222 N.L.R.B. 485 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

Illinois Bell Telephone Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsJan 20, 1976

222 N.L.R.B. 485 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

ILLINOIS BELL TELEPHONE CO. Illinois Bell Telephone Company and Telephone Com- mercial Employers Union and Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO and Local Unions 134, 165, 315, 336 and 399 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO Illinois Bell Telephone Company I and Communica- tions Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner? Cases 14-UC-49, 14-UC-50, 14-UC-51, and 14- RC-7811 January 20, 1976 DECISION ON REVIEW, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING AND PENELLO On February 4, 1975, the Regional Director for Region 14 issued a Decision and Clarification of Bar- gaining Units, and Order Dismissing Petition in the above-entitled proceedings, in which he granted the Employer's requests to clarify three existing depart- mental units of its traffic services, plant, and com- mercial employees, respectively, by adding to them employees engaged in similar duties employed in the area known as the Illinois District of the Southwest- ern Bell Telephone Company (herein called South- western Bell) and hired by the Employer in connec- tion with its acquisition of the facilities in that area on January 1, 1975. He accordingly dismissed CWA's petition for a separate unit of Illinois District employees. Thereafter, in accord with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions, Series 8, as amended, CWA filed a timely re- quest for review of the Regional Director's decision on the grounds, inter alia, that neither Board prece- dent nor the record evidence supports the above findings. The Employer filed opposition to the re- quest for review. i The ,Regional Director , in view of his dismissal of the petition in Case 14-RC-7811, found it unnecessary to rule on Southwestern Bell's motion to dismiss the petition in Case 14-RC-7811 on grounds that it is not a joint employer. In view of our ultimate findings herein, we shall pass on this motion. The record is devoid of any evidence which shows that, subsequent to January 1, 1975, Southwestern Bell retains control over any employees in the Illinois District involved herein or any other indicia on which to estab- lish a point employer relationship between Illinois Bell and Southwestern Bell. Therefore, we hereby grant the motion of Southwestern Bell to the extent that we delete its name from the caption in Case 14-RC-7811. We further find that the current contract between Southwestern Bell and the CWA does not constitute a contract bar as to the employees in the Illinois District even though Illinois Bell has agreed to continue implemen- tation of the terms of that contract pending decision herein . It is clear that Illinois Bell did not agree to be bound by those terms other than to apply them as continuing terms and conditions of employment for this period. 2 Referred to herein as CWA. 485 By telegraphic order dated June 6, 1975, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board granted the request for review. Thereafter, the Employer and Southwestern Bell filed separate briefs on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of -the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, includ- ing briefs on review, and makes the following find- ings: Prior to January 1, 1975, CWA represented the Il- linois District employees here involved as part of a systemwide unit of Southwestern Bell's employees. On January 1, 1975, the Employer acquired the Illi- nois District, which consisted of eight exchanges with approximately 660 nonmanagement and approxi- mately 70 management employees. At the time of the Employer's acquisition of South- western Bell's Illinois District, employees of the Em- ployer were represented in systemwide departmental units; state and suburban commercial department employees were represented by the Telephone Com- mercial Employees' Union (hereinafter referred to as TCEU); 3 companywide traffic services or operator services employees were represented by CWA Dis- trict 5; and companywide plant department employ- ees were represented by the International Brother- hood of Electrical Workers, Local Unions 134, 165, 315, 336, and 399 (hereinafter referred to as the IBEW). The CWA by its petition seeks to represent the employees of the Illinois District as a separate appropriate unit and contends that under no circum- stances should these employees be accreted to the existing Illinois Bell units without self-determination elections 4 Illinois Bell serves approximately 83 percent of the phones in the State of Illnois, as well as Lake and Porter Counties in the State of Indiana. It is divided geographically for administrative purposes into the Chicago, state, and suburban operations. The state operation is divided into upstate and downstate ar- eas. The Illinois District, involved herein, is in the downstate area. Each operation is headed by a vice president. Each area is headed by a general manager and is divided into divisions and then further divided ' TCEU represented the Chicago area commercial department employees in a separate unit. 4 TCEU maintains that self-determination elections in separate depart- mental units are appropriate The IBEW did not take a position because of the "no-raid" pact of AFL-CIO. CWA District 5, which currently repre- sents traffic services or operator services employees of Illinois Bell, did not intervene in this proceeding , on its own behalf, as its interests were repre- sented by the CWA International. Each Union, however, indicated that it is willing to represent any of the Illinois District employees that may be added to its respective units. 222 NLRB No. 68 486 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD into districts. Separate districts are designated for different departments. In the downstate area there are presently five plant districts, four commercial dis- tricts, two switching districts, and one building sup- plies and motor vehicle district, which is a depart- ment within the plant unit. Operator services are not within the district structure. As noted above, there are approximately 660 non- management employees in the Illinois District, with approximately 83 employees in the commercial de- partment, approximately 283 in operator services or the traffic department, and approximately 298 plant department employees. The transferral of the Illinois District will involve 3 commercial offices, 2 operator offices, and 10 central offices. There are five work centers or garages in the plant department, and eight telephone exchanges, of which three require no em- ployees. Illinois Bell will provide the same services to cus- tomers in the Illinois District which were previously provided by Southwestern Bell. The Illinois District employees will continue to perform the same func- tions, at the same locations, with basically the same supervision. The nature of the work previously per- formed by Illinois District employees will be substan- tially unchanged, as the practice guidelines which set forth the manner in which work is to be performed are established by American Telephone and Tele- graph, the parent corporation of the Bell System. In general the employees' job classifications will remain the same. It is also clear that certain services will continue to be performed by Southwestern Bell but only until such time as Illinois Bell can provide the services for itself .5 Benefits and working conditions for employees in the Illinois District will remain es- sentailly the same. Hospitalization and insurance plans of Illinois Bell and Southwestern Bell are al- most identical, as are the pension, disability, and death benefits. Both companies have similar tuition programs, service anniversary gifts, and telephone concession services. Both companies offer the same number of paid holidays. Comparison of the wage scales of the companies indicate that for some posi- tions Illinois Bell has a higher beginning salary and in others a lower ceiling than Southwestern Bell. It is apparent from the record that there are a number of factors, including the integrated nature of operations, central control of management and labor relations, and similarity of classifications and work- ing conditions throughout the Illinois Bell system which support a finding that systemwide departmen- tal units of Illinois Bell's operations, including those 5 Estimates for the transfer of these service functions to Illinois Bell range from 6 months to more than 2 years. recently acquired from Southwestern Bell, are appro- priate. The . Board has long believed that the optimum unit for collective bargaining for employees of public utilities is one which is systemwide in scope .6 Howev- er, the Board has also recognized that the optimum unit is not necessarily the only grouping of employ- ees which may be appropriate for bargaining purpos- es in order to "assure to employees the fullest free- dom in exercising the rights guaranteed by [the] Act." I The Board determines whether or not the facts support a finding that employees sought share a sufficiently distinct community of interest to warrant their establishment as a separate bargaining unit.8 Here the consolidation and subsequent adminis- trative and operational reorganization has not mate- rially affected the newly acquired operation. Al- though the Illinois District will eventually become an integral part of the Employer's system, at present it is a complete and separate entity. It operates in the same geographical area, with substantially the same supervisory and rank-and-file personnel performing the same duties that they performed before the ac- quisition by Illinois Bell, at the same locations, in the same job classifications, and at the same rates of pay. It is true that a finding that the Illinois District em- ployees may constitute an appropriate unit will result in some additional fragmentation of the Illinois Bell's operations should the Illinois District employees elect to be represented in the Illinois District unit. We note, however, that the Illinois Bell system is al- ready fragmentized into several units. Notwithstand- ing the fact that a unit of Illinois District employees would be somewhat smaller than the major Illinois Bell units 9 and organized on a districtwide basis rather than along function lines,10 we find that the Illinois District employees have a sufficiently distinct identity to warrant a finding that a unit of these 660 employees is acceptable as a historical unit even in a public utility. Accordingly, we find, contrary to the Regional Di- rector, that the Illinois District employees do not constitute an accretion to the Illinois Bell departmen- tal units, and that the mere transfer of employment to Illinois Bell does not deprive the Illinois District employees of their right freely to designate their own bargaining representative. I t 6 See Pacific Gas and Electric, 87 NLRB 257 at 263 (1949); New England Power Company (Western Division), 120 NLRB 666, 668 (1958). 7 Sec. 9(b). 8 Michigan Bell Telephone Company, 192 NLRB 1212 (1971). 9 We note that there are smaller units of comptrollers , elevator operators, and sanitary engineers 10 As noted above, the commercial employees are divided into two units, one for the Chicago area and another for the rest of the State. 11 We therefore find that current bargaining arguments, between Illinois Bell and the respective unions representing their employees, do not consti- ILLINOIS BELL TELEPHONE CO. In sum, we find that the employees in the Illinois District may constitute a separate appropriate unit if they so desire or they may be included in systemwide departmental units with other employes of Illinois Bell. In these circumstances, we will direct self-deter- mination elections among the employees in the Illi- nois District to determine whether they wish to con- stitute a separate appropriate unit represented by the CWA or whether they wish to become part of the Illinois Bell systemwide departmental units. Accordingly, we shall direct that elections be held in the following voting groups: A : All commercial department employees in the Illinois District, excluding managerial and professional employees, watchmen, guards, and supervisors within the meaning of the Act. B: All plant department employees in the Illi- nois District, excluding office clericals, mana- gerial, professional employees, watchmen, guards, and supervisors within the meaning of the Act. C: All traffic service or operator service em- ployees in the Illinois District, excluding of- fice clericals, managerial - and professional em- ployees, watchmen, guards, and supervisors within the meaning of the Act. If a majority of the employees in voting group A vote for the TCEU, they will have indicated their desire to become part of the Illinois Bell systemwide unit of commercial department employees and the Regional Director is instructed to issue a certification of repre- sentative to that effect. If a majority of the employees vote for the CWA, they will have indicated their de- sire to remain a separate appropriate unit repre- tute bars as to the Illinois District and that there is a question concerning the representation of these employees which can only be resolved by self- determination elections. 487 sented by that labor organization. If a majority of the employees in voting group B vote for the IBEW, they will have indicated their de- sire to become part of the Illinois Bell systemwide unit of plant department employees and the Regional Director is instructed to issue a certification of repre- sentative to that effect. If a majority of the employees vote for the CWA, they will have indicated their de- sire to remain a separate appropriate unit repre- sented by CWA. If a majority of the employees in voting group C vote for the CWA District 5, they will have indicated their desire to become part of the Illinois Bell system- wide unit of traffic or operator services department employees and the Regional Director is directed to issue a certification of representative to that effect. If a majority of the employees in voting group -C vote for the CWA, they will have indicated their desire to remain a separate appropriate unit represented by the CWA. Should, however, a majority of the employees in each of the above voting groups select the CWA In- ternational, as their bargaining representative, the Regional Director is instructed to issue a certification of representative for an overall unit of Illinois Dis- trict employees. - Finally, should a majority of the employees in any or all of the above voting groups -vote for neither of the bargaining representatives on their respective ballots, they will have indicated their desire not to be represented and the Regional Director is instructed to issue the appropriate certification(s) to that effect. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petitions filed in Cases 14-UC-49, 14-UC-50 ; and 14-UC-51, be and they hereby are, dismissed. [Direction of Elections and Excelsior , footnote om- itted from publication.]