Indiana Bell Telephone Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 21, 1977

229 N.L.R.B. 187 (N.L.R.B. 1977)

INDIANA BELL TELEPHONE CO., INC.
Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated and
Telephone Commercial Employees' Union, Peti-
tioner and Local 336, International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner
Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated,
Employer-Petitioner and Communications Work-
ers of America, AFL-CIO. Cases 13-RC-14035,
13-RC-14037, and 13-UC-89
April 21, 1977
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
CLARIFYING UNIT
BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS
PENELLO AND MURPHY
Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Joseph
Quirk of the National Labor Relations Board. On
August 3, 1976, the Regional Director for Region 13
issued a Decision, Order, and Direction of Election,
and on September 3, 1976, a clarification of that
decision in which he found that certain employees of
the Employer recently acquired, together with
facilities and operations, from Illinois Bell Telephone
Company' could constitute separate appropriate
units.
Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and
Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer and
Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO
(herein called CWA), filed requests for review of the
Regional Director's decisions. Both took the position
that, contrary to the Regional Director's conclusions,
the acquired employees do not possess separate
communities of interest or separate administrative or
functional identities to warrant the finding that they
may constitute appropriate units separate from the
single systemwide unit of the Employer's employees
represented by the CWA,2 to which, they claim, the
acquired employees should be added.
By telegraphic order dated September 22, 1976, the
Board granted the requests for review and postpone-
ment of the elections pending review. Thereafter, the
Employer and CWA filed briefs on review. Tele-
phone Commercial Employees' Union (herein
TCEU), and Local 336, International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO (herein Local 336),
filed briefs in support of the Regional Director's
decisions.
I Illinois Bell was originally named as a party employer by the
petitioning Unions. The Regional Director, properly we find, excluded
Illinois Bell as a party on the ground that as of July 1, 1976, it no longer was
the employer of any employees involved in this proceeding.
2 There are over 7,000 employees in the systemwide unit.
229 NLRB No. 34
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority 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,
including the briefs on review, and makes the
following findings:
The issue in this case is, as indicated above,
whether certain plant and commercial and marketing
employees working in two Indiana counties who
were acquired by the Employer from Illinois Bell on
July 1, 1976, can constitute separate appropriate
units for purposes of collective bargaining as con-
tended by Local 336 and by TCEU, or whether those
employees lack those identifying characteristics
warranting separate representation and must, there-
fore, be added by way of accretion to the established
systemwide unit of the Employer's nonmanagement
employees as the Employer and CWA contend. The
Regional Director found that the requested separate
units are appropriate. We disagree.
Prior to July 1, 1976, Illinois Bell's operations were
located not only in the State of Illinois but also in
Lake and Porter Counties in Indiana. It employed
there some 900 nonmanagement employees. Of these,
approximately 530 were plant employees, about 110
were commercial and marketing department employ-
ees, and the remaining involved classifications not
involved herein. The 530 plant employees came
within but were only a part of the territorial
jurisdiction of Local 336 and were part of an Illinois
Bell nearly companywide unit of plant employees
represented jointly by several IBEW locals, including
Local 336. The 530 plant employees in the Indiana
counties had never, insofar as the record shows,
comprised a separate administrative or functional
subdivision of Illinois Bell's operations and had
never been represented as a separate unit. It is these
employees which Local 336 now seeks to represent as
a separate unit. The situation is substantially the
same with respect to the 110 commercial and
marketing employees. They have been represented
by the TCEU as part of its Illinois Bell nearly
companywide unit.3 They have never comprised a
separate administrative or functional division of
Illinois Bell's operations and have never been
separately represented. Nevertheless, the TCEU now
seeks to represent these commercial and marketing
employees as a separate unit.
3 The units represented by Local 336 and the TCEU did not include
certain employees acquired by Illinois Bell from Southwestern Bell
Telephone Company on January 1, 1975. See Illinois Bell Telephone
Company, 222 NLRB 485 (1976).
187
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
On July 1, 1976, Illinois Bell's Lake and Porter
County operations--the personnel, equipment, and
facilities-were transferred to the Employer and
became a part of its operations. There was no
change, with perhaps inconsequential exceptions, in
the services provided by the transferred operations or
in the work performed by the transferred employees.
As noted above, the Lake and Porter County
operations had not been a separate administrative or
functional division of Illinois Bell and they were not
reorganized after the transfer to comprise any such
separate divisions of the Employer. Rather, the
acquired employees and facilities were incorporated
into the Employer's structure and operations in a
manner reflecting and continuing its organization
existing before the acquisition. As a consequence,
neither the acquired plant nor commercial and
marketing employees constitute either separate orga-
nizational or functional units of the Employer's
operations.
Thus, for example, employees whom Local 336
seeks are found in both the Employer's general
engineering and plant departments, both of which
are companywide in scope and include far more
"existing" 4 than acquired employees. With respect to
the engineering department, the requested employees
are found in three separate divisions, each containing
existing employees and each reporting separately to
the chief engineer. As for the plant department which
contains most of the employees Local 336 seeks, it is
headed by the general plant manager who has under
his supervision seven division managers. The ac-
quired employees are under either the division
manager, northwest, or division manager, staff, both
of whom have a substantial number of existing
employees in their divisions. Finally, the acquired
employees in the northwest division are organized in
three separate districts each with its own separate
line of supervision under the division manager and
one of which contains a substantial number of
existing employees.5 Thus, it is apparent that the
acquired employees Local 336 would represent
conform, as concluded above, to no administrative,
departmental, or other subdivision of the Employer's
operations, but on the contrary cut across two
4 The term "existing employees" is used to refer to employees other than
those acquired from Illinois Bell on July 1, 1976.
, The northwest division manager also has under him a fourth district
which is composed wholly of existing employees and a district staff made up
of such employees.
a See The Houston Corporation, 124 NLRB 810, 812 (1959).
7 See Sec. 9(c)(5) of the Act and National Telephone Company, Inc., 215
NLRB 176, 178(1974).
8 In view of our conclusions here we find no merit in Local 336's
contention that under the Supreme Court's decision in N.LR.B. v. Burns
International Security Services, Inc., 406 U.S. 272 (1972), the Employer is a
successor to Illinois Bell and obligated to recognize Local 336 as the
representative of the employees in its requested unit.
9 Cf. Illinois Bell Telephone Company, supra, where, unlike here, "the
departments, five divisions, and a number of dis-
tricts, all having separate lines of supervision
culminating in high administrative officers having
responsibility for companywide operations.
The situation is essentially the same for those
employees whom the TCEU seeks to represent. They
are divided between the commercial department,
which contains a large number of existing employees
and which is under the overall supervision of the
general commercial manager, and the marketing
department, which also includes existing employees
and which is under the general marketing manager.
Thus, again we are faced with a number of the
acquired employees having no common supervision
apart from that of existing employees or other
separate organizational or functional identity.
It is thus apparent from the above that the
employees whom the petitioning Unions seek to
represent do not constitute separate appropriate
units. There is no history of bargaining for them as
separate units, but only a history of their being part
of much larger bargaining units. 6 Also they do not
now comprise, as we have said, separate organiza-
tional or functional divisions of the Employer's
operations or possess any other relevant separate
identity distinguishing them from the Employer's
other employees in similar categories and classifica-
tions. At best it can be said that they are distin-
guished by having been represented by-and perhaps
by being members of-the petitioning Unions and by
their location in Lake and Porter Counties. However,
the former consideration essentially reflects those
Unions' extent of organization among the Employ-
er's employees, and neither consideration affords a
proper basis, absent other supportive factors, for
finding the requested units to be appropriate.7
Consequently, we find, in view of all the foregoing,
that these proposed separate units are not appropri-
ate.8 Rather, it is clear that the acquired employees
have been incorporated into the Employer's opera-
tions and are thus, in the circumstances here, an
accretion to the existing systemwide unit represented
by the CWA.9
In view of all the foregoing, we shall dismiss the
petitions filed in Cases 13-RC-14035 and 13-RC-
consolidation and subsequent administrative and operational reorganization
had not materially affected the newly acquired operation" which apparently
at the time of the Board's decision was "a complete and separate entity."
The Employer and CWA contend that Illinois Bell is also distinguishable
from this case on the grounds that the Illinois Bell system was fragmentized
into several units, and supervision concerning matters of hire, transfer,
promotion, training, collective-bargaining grievances, arbitration, discipline,
and other personnel actions are centrally controlled at Indiana Bell. We find
it unnecessary to pass on these arguments in view of our finding that the
proposed groupings of employees are inherently inappropriate as bargaining
units in that they neither constitute separate functional or organizational
subdivisions of the Employer's operations nor possess other characteristics
that would warrant their separate representation.
188
INDIANA BELL TELEPHONE CO., INC.
14037, but shall grant the Employer-Petitioner's
request, supported by the CWA, and by way of
clarification shall include the newly acquired em-
ployees in the systemwide unit represented by the
CWA.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petitions filed in Cases
13-RC-14035 and 13-RC-14037 be, and they hereby
are, dismissed.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the collective-bargain-
ing unit of all nonmanagement employees of Indiana
Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated, represented
by Communications Workers of America, AFL-
CIO, be, and it hereby is, clarified by including in
that unit all plant department employees and all
commercial and marketing department employees
located in Lake and Porter Counties, Indiana, at, or
working out of, facilities formerly owned by Illinois
Bell Telephone Company and acquired by Indiana
Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated, on July 1,
1976.
189