Lone Star Producing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 6, 1949

85 N.L.R.B. 1137 (N.L.R.B. 1949)

J 11 the Matter of LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and ()ii
WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, CIO, PETITIONER
In the Matter of LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and
VERNON H. SMITH, AN INDIVIDUAL, PETITIONER
Cases Nos. 16-EC-134 and 16-RD-28, respectively.Decided
September 6, 1949
DECISION
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
AND
.ORDER
Upon petitions duly filed, these two cases were consolidated by
order of the Board on January 17, 1949. A joint hearing was held
before Joseph A. Jenkins, hearing officer of the National Labor Rela-
tions Board. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organization named below claims to represent employ-
ees of the Employer.
3. Since 1943, the Employer and the Oil Workers International
Union, CIO, hereafter called the Oil Workers, have made collective
bargaining contracts covering various groups of the Employer's em-
ployees. At present, they are bound under a contract which was made
and became effective May 26, 1944, and which was renewable from
year to year unless notice of termination was given 30 days before
May 26 of any year. No such notice has ever been given, and the Oil
Workers admits that the contract is presently in effect. The Em-
ployer maintains that this contract is a bar to the representation peti-
tion herein.
The Oil Workers' petition was filed on April 15, 1948, before the
contract's automatic renewal,' and the question of representation in
I The petition was dismissed by the Regional Director but, on appeal , was reinstated
by the Board on November 30, 1948.
85 N. L. R. B., No. 192.
1137
1138 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
0
this case arises from a dispute as to the proper scope of the contract
unit. The Employer argues, nevertheless, that the Petitioner was
bound to terminate the contract in order to maintain its petition.
We disagree. It would be repugnant to the policy of the Act to re-
quire that there be a vacuum in contractual labor relations during the
pendency of proceedings under Section 9 (c) of the Act, whenever the
party instituting those proceedings happens to be one of the parties to
the contract. Accordingly, we.find that a question concerning repre-
sentation within the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and
(7) of the Act exists among the employees in the unit sought by the
Oil Workers in Case No. 16-RC-134.2
The petition in Case No. 16-RD-28 was filed by Vernon H. Smith,
an individual, herein called Decertification Petitioner. For the rea-
sons stated below, we find that no question exists concerning repre-
sentation in the unit sought by the Decertification Petitioner, within
the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit:
The unit sought by the Oil Workers would embrace all the em-
ployees of the Employer, exclusive of office workers and statutorily
excluded workers. It would contain about 360 employees. About
80 percent of these, employed at one of the Employer's oil fields and
at several gasoline plants, are presently covered by the existing con-
tract. The other 20 percent, about 74 employees, are divided into 3
groups : the employees at a gas and oil field, those at a gasoline plant,
and a group called "miscellaneous employees." The gas and oil field
and the gasoline plant are the most recent additions to the Employer's
operations. These miscellaneous employees, consisting of truck
drivers and meter inspectors, though apparently in existence from the
a beginning of the Employer's operations, were never included in the
previously certified units or in the contracts based on these certifica-
tions. No explanation of this exclusion is contained in the record.
The unit sought by the Decertification Petitioner is limited to the
employees at the Employer's -gas and oil field which is covered by the
Oil Workers' contract. The Oil Workers was certified as the bar-.
gaining agent of this group in 1943. There are about 30 employees
in this proposed unit.
3 The Employer also contends that the petition should be dismissed because the Peti-
tioner did not give notice of proposed termination or modification , 60 days prior to the
expiration of the contract , as required by Section 8 (d) (1) of the Act, nor did it file its
- petition before that time . We have frequently held, and we repeat here, that Section 8 (d)
(1) is merely definitive of part of the duty to bargain collectively and does not have the
effect of, changing the automatic renewal date of the contract . Matter of Magnolia
Petroleum Comipany , 79 N. L. it. B. 1027; Matter of Crowley 's Milk Company, Inc., 79
N. L. R. B. 602.
LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY 1139
Employer's operations
The Employer is a Texas corporation doing business in that State.
It produces, gathers, and processes gas and oil. Its gross sales amount
to about $15,000,000 annually. It operates in an area extending east
and west from Dallas, Texas, where its main office is located. Its two
most widely separated operating units are about 270 miles apart.
The Employer divides its operations into two main departments.
The production department finds the oil and natural gas and moves it
to where it can be processed. The gasoline department does the proc-
essing. The gas and oil fields are called "production areas" or "de-
partments." The Employer has two of these, the West Central Texas
Department and the East Texas Department. It is the West Central
Texas field that is now covered by the Oil Workers' contract. There
are employee interchanges within the production and gasoline de-
partments, respectively, but only one recorded instance of a transfer
between the departments. The work is of a different nature in each
department, though there are some common categories, and, where
there are, the men receive the same pay. The gasoline department is
dependent on the production department for its raw materials. The
employees' working conditions are uniform throughout the Company,
that is, as to vacations, insurance, and other employee benefits. Each
of the two departments has a superintendent and there is a general
superintendent over all the Employer's operations.
Each plant is separately supervised and is a complete processing
unit in itself. Each of the Employer's two oil fields is an independent
producing area. The West Central Texas Department supplies the
plant in its area and the East Texas Department serves those in its
region.
History of bargaining
The history of bargaining between the Employer and the Oil
Workers leaves little doubt as to the appropriate unit. This history
began on December 8, 1942, with the filing by the Oil Workers of a
petition covering certain employees of the Employer. A consent
election was agreed upon, covering separate elections in these two
units : Unit 1: Willow Springs Plant, Opelika Plant, and Grapeland
Plant. Unit 2: Ranger Plant 101, Ranger Plant 108, Ranger Plant
108-2, Brooks Plant, and miscellaneous Ranger personnel. (The Wil-
low Springs Plant later ceased operations and is not concerned in this
proceeding.) After the election, the Oil Workers was certified in
each of these units and on March 12, 1943, the Employer and the Oil
Workers entered into a contract covering all of the plants involved
in both elections.
857823-50-vol. 85-73
1140 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
On May 31, 1943, after another consent election, the Oil Workers
was certified as representative for all the employees in the West Cen-
tral Texas area .3 Shortly afterward, a supplemental agreement was
made, bringing this field under the terms of the agreement of March 12,
1943. This is the unit in which the Decertification Petitioner seeks an
election.
On May 26, 1944, a new agreement was made by the Employer and
the Oil Workers covering the units involved in all three of the previous
elections. It was to continue from year to year with a 30-day auto-
matic renewal clause. This agreement has been renewed each year and
is still in effect.
On December 8, 1947, again after a consent election, the Oil Workers
was certified to represent all the employees in the Employer's Carth-
age gasoline plant. Eleven days later, another supplemental agree-
ment was entered into, extending the terms of the May 26, 1944, con-
tract to cover this plant.
It will be noted that the extent of Oil Workers' bargaining agency
has followed closely the expansion of the operations of the Employer.
As the Employer started new plants or gas and oil fields, elections
were held and the new units were included in the coverage of the con-
tract. Since the last consent election and supplemental agreement, the
Employer has expanded its operations further so that two new groups
of employees have resulted. One is the group at the Employer's
Chapel Hill Plant, the other, in the East Texas Production Depart-
ment. It is these accretions to the Employer's working force, together
with the miscellaneous employees described above, which the Oil
Workers seeks to include now in order to restore the Employer-wide
scope of the bargaining unit.
The Employer contends that this history demonstrates that only
the single gas and oil fields and single or related plants involved in
the four separate consent elections are appropriate units. It asserts
that the contract retains the identity of the units as they were certified
and that they should be kept separate. The Decertification Petitioner
takes the same position. We are constrained to reject this conclusion.
There is more to the Employer's and Oil Workers' history of labor
relations than the mere sequence of consent elections and contracts.
The actual conduct of the labor relations is significant. Bargaining
has been conducted for all the Employer's employees at one time. Ne-
gotiations are held at Dallas, Texas, the Employer's headquarters.
The general superintendent of the Employer represents the Employer
at the negotiations. The results of the bargaining have been applied
8 This field is sometimes referred to in the record as the Eastland District.
LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY 1141
to all the employees of the Employer, even including the unrepresented
groups. For instance, a wage increase negotiated by the Oil Workers
went into effect January 1, 1949. It was granted to all the Employer's
employees. - There is no indication in the record that bargaining has
ever been conducted for one of the plants or groups of plants separately.
All of the units are pooled within the coverage of the one contract.
The recognition clause of the contract lists all the components of the,
Employer's operations without any breakdown by groups correspond-
ing to the units as they were organized. The substantive terms of the.
contract are applied uniformly to all employees. All of the employees
of the Employer, wherever stationed, are within the jurisdiction of
one local of the Oil Workers, Local 478, and the contract provides that
a "workmen's committee" of that local shall handle all the grievances
of those employees. Only for seniority purposes is there any classifi-
cation of employees under the contract, and that is along departmental
lines rather than along lines corresponding to the units in which the
Oil Workers achieved recognition. The contract is not, as is some-
times the case, a skeleton contract to be particularized by negotiations
at the individual plants. Rather, it is a complete agreement covering
seniority, grievance procedure, hours of work and overtime, holiday
pay, vacations, bulletin boards, job posting, and many other details.
In no respect, other than the seniority aspect mentioned above, is there
any classification or distinction made among the employees according
to where they work.
Conclusions
Considering all these factors-the system-wide integration of the
Employer's operations, which are confined to a single and relatively
small geographical area; the interchangeability of employees between
different establishments within each of the two departments; and the
successful course of collective bargaining, which has served to unify
the interests of all the Employer's employees in both departments and
at all the separate locations-we are of the opinion that the original
piecemeal units of this Employer's employees have been effectively
merged into a single group having a strong community of interest in
the subject matter of collective bargaining.4 We find accordingly,
that the company-wide unit proposed by the Oil Workers is appropri-
ate within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act; and that the ulit
limited to a single producing field, proposed for severance by the
* Matter of Kansas -Nebraska Natural Gas Co., Inc., 80 N . L. R. B. 1061 ; Matter of
Pappas Co ., Inc., 80 N. L. R. B. 1272; Matter of Brown Express , et at., 80 N. L. R. B. 753;
Matter of Acme Fast Freight, Inc ., 80 N. L. R . B. 979 ; Matter of American Viscose Corp.,
79 N. L. R. B. 958 ; Matter of Shell Chemical Corp ., 79 N. L. R. B. 697.
1142 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Decertification Petitioner, is inappropriate. We shall, therefore, dis-
miss the petition in Case No. 16-RD-28.5
The Employer contends that even if the company-wide unit is found
to be appropriate, the three groups of employees not now formally
covered by the Oil Workers' contract should be given an opportunity
to vote separately as to whether or not they desire the Oil Workers as
their bargaining agent. We reject this contention, for virtually the
same reasons that led us to find the company-wide unit appropriate.
The three groups of employees in question constitute only inseparable
parts of the Employer's total working force, not distinct fringe
groups.' They are stationed in the same area with the other employees
in the bargaining unit; and their skills, functions, and other work
interests are the same. Only historical accident, and no real difference
in function or status, has caused these employees to be omitted from
the coverage of the Oil Workers' contracts in the past.' Clearly, in
view of the provisions of Section 9 (c) (5) of the Act,' we could not
properly find today that any one of these three groups, or all of them
together, comprise a separate appropriate bargaining units We are
of the opinion that they constitute only accretions to the existing unit.1e
For these reasons, the employees at the East Texas field and Chapel
Hill Plant, and the miscellaneous group, are not entitled to a separate
franchise on the issue of their representation in collective bargaining.
We find that they are included in the unit defined below. As com-
ponents of that unit they will, of course, be entitled to participate in
the election which we are directing.
' We have held in many cases that units separately established and certified may be so
consolidated by the nature of the bargaining history that a separate unit confined to only
one of the original components would be inappropriate . Matter of Standard Brands, In-
corporated , 75 N. L . R. B. 394 ; Matter of P. Lorillard Company , Louisville Plant, 58
N. L. R. B. 1112 ; Matter of Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, Inc., 58 N. L. R. B. 579 ; Matter
of West Virginia Pulp and Paper Co., 53 N. L. R. B. 814.
6 This statement applies to the miscellaneous employees as well as those at the East.
Texas field and the Chapel hill plant , for "miscellaneous " personnel were included in
one of the 1942 voting units . The record does not confirm our dissenting colleague's
assumption that there have been "no motor inspectors and truck drivers or similar types of
employees " among the employees covered by the Oil Workers ' contract. There is , in fact,
virtually no evidence as to these or any other specific occupational categories, as the
Employer contends only that all 74 employees in the group that includes the "miscella-
neous employees" should be balloted separately without attempting to differentiate among
them.
I It is for this reason that the numerous cases cited in footnote 17 of the dissenting
opinion are, in our opinion , inapposite . Furthermore, in none of those cases did any of
the parties object , on grounds pertinent here, to the holding of a separate election for
one or more groups of employees proposed to be added to an existing unit. In most of
those cases , indeed, the petitioner sought an election in the fringe group alone.
° " In determining whether a unit is appropriate for the purposes specified in subsection
(b) the extent to which the employees have organized shall not be controlling."
Cf. Matter of Lowell Industrial Development Co., 80 N. L . R. B. 1695 ; Matter of Weyer-
haeuser Timber Co., 78 N. L. R. B . 1267; Matter of Siuslaw Forest Products Company, Inc.,
55 N. L. R. B. 1115; Matter of Pacific Box Company, 50 N. L. R. B. 720. Contrast also,
Matter of Chicago Freight Car & Parts Co., 83 N. L. R. B. 1163.
10 Matter of Kaiser Co., Inc ., 55 N. L. R . B. 439.
LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY 1143
We find that the following employees of the Employer constitute
a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within
the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act :
All employees of the Employer, excluding office-clerical employees,
watchmen, guards, professional employees, superintendents and other
supervisors as defined in the Act. .
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
As part of the investigation to ascertain representatives for the
purposes of collective bargaining with the Employer, an election by
secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than
30 days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and super-
vision of the Regional Director for the Region in which this case was
heard, and subject to Sections 203.61 and 203.62 of National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations, among the employees in the
unit found appropriate in paragraph numbered 4, above, who were
employed during the pay-roll period immediately preceding the date
of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work
during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or
temporarily laid off, but excluding those employees who have since
quit or been discharged for cause and have not been rehired or re-
instated prior to the date of the election, and also excluding employees
on strike who are not entitled to reinstatement, to determine whether
or not they desire to be represented, for purposes of collective bargain-
ing, by Oil Workers International Union, CIO.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein in Case No. 16-
RD-28 be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
MEMBER GRAY took no part in the consideration of the above Decision,
Direction of Election, and Order.
MEMBER REYNOLDS, dissenting in part :
I cannot join in the decision of the majority in this case to the
extent that it holds that only a single election should be directed for
all the employees of the Employer. I do not believe the Board should
sanction the inclusion of the employees at the Chapel Hill Plant, the
East Texas Production Department or Area and the "miscellaneous
employees" (meter inspectors and truck drivers) in the larger cur-
rently existing bargaining unit, where they will be a minority, with-
out first giving these groups an opportunity to express their desires
in a self-determination election.
1144 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
In the past, the Board has always directed an "Armour-type" Globe
-election 11 where a union seeks to include within an existing unit,
which it currently represents or seeks to represent, a group of em-
ployees who theretofore had not been afforded an opportunity to reg-
ister a choice as to their bargaining representative.. 2 There are two
primary reasons for directing a. self-determination election under
these circumstances for the small, previously unrepresented group of
employees, rather than a single election for all the employees in-
volved. The first is because there is no past bargaining history from
which an inference might be drawn of acquiescence in the existing
unit. The second is because the Board has not wished to permit the
small group of employees to be absorbed into the broad historical bar-
gaining unit without affording them an opportunity to express their
true desires. Thus, although the small group, if polled separately,
might not prefer to be represented by the incumbent union which bar-
gains on behalf of the large group, the wishes of the former could
be completely thwarted because of the numerical superiority of em-
ployees in the latter group.
The Board's method of approach with regard to directing an "Ar-
mour-type" Globe election has been to confirm initially that the exist-
ing unit is appropriate for collective bargaining purposes.13 Once
having concluded that the existing unit is appropriate, we have then
proceeded to consider ,whether the previously unrepresented group
of employees sought to be included is properly a part of the broad
historical unit. If so, the Board has given the group a self -determi-
nation election. In my opinion, application of the afore-mentioned
method of approach to the instant case inevitably leads to the fol-
lowing conclusions. The parties by their contracts, conduct with re-
spect thereto, and bargaining history based thereon, have established
a multi-plant unit of the employees of this Employer, excluding the
previously unrepresented groups. The Board has held that such a
multi-plant unit is appropriate in a long line of decisions.- The
groups of employees at the Chapel Hill Plant, the East Texas Pro-
duction Area and the "miscellaneous employees" could properly be
part of the established multi-plant unit. They should, therefore, at
"See Matter of 4rmour and Company , 40 N. L. R. B. 1333. The type of election
directed therein has come to be called in Board parlance an "Armour" Globe.
ss See cases cited in the Eleventh Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board,
p. 26; Twelfth Annual Report, p. 20.
is Such determination is usually perfunctory because the existing unit has either already
been certified by the Board as appropriate or has been established by the parties and there
has been a history of bargaining on that basis.
11 See footnote 5, supra; see also footnote 13 in the majority opinion and footnote 24 in
my dissenting opinion in Matter of Hygrade Food Products Corporation, 85 N. L. R.. B. 841.
LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY 1145
least be given a separate election . However, I believe that the inter-
ests and identity of these groups are sufficiently distinct to warrant
allowing each of them to decide by the votes of their own separate
majorities whether or not they desire to become part of the existing
unit.15 Thus, I would'favor establishing three separate voting groups
for the unrepresented employees16
My colleagues, however, reach an opposite conclusion with regard
to the resolution of the questions presented in the instant case. The
grounds for their view appear to be three-fold. I shall consider each
of them in the order of what I deem to be their relative importance.
The majority states that the previously unrepresented groups of
employees involved herein are not to be accorded a separate franchise
because, in view of the provisions of Section 9 '(c) (5), the Board can-
not find that any one of these groups, or all of them together, com-
prise a separate appropriate bargaining unit. However, while the
qualification in this Section with regard to extent of organization is
given consideration when the issue before the Board involves the
establishment of a separate appropriate unit, it is not applicable to
the present situation. For the ' Board has never specifically held
o that a prerequisite for directing an "Armour-type" Globe election
is that the group to be added to the existing unit must itself be a bar-
gaining unit which could be separately appropriate. On the con-
trary, the Board has directed self-determination elections in innu-
merable cases where the groups for which such elections were held
could not constitute separate appropriate units under established
Board precedents and petitions filed for representation of such
groups alone would have been dismissed 17 Nor do the cases cited by
15 See Matter of Bell Aircraft Corporation , 61 N. L. It. B. 1352 ; Matter of The Wheland
Company, 72 N. L. R. B. 351.
16 In my opinion , the fact that the Petitioner herein seeks a single election covering all
the employees of the Employer does not alter the situation to any great extent. If the
record clearly showed that the Petitioner desires certification as representative of the
employees in the existing unit , despite the fact that it currently represents them, in view
of the Board' s decision in Matter of General Box Company, 82 N. L. It. B. 678, I would
be inclined to direct a separate election for these employees . In this event, I believe that
consistency with past Board precedents would require that a minimum of two separate
elections be held, namely , one for employees in the existing unit and another for the
unrepresented groups of employees . Under such circumstances I would hold four elec-
tions-one each for the three unrepresented groups and one for employees in the existing
unit. However , in view of the lack of clarity in the instant record with respect to the
Petitioner 's desires , I would not hold an election in the broad historical unit.
17 See, for example , Matter of Watson-Flagg Machine Co., 83 N. L. R. B. 734 ; Matter of
General Petroleum Corporation , 83 N. L . R. B. 514; Matter of Kroger Company, 83 N. L.
It. B. 343; Matter of Kennecott Copper Corporation , Utah Copper Division, 81 N. L. R. B.
957; Matter of Chrysler Corporation , 80 N. L. It. B. 334; Matter of The James Hanley
Company, 79 N. L. It. B. 929; Matter of The Ryan Aeronautical Company, 76 N. L. R. B.
356 ; Matter of Chrysler Corporation , 76 N. L. It. B. 55 ; Matter of Art Metal Construction
Company, 75 N. L. It. B . 80; Matter of Rutherford Freight Lines , Inc., 74 N . L. R. B. 1302;.
Matter of The P . A. Geier Company, 74 N. L. R. B. 103; Matter of The Sorg Paper Com-
1146 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the majority 19 appear to support its position, as they involved situa-
tions where there was an intervenor seeking only the unrepresented
group and the Board, therefore, had to determine in the first instance
whether or not the group could be a separate appropriate unit as well
as part of the existing unit.
The majority's second ground is that the employees in question con-
stitute only inseparable parts of the Employer's total working force,
that is, merely accretions to the existing unit and not "distinct fringe
groups." This view implies that before a group can be accorded a
self-determination election, the Board must first determine that it is
at least it "distinct fringe group." However, as I have heretofore
pointed out, the Board has not utilized such a limited test in the past,
but has only considered the kind of group involved in order to ascer-
tain whether or not it could properly be made part of the existing unit.
Moreover, even if this criterion were applied to the instant case, I do
not believe that the facts present herein justify the conclusion drawn
by my colleagues. In my opinion, the meter inspectors and truck
drivers constitute so-called "fringe" groups which we have often
accorded an "Armour-type" Globe election because of their past exclu-
sion from the contract unit 19 Furthermore, it is difficult for me to
pang, 74 N. L. R. B. 5; Matter of International Detrola Corporation , 73 N. L. R. B. 1358;
Matter of The Long-Bell Lumber Company, 72 N. L. R. B. 890; Matter of The Wheland
Company, 72 N. L. It. B. 351 ; Matter of Emsco Derrick ct Equipment Company, 72 N. L.
It. B. 378; Matter of Blair Limestone Company, 70 N. L. It. B. 689; Matter of Union
Manufacturing Company, 69 N. L. R. B. 640; Matter of Willamette Valley Lumber Com-
pany, 69 N . L. It. B. 1141 ; Matter of Virginia Electric and Power Company, 66 N. L. It. B.
271; Matter of Armour and Company, 64 N. L. R. B. 290 ; Matter of Ball Brothers Com-
pany, 64 N . L. It. B. 153; Matter of Briggs Manufacturing Company, 63 N. L. It. B. 860 ;
Matter of Bell Aircraft Corporation , 61 N. L. R. B. 1352; Matter of Armour and Company,
61 N. L. It. B. 758; Matter of Union Stock Yards ,& Transit Company of Chicago, 60 N. L.
R. B. 115; Matter .of Kimberly- Clark Corporation, 59 N. L. R . B. 780; Matter of Phillips
Petroleum Company, 57 N. L. R. B. 1100; Matter of The Lowell Bleachery , Inc., 56 N. L.
it. B. 1408 . Although In a few of the foregoing cases, the Board has conducted such
elections where the unrepresented groups could possibly have constituted appropriate units
by themselves, it has been merely a matter of coincidence and this factor was not referred
to by the Board as the reason for directing an election in any of these cases. Further-
more, I disagree for the following reasons with the majority 's argument in footnote 7
that these cases are Inapposite :. ( 1) In practically all situations where the Board directs an
"Armour" Globe election , as it was in most of the cases cited herein , it is "historical
accident" and not a real difference In function or status which has caused the previously
unrepresented group to be excluded from the contract unit; ( 2) If we are to adopt the
distinction made by the majority between most of the foregoing cases and the Instant
case, to wit , that the particular petitioner sought an election in the fringe group alone
whereas here the election is sought in the broader unit, we are indicating that henceforth
the Board will decide whether or not to permit an "Armour" Globe election based upon
the position taken by the union. Thus, if the Petitioner requests an election in the fringe
group alone , the Board will grant such election . On the other hand, if the Petitioner seeks
an election in the broader unit, the Board will hold an election in that unit . I cannot
concur with any such rule which substitutes the desires of one of the parties for the Board's
determination as to the type of election which should be held.
^" See footnote 9, supra.
" See footnote 17, supra.
LONE STAR PRODUCING COMPANY 1147
comprehend how the majority can seriously assert that the employees
working in the Chapel Hill Plant and the East Texas Production Area
-do not constitute distinct groups. The Board has always deemed that
employees in a plant or distinct 'operation, such as the production area
involved herein, which is physically disconnected from other plants
or operations, represent a most readily identifiable group which has
often been found to constitute a separate appropriate unit. Nor does
it appear to me that characterizing any of the groups involved in this
case as an accretion is an apposite description, especially with regard
to the meter inspectors and truck drivers. An accretion is the addi-
tion to an existing unit of categories of employees similar to those
already part of the unit.20 Here, there is no evidence which in my
opinion warrants the inference drawn by the majority that meter
inspectors and truck drivers or similar types of employees have been
included in the contract unit in this case. Clearly meter inspectors
and truck drivers have at all times been an integral part of the
Employer's operations during the period when the parties were bar-
gaining for the employees included in the contract unit.
The final ground asserted by my colleagues is that the original piece-
meal units of all the Employer's employees have been effectively
merged into a single group and, therefore, the company-wide unit is
appropriate. It is true that we have often held that where there has
been bargaining history on a multi-plant basis, a separate unit limited
to only one of the plant is inappropriate.21 In these decisions, all
the plants which comprise the multi-plant unit already had an es-
tablished history of bargaining on that basis. However, in no case
had the Board found, as the majority is apparently doing here, that
where bargaining history on a multi-plant basis has been limited to
only some of the Employer's plants or operations, it is sufficient to
warrant the inclusion in the multi-plant unit of employees in new
plants or operations and categories of employees which had not been
previously represented in that unit without allowing such groups
an "Armour-type" Globe election .22
20 See footnote 10, supra.
21 See footnote 14, supra.
22 In this connection , the cases referred to by the majority in footnote 4, supra, are not
in point. In Matter of Acme Freight, Inc., Matter of American Viscose Corporation, and
Matter of Shell Chemical Corporation, the Board found single-plant units sought inappro-
priate because of bargaining history on a multi-plant basis. In Matter of Kansas-
Nebraska Natural Gas Company , Inc., Matter of C. Pappas Company, Inc., and Matter
of Brown Express, et al., the Board found single-plant units sought inappropriate because
factors, such as integration of the particular employer's operations , were present , indicat-
ing the propriety of establishing only multi -plant units and there was no bargaining
history involved on either a single- or multi -plant basis.
1148 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
In view of all the circumstances in this case, I believe that separate
self-determination elections should be held for each of the groups
involved herein and, as indicated, I would not direct an election for
the currently represented employees in absence of a request for such
election.