate a unit of operating and maintenance
employees in District 1 of the Employer's natural gas
pipeline operations, rejecting its contention that the
smallest appropriate unit must be systemwide in
scope.'
Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer
filed a timely request for review of the Regional
Director's decision, on the grounds, inter aka, that in
reaching his unit determination he departed from
officially reported precedent. The Natural Gas
Pipeline Company of America was permitted to file
an amicus curiae statement of position in support of
the Employer's request for review.
The National Labor Relations Board by telegraph-
ic order dated July 31, 1972, granted the request for
review of the Regional Director's Decision in Case
16-RC-5908 and stayed the election pending deci-
sion on review. Thereafter, the Regional Director for
Region 17 issued a notice of hearing in Case
17-RC-6813. Pursuant thereto a hearing was held
before Hearing Officer Gerald A. Wacknov. Follow-
ing the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the
Board's Rules and Regulations, and by direction of
the Regional Director for Region 17, this matter was
transferred to the Board for consolidation with Case
16-RC-5908 for purposes of decision. Thereafter, the
Employer filed a brief in Case 17-RC-6813 and a
brief on review in Case 16-RC-5908.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing in Case 17-RC-6813 and
finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They
are hereby affirmed. The two cases are hereby
consolidated for purposes of decision. The Board has
considered the entire records in both cases,2 includ-
i On February 28, 1972, shortly after filing its petition for a unit of
employees in District 1, the Petitioner filed a petition in Case 17-RC-6813
for a unit of similar employees in District 4 of the Employer's pipeline
operations The Regional Director for Region 17 held the petition in
abeyance pending disposition of Case 16-RC-5908
2 The parties stipulated that because of the similarity of the issues in the
two cases the complete record and exhibits in Case 16-RC-5908 be included
and made a part of the record in Case 17-RC-6813
3 District boundaries have been adjusted from time to time to achieve
ing the briefs of the Employer and the amicus curiae,
and makes the following findings:
The Employer contends that there are no compel-
ling circumstances present in the instant cases to
warrant a fragmentation of its systemwide pipeline
operations along district lines for collective-bargain-
ing purposes. We find merit in this contention.
The Employer, which has its headquarters in
Colorado Springs, Colorado, operates a pipeline
system for the purchase and production, transmis-
sion, and sale of natural gas in the States of
Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Sales are primarily to public utilities, city utility
departments, and natural gas transmission compa-
nies. Other customers are large industrial users.
The Employer produces and processes gas gathered
from its own sources in the Texas Panhandle, and it
purchases gas from others at gathering fields in many
other locations throughout its system. After being
gathered from the gas wells the natural gas is
transported by pipeline to central areas where the
Employer treats it by either dehydration, desulfuriza-
tion, or removal of liquid hydrocarbons. The gas is
then compressed and transmitted through larger
pipelines to the Employer's customers. Compressor
stations located along the pipeline regulate the flow
of the gas.
Operation and maintenance of the pipeline system
is the responsibility of the Operations Department
headed by a general superintendent. Separate depart-
ments are set up to handle corrosion and communi-
cations. The Operations Department is subdivided
into nine districts,3 each headed by a superintendent.
Districts 1-4 are grouped together as the Southern
Division, and Districts 5-9, as the Northern Division.
The general superintendent and superintendents for
the two divisions have their offices at the Colorado
Springs headquarters.4 District superintendents have
offices within their geographic districts. Reporting to
the district superintendents are various lower level
area superintendents, chief operators, and foremen.
Control of day-to-day operations of the pipeline
system is administered from headquarters. There,
pressure and flow within the entire pipeline system
are monitored on a 24-hour basis. Decisions with
respect to adjustments and daily operations and
maintenance are made by central controls and
transmitted to personnel in the districts through the
greater administrative efficiency and to reflect changes which have taken
place in the system with regard to points of sale and sources of gas supply
4 There was testimony that the two divisions were established in order to
divide the overall supervisory load
5 Central control contacts customers daily to determine their exact needs
and advises each district of the volumes and BTU control required,
schedules the wells to be turned on or off to accommodate daily needs,
schedules the daily activities of the district, and determines which facilities
may be scheduled for repair
202 NLRB No. 122
848 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Employer's communications system, complete with
telephone lines, microwave equipment, two-way
radios, and telemetering devices. Communications
repairmen work in separate administrative subdivi-
sions whose geographic boundaries do not coincide
with the operations districts. The same is true with
respect to the separate administrative subdivisions
set up to control corrosion in the pipelines.
The Employer employs approximately 917 employ-
ees, 417 of whom work at headquarters. Of the
remaining 500 field personnel, approximately 95 are
supervisory, technical,6 or clerical employees, and
405 are operating and maintenance employees. Most
of the latter are rate class 5 employees, comprised of
classifications7 subject to systemwide bidding when
vacancies exist. There are about 150 operating and
maintenance employees in District 1 and about 66 in
District 4.
The operations of each district are the same. Job
classifications, job duties, wages, and benefits are
uniform systemwide. As indicated, rate class 5 job
vacancies are posted and bid upon throughout the
system and systemwide seniority is applied to bids.
As a result, most of the higher paying jobs in rate
class 5 are filled by bidding.8 As to temporary
interchange of employees between operating dis-
tricts, the Employer's records indicate that in the last
2 1/2 years District 4 rate class 5 personnels worked
approximately 9,600 hours in other districts (3.7
percent of their total working time), and that during
the first half of 1972 they worked outside their
district approximately 3,900 hours (or 6 percent of
the total hours they worked during that period).
Although no statistical evidence was presented in the
record relating to the requested District 1 unit, there
was testimony that it occurred, and that it was not
necessarily limited to emergency or unusual situa-
tions but was incident to "normal construction and
maintenance jobs."
In view of the posting procedures for openings in
higher paying jobs, virtually all hiring of new
employees occurs at the entry level of laborer
classifications. Such hiring is closely coordinated
with headquarters personnel. Requests for permis-
sion to fill vacancies are submitted to headquarters
6 The Employer views as technical rate class 4 employees in the
classifications of senior communications repairman , corrosion repairmen,
senior electricians, senior plant repairmen, and field dispatchers The
Regional Director for Region 16 found it unnecessary to resolve their status
as technical employees under the Board's definition, excluding the
communications repairmen and corrosion repairmen on the basis that they
have a separate community of interest, and including the others on the basis
that they shared a community of interest with operating and maintenance
employees
7 Including, inter alws, machinist helpers , welder helpers , meter inspec-
tors , machinists, auto mechanics, auto mechanic helpers , meter tenders,
oilers, heavy equipment operators, plant operators, senior plant operators,
plant repairmen, station tenders, truck drivers, utility men, senior welders,
well tenders, laborers, temporary laborers, roustabouts, welders, and
for approval. If approved, district supervisors will
screen applicants, the district superintendents will
recommend the better ones to headquarters manage-
ment personnel, and the latter will evaluate them and
select one for hire. Similarly, the district superintend-
ent, before taking disciplinary actions, including
discharge, will discuss the situation with headquar-
ters management personnel. Wages are set by central
management. Rate class 5 employees do not receive
merit increases but are given general wage increases
determined periodically by the board of directors of
the Employer. District superintendents cannot rec-
ommend pay increases for individual employees but
may recommend that a job classification be given a
higher wage rate. Hours are uniform, and overtime,
except in emergencies, must be centrally approved
and be equalized pursuant to policy. Systemwide
policy governs vacations and benefit programs.
Grievances may be taken to headquarters for final
determination.
None of the Employer's employees are currently
represented. The only collective-bargaining history
involved employees engaged in certain operations
acquired by the Employer in 1952 and made part of
what is now District 1. The Petitioner represented
these employees prior to the acquisition, and the
Employer continued to bargain with the Petitioner as
to them until 1957 when it was decertified. After an
earlier petition filed by the Petitioner in November
1956 for a systemwide unit, a stipulation for
certification upon consent election was entered into,
and the Petitioner lost the election held pursuant
thereto.
Because of the essential services rendered to their
customers and the integrated and interdependent
nature of their operations, the Board has considered
the systemwide unit to be optimal for collective
bargaining in public utilities industries.10 It has also
been the Board's policy to permit the establishment
of a unit less than systemwide in scope, where the
employees requested have no history of bargaining
on a broader basis, they work either in an adminis-
trative subdivision or a district geographic service
area of the utility, and they enjoy a substantial
painters
8 A systemwide survey indicated that during the years 1967 through
1971, 557 job openings were posted, and out of 491 filled by bidding, 121
required a transfer to another district During this period 38 of such moves
involved the transfer of an employee in or out of District 1, and 37 in or out
of District 4 Although higher paying rate class 4 positions , such as
dispatcher and field clerks , are not subject to the bidding procedure, notices
of vacancies are customarily posted throughout the system
9 Of the 66 employees in the requested District 4 unit, 59 are rate class 5
employees
is Pioneer Natural Gas Company, IIl NLRB 502, Montana-Dakota
Utilities Co, 115 NLRB 1396, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, 108
NLRB 1106
COLORADO INTERSTATE GAS CO. 849
community of interest sufficient to make separate
bargaining for them a feasible undertaking.ii Yet,
the Board has indicated that in establishing units for
natural gas pipeline systems like the Employer' s, it is
reluctant to fragmentize them, absent compelling
circumstances. 12 In the instant case, we find the
requested districtwide units to be too narrow in scope
to be appropriate. The Employer's districts, we are
persuaded, are not major administrative subdivisions
of the type which would justify fragmentation of the
Employer's pipeline system. On the record facts
herein, we find that the employees in District 1 or
District 4 do not share a sufficient community of
interest apart from other employees in the system to
warrant their establishment as appropriate units for
purposes of collective bargaining.13 In reaching this
conclusion, we rely especially on the high degree of
control exercised by the Employer's headquarters
management over the operational districts, the
evidence as to substantial temporary interchange of
employees between Districts 1 and 4 and other
districts, the systemwide procedures applied in
posting and bidding for openings in higher paying
positions, the lack of substantial autonomy in the
district superintendents with respect to day-to-day
personnel matters, and the uniformity of wages,
hours, and conditions of employment throughout the
Employer's system.
Accordingly, as we have found the requested units
to be inappropriate and the Petitioner has made no
alternative request for a broader unit, we find that no
questions affecting commerce exist concerning the
representation of certain employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section
2(6) and (7) of the Act, and we shall dismiss the
petitions herein.14
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petitions filed in Cases
16-RC-5908 and 17-RC-6813 be, and they hereby
are, dismissed.
MEMBERS FANNING AND PENELLO, dissenting:
We would have denied the Employer's request for
review of the Regional Director's Decision and
Direction of Election in Case 16-RC-5908 and, upon
review, affirmed his unit determination. In the
consolidated proceeding, therefore, we would find
that the two districtwide units requested by the
II See United Gas, Inc, 194 NLRB No 19, Idaho Power Company, 179
NLRB 22, Arkansas-Missouri Power Company, 152 NLRB 1600, Western
Light & Telephone Company, Inc, 129 NLRB 719, Michigan Wisconsin Pipe
Line Company, 164 NLRB 359
12 Michigan Wisconsin Pipe Line Company, 194 NLRB No 76 (the earlier
discussion, supra, was distinguished because of changes in the facts and
circumstances), Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, 96 NLRB 1385
13 Michigan Wisconsin Pipe Line Company, 194 NLRB No 76
14 In the circumstances, we find it unnecessary, on this record, to pass on
Petitioner constitute separate identifiable administra-
tive subdivisions within the Employer's systemwide
pipeline operation and that such subdivisions, in the
circumstances here, have traditionally been found
appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining
in the public utilities industry. i5
As stated by the majority, the record shows that the
operation and maintenance of the Employer's multi-
state pipeline system is the responsibility of the
Operations Department. That department is headed
by a general superintendent who is directly responsi-
ble to the vice president in charge of transmission
and engineering. The Operations Department is
divided into nine geographic districts, each headed
by a superintendent. Districts 1-4 are grouped
together as the Southern Division, and Districts 5-9
as the Northern Division. The general superintend-
ent of operations and the two division superintend-
ents have their offices at the Employer's Colorado
Springs headquarters. 16 District superintendents, on
the other hand, have their offices within their
respective geographic districts. The offices of District
I and District 4 are located in Amarillo, Texas, and
Lakin, Kansas, respectively.
The Employer's vice president for transmission and
engineering, R. Frank Williams, testified that the
district superintendents are responsible for the day-
to-day supervision of the various operations and
maintenance functions in their districts. District 1 is
subdivided for administrative purposes into three
geographic areas-the Bivins area, with the Bivins
gasoline plant, the Bivins Compressor station, the
Alibates gathering field, the Alibates sweetening
plant, and the Alibates field compressor; the Fritch
area, with the Sanford sweetening plant, the Sanford
Compressor station, the Panhandle gathering field,
and the Panhandle field compressor; and, the
Fourway area, with the Fourway gasoline plant and
the Fourway compressor station. Each area also
includes related pipelines. Each area is supervised by
an area superintendent who reports directly to the
district superintendent. Supervision below the district
level is thus carried out by the area superintendents,
station superintendents, chief operators of the vari-
ous facilities in each area, and foremen of various
work gangs.
The actual operations within each district are
basically similar. The Employer produces and
the Employer's contention that the only appropriate unit for the employees
involved is systemwide in scope
15 Western Light & Telephone Company, Inc, 129 NLRB 719, 721, and
cases cited therein, Michigan Bell Telephone Company, 192 NLRB No 178,
Monogahela Power Company, 176 NLRB 915, 917, see also Pacific Northwest
Bell Telephone Company, 173 NLRB 1441, 1442, and cases cited therein
16 The Employer denies that the divisions are "administrative subdivi-
sions" of its interstate system, asserting that the only reason for creating the
two divisions was to divide the supervisory load
850 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
processes gas gathered from its own sources and it
purchases gas from others at gathering fields in many
locations throughout its system. The gas is transport-
ed from the wells by pipeline to central areas where it
is treated either by dehydration, desulfurization, or
removal of liquid hydrocarbons. The gas is then
compressed and transmitted through larger pipelines
to the Employer's customers. Compressor stations,
located along the pipeline, regulate the flow of the
gas. Pressure and flow within the entire system are
monitored on a 24-hour basis at the Employer's
headquarters in Colorado Springs. Loss of pressure
or flow in one area may be compensated for by
increasing the flow from other areas in order to meet
the customers' demands throughout the system.
In finding that the districtwide units here are too
narrow in scope to constitute "major administrative
subdivisions of the type which would justify frag-
mentation of the Employer's pipeline system," 17 the
majority especially relies upon the (1) interdepend-
ence and high degree of centralized control exer-
cised by the Employer over its operating districts; (2)
evidence of substantial temporary interchange of
employees between districts; (3) systemwide proce-
dures applied in posting and bidding for higher
paying jobs; (4) lack of substantial autonomy in
district superintendents with respect to day-to-day
personnel matters; and (5) uniformity of hours,
wages, and conditions of employment throughout the
Employer's system.
Conceding that the Employer operations are, like
all public utilities, highly intergrated and interdepend-
ent, and that the above factors could, in part,
suggest that a systemwide unit can also be appropri-
ate here, the Board has long recognized that the
optimum unit is not at all times and in all
circumstances the only appropriate unit in a public
utility.18 Thus, the factors relied on by the majority
have been held inadequate grounds for denying
public utility employees their paramount rights under
the Act to organize for collective-bargaining pur-
poses in smaller than systemwide units.19 This is
particularly so where, as here, there is no bargaining
history and no labor organization seeks to represent
the employees in a broader unit; the smaller than
systemwide units sought constitute geographically
17 By failing to define what would constitute a "mayor" administrative
subdivision here, the majority appears to find that only a systemwide unit is
appropriate notwithstanding its purported disclaimer in this regard at fn 11,
supra There is nothing here to indicate that a Northern Division unit or a
Southern Division unit would be any more appropriate than a district unit
This leaves only a systemwide unit
11 See cases cited at fn 15, supra
19 Monongahela Power Company, 176 NLRB 915, 917, and cases cited
therein
20 Michigan Wisconsin Pipe Line Company, 194 NLRB No 76, on which
distinct and identifiable administrative subdivisions,
and the Employer's operations are not so functional-
ly intergrated that a cessation of work in one district
would cause a systemwide shutdown of operations.
In fact, no compelling reason for the systemwide unit
is urged.
The record, in our opinion, amply demonstrates
that the geographic districts here involved have the
characteristics of separate administrative units. Each
district is headed by a superintendent who is
responsible for the day-to-day operation and mainte-
nance of the multiple facilities within its geographic
boundaries. The district superintendent has two
levels of supervision below him in the administrative
hierarchy of the district. Although all final decisions
regarding hiring and firing are subject to approval by
headquarters, the district superintendent retains
substantial control over these matters. Thus, he
interviews and screens all applicants for employment
in his district and makes his recommendations to
headquarters. The fact that hiring is closely coordi-
nated with headquarters, as the majority finds is not
inconsistent with effective recommendation by dis-
trict superintendents. Vice President Williams testi-
fied that he could not recall any instance in which
the district superintendent's recommendations were
not followed. And, while there is some temporary
interchange of employees between districts, we are
not persuaded that it is "substantial," as the majority
finds, or that such interchange has eroded the district
lines of authority. Thus, it appears that when
employees of one district are temporarily assigned to
perform work in another district, they work under
the general supervision and control of the district to
which they are assigned.
In view of the foregoing, and upon the entire
record in this proceeding, we perceive no basis for
the majority's conclusion that the Employer's admin-
istrative districts, with their resident superintendents,
are too narrow in scope to be appropriate for
collective-bargaining purposes. To the contrary, the
evidence as a whole persuades us that these districts
are the Employer's major, if, indeed, they are not its
only, administrative subdivisions through which its
multistate pipeline system functions.20
the majority relies , is, in our opinion , clearly distinguishable There, the
employer's pipeline system was operated through six major subdivisions,
called "Areas" Each of these "areas" were further subdivided into
"Districts " The Board found a single district was not a sufficiently major
subdivision to constitute an appropriate bargaining unit Here , on the other
hand, the Employer' s major administrative subdivisions are the districts,
each of which is composed of several areas Here nomenclature is reversed
The Petitioner here seeks to represent the employees of two of these
districts, not its constituent areas