Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 25, 1946

67 N.L.R.B. 761 (N.L.R.B. 1946)

In the Matter of PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRic COMPANY and UTnrrv
WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, LOCAL 133, CIO
Case No. 20-R-1419.-Decided April 05, 1946
Mr. Thomas J. Straub, Miss Anne MacDonald, and Mr. J. Paul St.
Sure, of San Francisco, Calif., for the Company.
Gladstein, Grossman, Sawyer & Edises, by Mr. Bertram Edises, of
Oakland, Calif., for Local 133 of the U. W. U. A.
Mrs. Edith Cross, of San Francisco, Calif., for Local B-1245 of
the I. B. E. W.
Mrs. Augusta Spaulding, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Upon petition duly filed by Utility Workers Union of America,
Local 133, CIO, herein called Local 133 of the U. W. U. A.,1 alleging
that a question affecting commerce had arisen concerning the repre-
sentation of employees of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San
Francisco, California, herein called the Company, the National Labor
Relations Board provided for an appropriate hearing upon due notice
before Wallace E. Royster, Trial Examiner. The hearing was held
at San Francisco, California, on September 20, 1945. The Company,
Local 133 of the U. W. U. A., and International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, Local B--1245, herein called Local B-1245 of the
I. B. E. W., 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 Exam-
iner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and
are hereby affirmed.
On January 24, 1946, the Board, having duly considered the matter,
ordered that the record be reopened and the case remanded to the
The original petition was filed by Local 133 of Utility Workers Organizing Committee
Utility Workers Organizing Committee subsequently changed its name to Utility Workers
Union of America The petition and other formal papers are hereby amended to show the
present name of the petitioning union
67 N L. R. B., No. 97.
761
762 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Regional Director for further hearing on the scope of the unit appro-
priate for employees covered by the petition. Pursuant to the Board's
order, further hearing was held upon due notice at San Francisco,
California, on February 14 and 18 before Wallace E. Royster, and
on February 27, 1946, before John Paul Jennings, Trial Examiners.
All parties appeared, participated, and were afforded full opportunity
to be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce
evidence bearing on the issues. The Trial Examiners' rulings made
at the reopened hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby
affirmed. All parties were afforded opportunity to file briefs with
the Board.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a public utility corporation, is
principally engaged in the production, purchase, sale, and distribution
of gas and electricity in central and northern California.
The Company stipulated at the hearing that findings made by the
Board with respect to its operations and set forth in the Decision
and Direction of Elections issued by the Board in Cases Nos. R-5894
and 5895, prior representation proceedings concerning the Company's
employees, substantially describe its operations at the present time.
We, therefore, find, and incorporate by reference herein, all facts
found within the section entitled "The business of the Company" in
said Decision and Direction of Elections.2
II. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
Utility Workers Union of America, Local 133, is a labor organiza-
tion affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, admit-
ting to membership employees of the Company.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local B-1245, is
a labor organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor,
admitting to membership employees of the Company.
III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
The, Company on request refused to grant recognition to Local 133
of the U. W. U. A. as bargaining representative of employees in its
proposed bargaining unit.
A statement of a Board agent, introduced into evidence at the
2 Matter of Paeefic Gas and Electric Company, 52 N. L. R B 1204, at pages 1205 and
1206.
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY 763
hearing, indicates that Local 133 of the U. W. U. A. represents a sub-
stantial number of employees in the unit hereinafter found appro-
priate.
We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning
the representation of employees of the Company, within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the National Labor
Relations Act.
IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT
Local 133 of the U. W. U. A. contends that office and clercial em-
ployees of the Company who perform multi-division functions at San
Francisco, as distinguished from General Offices and San Francisco
Division functions, constitute an appropriate separate bargaining
unit. Subject to its general position that a system-wide unit is the
appropriate bargaining unit for its employees, the Company agrees
that the proposed unit is appropriate for bargaining purposes. The
I. B. E. W. takes no contrary position.
The Company is a public utility, furnishing gas and electrical power
to customers in central and northern California. At the Company's
headquarters in San Francisco, commonly known as the General Offices,
are housed executive officers of the Company and administrative heads
of offices and over-all departments and their clerical staffs : For its
operating convenience, the Company divides the wide area covered by
its services into 13 geographical divisions, named from the principal
counties of California respectively included therein, each of which is
under the immediate charge of a local division manager. Independent
of these geographical lines, the Company operates, as functions of its
General Offices, the following over-all services : (1) the Central Supply
Department with headquarters at Emeryville, a warehouse facility in
general charge of the Company's storage and supply bases; (2) the
General Construction Department, with headquarters at San Fran-
cisco, a field construction facility equipped to move about and handle
repairs more extensive than the manpower in any geographical region
can comfortably handle alone; and (3) the Natural Gas Division, with
headquarters at San Francisco, a facility for handling gas distribution
by pipe line.
The Company's employees are generally classified as the outside
"physical" employees and the inside "office and clerical" employees,
respectively. In the earliest representation proceeding instituted on
8 The Field Examiner reported that Local 133 of the U W U. A. submitted 185 desig-
nations. Local B-1245 of the I. B E W. submitted no showing of representation among
these employees.
There are approximately 250 employees in the appropriate unit
4 The term "General Offices" in the record denotes the central administration of the
Company 's extensive operations or the principal building at San Francisco , in which the
chief executive and administrative staffs are housed
764 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
their behalf, the Board found that the Company's physical employees
constituted a single appropriate bargaining unit and directed an elec-
tion among them in a system-wide unit.5 When it appeared that there
was no immediate prospect of obtaining collective bargaining on a
system-wide basis, the Board found appropriate a unit limited to
physical employees in the Company's East Bay Division, tracing a unit
for bargaining purposes along the broad lines drawn by the Company
for its administrative purposes." Following this pattern, the Board
successively found appropriate units of the Company's physical em-
ployees limited to each one of the Company's 13. geographical divi-
sions.' Upon subsequent petitions filed, separate units of office and
clerical employees working in several geographical divisions were
respectively found appropriate, including office and clerical employees
working in the San Francisco Division.8
Following further the plan of making separate bargaining units
coextensive with the Company's administrative sectors, the Board also
found appropriate separate units of physical employees serving in the
General Offices Building at San Francisco,9 and in the separate facili-
ties emanating from the General Offices, namely, the General Construc-
tion Department,"' the Natural Gas Division,"' and the Central Supply
Department,12 respectively.
Since office and clerical employees in the Central Supply Depart-
ment, though strictly of the General Offices staffs, are housed at
Emeryville and not at San Francisco and enjoy some autonomy, the
Board found a unit limited to these employees an appropriate
bargaining unit 13 Subsequent to these several unit findings, the
Board held separate elections and certified as bargaining representa-
tive of the employees in each unit the labor organization selected by
the majority of voters therein.14
Apart from the office and clerical employees assigned to and work-
ing in the several geographical divisions of the Company's operations,
who have been found to constitute separate bargaining units along
strictly geographical lines, and apart from the office and clerical em-
ployees who serve in the several administrative, executive, and oper-
ating departments of the Company's General Offices at San Francisco,
5 3 N L R B. 835
140 N. L. R. B. 591; 41N.L R B 1182
''44N L R.B 665 ;45N L. R. B. 536 ; and49N L R.B 810
8 49 N. L. R. B. 810 ; 51 N . L R. B. 301 ; 52 N L R. B 1204 ; 55 N. L. R . B. 427 ; 61
N L. R B. 468; and 61 N. L. R. B. 564.
8 46 N L R B . 1191. The unit of physical employees in the General Offices is made up
of maintenance and building service employees in the main building and annex.
10 44 N. L It. B. 665
11 48 N L. It. B. 1176.
lz 44 N. L R. B. 665
52 N. L. R B. 1204 ; 57 N L It. B. 1129.
14 Office and clerical employees in all geographical divisions may not be organized but the
scope of the units appropriate for these employees is not directly raised herein.
PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY 765
who are not yet organized for bargaining purposes, is a group of
approximately 250 office and clerical employees, whom the Company
has centralized and placed at San Francisco-and therefore physically
within the confines of the San Francisco Division though not subject
to its division manager-for the economical and efficient handling of
certain record and accounting work for the four geographical divi-
sions located in the Bay Region, namely, the San Francisco, San Jose,
East Bay, and North Bay Divisions. Employees doing comparable
work for other geographical divisions presently perform such work
locally within their respective divisions and now form an integral
part of the several office and clerical bargaining units drawn along
strictly geographical lines. The multi-division office and clerical em-
ployees at San Francisco, recently somewhat scattered, have now all
been assigned to working space at 445 Sutter Street, San Francisco, the
annex to the Company's main office building at 245 Market Street 15
The office and clerical workers performing the multi-division work at
San Francisco, and covered by the amended petition herein, thus fall
into a special group of clerical workers readily distinguishable both
from employees in the San Francisco Division. whose work is con-
fined to this division of the Company's geographical area, and from
employees in the General Offices, who serve in the Company's over-all
administrative, executive, and operating offices. Since Local 133 of
the U. W. U. A. has confined its immediate organizational efforts to
this multi-division group, and these employees constitute a well de-
fined functional group with common problems and interests, we believe
that, in view of the bargaining pattern established among the Com-
pany's employees, they may constitute a separate appropriate bar-
gaining unit. The parties agree that supervisory employees be
excluded from the bargaining unit, and they do not disagree with
respect to the employees within such classifications.
We find that all office and clerical employees of the Company who
perform multi-division functions at San Francisco, as distinguished
from General Offices and San Francisco Division functions, excluding
all supervisory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge,
discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or
effectively recommend such action, constitute a unit appropriate for
the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9
(b) of the Act.
V. THE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
We shall direct that the question concerning representation which
has arisen be resolved by an election by secret ballot.
' At the time of the original hearing in this proceeding the multi -division group, housed
in part in the main office building , were incorrectly identified as employees assigned to
General Offices functions
766 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Local B-1245 of the I. B. E. W. desires to participate in the election.
Local 133 of the U. W. U. A. opposes its participation, on the ground
that Local B-1245 has shown no specific representation among em-
ployees in this unit. Since the I. B. E. W. represents both physical
and clerical employees of the Company in units previously found to be
appropriate, we believe that it has a sufficient interest in the Com-
pany's employees to have a place on the ballot. We will provide that
Local B-1245 of the I. B. E. W. and Local 133 of the U. W. U. A.
appear on the ballot.
Those eligible to participate in the election shall be all employees
in the appropriate unit who were employed during the pay-roll period
immediately preceding the date of the Direction of Election herein,
subject to the limitations and additions set forth in the Direction.
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
By virtue of and pursuant to the power vested in the National Labor
Relations Board by Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations
Act, and pursuant to Article III, Section 9, of National Labor Rela-
tions Board Rules and Regulations-Series 3, as amended, it is hereby
DIRECTED that, as part of the investigation to ascertain representa-
tives for the purposes of collective bargaining with Pacific Gas and
Electric Company, San Francisco, California, an election by secret
ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than thirty
(30) days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and
supervision of the Regional Director for the Twentieth Region, acting
in this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and
subject to Article III, Sections 10 and 11, of said Rules and Regula-
tions, among employees in the unit found appropriate in Section IV,
above, who were employed during the pay-roll period immediately
preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not
work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation
or temporarily laid off, and including employees in the armed forces
of the United States who present themselves in person at the polls,
but excluding those employees who have since quit or been discharged
for cause and have not been rehired or reinstated prior to the date of
the election, to determine whether they desire to be represented by
Utility Workers Union of America, Local 133, CIO, or by Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local B-1245, A. F. of L.,
for the purposes of collective bargaining, or by neither.