John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 29, 1945

64 N.L.R.B. 541 (N.L.R.B. 1945)

In the Matter Of JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY
and INDUSTRIAL & ORDINARY INSURANCE AGENTS COUNCIL, AFL
In the Matter of JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY
and INDUSTRIAL & ORDINARY INSURANCE AGENTS COUNCIL, AFL
Cases Nos . 4-R-1647 and 4-R-1794, respectively.-Decided
October 09, 1945
Messrs. Samuel A. Fitch and Malcolm C. Young, both of Boston,
Mass, for the Company.
Mr. George L. Russ, of Washington, D. C., for the AFL.
Boudin, Cohn & Glick stein, by Mr. Leonard B. Boudin, of New York
City, and Mr. Nicholas Chase, of Philadelphia, Pa., for the CIO.
Mr. Glenn L. Moller, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon petitions duly filed by Industrial, & Ordinary Insurance
Agents Council, AFL, herein called the AFL, alleging that questions
affecting commerce had arisen concerning the representation of em-
ployees of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, Boston,
Massachusetts, herein called the Company, the National Labor Rela-
tions Board consolidated the cases and provided for an appropriate,
hearing upon due notice before Herman Lazarus, Trial Examiner.
The hearing was held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 6, 1945.
The Company, the AFL, and United Office & Professional Workers
of America, CIO, herein called the CIO, appeared and participated.
All parties were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine
and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evidence bearing on the
issues. The Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. All parties were
afforded an opportunity to file briefs with the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following:
64 N L. R. B., No. 92.
541
542 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, a Massachusetts
corporation with its principal or home office located in Boston, Mas-
sachusetts, is engaged in insuring the lives of its policy holders on
the mutual insurance plan and in investing its funds.
On December 31, 1944, the Company was, in terms of amount of
insurance in force, the sixth largest, and in terms of assets, the sev-
enth largest life insurance company in the United States. On the
same date, the Company had more than 8,000,000 policies in force with
a total face amount of more than $4,000,000,000, and its policy holders,
who resided in all the States of the United States and in many foreign
countries, numbered approximately 5,600,000.
The Company's business is managed and directed by directors and
officers located at its home office in Boston . Terms and conditions
of the various policies of insurance offered by the Company are deter-
mined and all investments of the Company's funds are made by its
home office officials. All applications for insurance and claims, appli-
cations for loans , and other matters pertaining to insurance in force
are noted upon at the home office , and all policies of insurance and
checks covering disbursements by the Company are prepared at the
home office. The Company does business in 38 States , the District of
Columbia, and the Territory of Hawaii . It sells insurance and to
a considerable extent deals with its policy holders through the medium
of general agents and district offices. As of December 31, 1944, the
Company had 51 general agents located in 31 States and the Territory
of Hawaii , and 369 district offices in 34 States , the District of Columbia,
and the Territory of Hawaii.
On December 31, 1944, the Company's assets, consisting in part of
cash , bonds of the United States Government and its political sub-
divisions , railroad equipment bonds, public utility bonds , industrial
bonds, stocks , notes secured by mortgages on real estate , real estate,
and premium notes and loans,to policy holders, amounted to more
than $920,000 ,000 in value . During 1944 , the Company had available
funds amounting to more than $161,500,000 in value, and it invested
daily an average of approximately $466,000.
The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
H. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Industrial & Ordinary Insurance Agents Council, affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor, is a labor organization admitting
to membership employees of the Company.
JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 543
United Office & Professional Workers of America, affiliated with
the Congress of Industrial Organizations, is a labor organization
admitting to membership employees of the Company.
III. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION; THE ALLEGED
APPROPRIATE UNITS
The AFL contends that the Board should find appropriate two
State-wide units covering the agents attached to the Company's
district offices in the States of Delaware and Maryland. The Com-
pany and the CIO contend that the proposed units are inappropriate
on the ground that they are part of an already.established multi-State
bargaining unit., For the reasons hereinafter stated, we agree with
the contention of the Company and the CIO.
Self-organization among the Company's agents began approxi-
mately 6 years ago. In August 1939 a member local of the AFL filed
a petition for an election among the agents attached to the Company's
district office in East St. Louis, Illinois, and during the same month
a local of the CIO -petitioned for an election confined to the agents
of the Company's district office, in Hoboken, New Jersey. In August
1940, the Board found both units appropriate and directed elections,2
in which the petitioning unions were successful. The Company has
ever since recognized the respective unions as exclusive representa-
tives of the agents in those units. Since that time, the CIO, the AFL,
and unaffiliated unions have been actively seeking to organize the
Company's agents throughout the United States. Thus the CIO won
consent elections in single district units in Elizabeth, Fenton, Pali-
sades, and other upper New Jersey offices and when a contract was
negotiated, it was drawn to cover all district offices in which the CIO
had been or might be certified during the life of the contract. Re-
newal contracts contained the same provisions. In 1944, the Board
dismissed a CIO petition seeking to carve out a single district unit
from a State-wide unit in Massachusetts,3 which had previously been
found appropriate in a State Board proceeding.4
Meanwhile, the AFL continued its activities in Illinois and won
consent elections in a unit covering the Company's district offices in
Chicago and in another unit limited to the district office at Gary,
Indiana. In 1943, the AFL lost a consent election in Maryland.
Early in 1945, the AFL filed a petition for a State-wide unit in
'The parties agree that the bargaining unit should include all district agents of the
Company, excluding clerical employees, managers , assistant managers , and all other super-
visory employees , differing only with respect to the geographic scope of the unit
26 N L. R. B. 1024.
8 57 N. L R B 700
4 Although the CIO had filed the petition before the State Board , an unaffiliated union
intervened and won the election.
544 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Massachusetts . The CIO intervened and won the subsequent0consent
election.
The Company's contract with the CIO which preceded their cur-
rent agreement expired in September 1944. At the bargaining con-
ferences with the Company in December 1944, the CIO demanded
recognition on a Nation-wide basis. As a result of this demand, an
agreement was reached whereby the American Arbitration Associa-
tion was to conduct a mail ballot election among the agents of the
Company in all district offices not covered by union contracts. This
election was conducted and the results certified to the parties on Jan-
uary 19, 1945, the ballots being tallied separately for each State in-
volved. The agreement provided that recognition was not to be
granted in those States in which a majority did not choose the CIO.
The results showed that a majority of agents in each of 19 States
of the 22 States polled voted for the CIO, including those in Delaware
and Maryland. The CIO was rejected in Iowa, Nebraska, and Illi-
nois.5 On February 21, 1945, the Company and the CIO executed
a contract covering the agents in all district offices in which the Com-
pany had recognized the CIO, the contract again providing for in-
corporation under its provisions of any additional offices in which
the CIO might subsequently obtain majority representation. The
contract also provided that if any portion of the unit were later found
by a Government agency to be an appropriate unit and another union
certified therefor. the contract was to be inapplicable to such unit.6
Meanwhile, on January 23, 1945, after the mail ballot election, but
before the execution of the CIO contract, the AFL wrote to the Com-
pany claiming majority representation in 10 of the States in which
the January election had been held. Thereafter, the AFL filed peti-
tions seeking single State units in several of the States which it had
claimed in its letter, including Delaware and Maryland, but soon with-
drew all of these petitions except the one covering Massachusetts and
the two petitions upon which the instant proceeding is based. As
indicated above, the CIO intervened in the Massachusetts proceeding
and won the resulting consent election. Immediately following the
mail ballot election, the CIO filed a petition seeking to establish a
State-wide unit in Illinois and shortly thereafter an unaffiliated union
petitioned for an election in a unit limited to the Company's district
office in Rockford, Illinois. The AFL intervened in these proceed-
ings, consolidated by the Board for purposes of hearing and disposi-
The Chicago and East St . Louis agents were excluded from the group polled in Illinois
because of the AFL contracts covering those offices
6 Since the contract was executed after the AFL claim and after the filing of its petitions.
the contract itself is not a bar to the proceeding Our disposition of this case rests solely
upon conclusions with respect to the appropriate bargaining unit.
JOHN HANCOCK MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY 545
tion. On June 9, 1945, the Board found appropriate the State-wide
unit and directed an election therein.' The AFL won, the resulting
election and was duly certified. In sum, at the time of the hearing in
the instant proceeding, of the Company's 189 district offices, the CIO
was the bargaining agent for 166, the AFL for 15,$ and an independent
for 2,° only the Company *s 6 offices in Iowa and Nebraska, being
unrepresented.
Although we have frequently found appropriate in the insurance
business, district or State-wide bargaining units, in all those cases,
our decisions have rested upon the limited extent of self-organization
among the companies' employees and our belief that dismissal of the
petitions would unduly delay collective bargaining.10 Thus we have
found inappropriate units less than State-wide in scope', and even
State-wide in scope 12 where it has been shown that there is a labor
organization in a position to represent the employees on a broader
basis. The multi-State unit pzesently represented by the CIO, al-
though not nation-wide, nevertheless does approximate such a unit,
and has been established with the consent of a majority of the agents
in each of the States included therein. Wherever the issue has arisen
in insurance cases before the Board, the companies and the labor
organizations involved, including the petitioner in the instant pro-
ceeding, have agreed that the ultimately appropriate unit in the insur-
ance business should be company-wide in scope, and we have accepted
this conclusion.13 To grant elections on a State-wide basis as the
AFL requests in the present cases would impede the formation of the
very type of bargaining unit which, we have consistently affirmed,
is the most appropriate for insurance agents. Nor will dismissal of
the present petitions operate to withhold the benefits of collective
bargaining from the Company's agents in Delaware and Maryland.
We find, therefore, that the proposed units are inappropriate and
we shall dismiss the petitions.
7 62 N L R. B 240.
14 in Illinois and 1 in Gary , Indiana
° Both in Wisconsin , the only offices in that State.
10 Matter- of The Prudential Insurance Company of America, 46 N L R B 430, 47 N L.
R B 1103, 49 N. L. R. B . 450, 50 N L . R B. 689 , and cases cited therein.
11 Matter of Prudential Insurance Company of America, 49 N. L. R B . 450, 61 N L R B
1289; Matter of Metropolitan Insurance Company, 56 N L . It. B 1635, 56 N L It. B. 1642,
Matter of John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company , 62 N. L. R B 240
12 Matter of Prudential Insurance Company of America , 61 N L R B 1289, see also
Matter of Pennsylvania Electric Company . 56 N. L It. B . 625 (unit confined to one division
of electric utility inappropriate when a union was in a position to represent employees on a
system -wide basis).
13 Sod Prudential cases cited , supra . The high degree of integration of the operations
of the industrial insurance business and the centralization of supervision and control, de-
veloped in the records in pievious cases and in the instant case as well support the
conclusion.
670417-46-vol 64 36
546 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ORDER
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire
record in the consolidated proceeding, the National Labor Relations
Board hereby orders that the petitions for investigation and certifica-
tion of representatives of employees of John Hancock Mutual Life
Insurance Company, Boston, Massachusetts, filed by Industrial &
Ordinary Insurance Agents Council, AFL, be, and they hereby are
dismissed.
MR. GERARD D. RE ILLY took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Order.