Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 26, 1954

108 N.L.R.B. 1106 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

1106 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY and LOCAL
NO. 1342, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRI-
CAL WORKERS, AFL, Petitioner. Case No. 16-RC-1414.
May 26, 1954
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before John F. White,
hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hear-
ing 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 mean-
ing of the Act.
Z. The labor organizations involved claim to represent em-
ployees of the Employer.'
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning
of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the
following reasons:
The Petitioner seeks a unit of all operators in the traffic
department and all nonmanagement employees in the commer-
cial department at the Employer's Greenville , Texas , exchange.
The Employer and the Intervenor contend that only systemwide
departmental units of employees in the plant department, traffic
department, commercial department and the accounting depart-
ment are appropriate.
The Employer, with its principal office at St. Louis, Missouri,
is engaged in the business of transmitting and receiving local
and long distance telephone messages . It furnishes service to
some 800 communities in the States of Arkansas, Kansas,
Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and in 3 counties of the State
of Illinois adjacent to St. Louis. The Employer is one of the
associated companies of the Bell System.
Like most telephone companies , the Employer generally
divides its operations into 4 systemwide departments: (1) The
plant department, which installs and maintains the Employer's
telephonic equipment; (2) the traffic department, which operates
that equipment; (3) the commercial department, which handles
the Employer's business relations with the public, including the
collection of bills; and, (4 ) the accounting department, which
handles the Employer's payroll, disbursements, and billing. 2,
The unit sought by the Petitioner consists of employees in 2
of such departments, but only at 1 location--its Greenville
exchange.
IThe Intervenor, Communications Workers of America, CIO, was properly allowed to
intervene at the hearing on the basis of a contractual relationship between it and the Em-
ployer.
2 The Employer also maintains certain smaller, specialized departments such as the
treasury department and a department which administers the Employer 's benefit and pension
plan.
108 NLRB No. 146.
SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY 1107
All officials of the Employer are locatedatits general head-
quarters in St . Louis where the Employer ' s major personnel
and labor relations policies are determined . Collective bargain-
ing and personnel matters are conducted under the direction
of a vice president of the Employer in St. Louis. The skills
and duties of the employees in the particular departments
are substantially the same throughout the Employer's system
and transfers of employees in a particular department from one
location to another occur frequently . In each department em-
ployees having the same titles and classifications engage in the
same type of work , regardless of their geographical locations,
and in general have the same problems concerning wages , hours,
and other conditions of employment . The Intervenor has repre-
sented the employees of the Employer onasystemwide depart-
mental basis since 1939.
On October 19, 1953 , the Employer entered into a purchase
agreement with the Greenville Telephone Company, herein
called Greenville , which had been operating the exchange in-
volved in this proceeding . The terms of the agreement pro-
vided for the sale of all the property and assets of Greenville
to the Employer and included a stipulation that the Employer did
not assume any existing bargaining agreements entered intoby
Greenville with any labor organizations . The sale was approved
by the Federal Communications Commission on December 24,
1953 , and transfer of the physicat properties of Greenville
to the Employer was consummated as of the close of business
on December 31, 1953 . The Employer contemplates changing
job titles , classifications , and wage rates at Greenville so
that they will conform to those throughout its system , but has
not yet done so pending the outcome of this proceeding.
Although the Employer has owned all the common stock of
Greenville since 1949, the latter company operated as a sep-
arate enterprise . Thus, for many years the Petitioner has
contracted with Greenville as representative of Greenville's
employees in the unit which it now asks the Board to find
appropriate and the Intervenor has represented Greenville's
nonsupervisory plant employees.
From the foregoing , it is clear that the Petitioner is seeking
to have the Board establish a separate unit which corresponds
to no administrative division of the Employer ' s operations,
solely on the grounds of the past bargaining history for the em-
ployees involved. The Board has, on numerous occasions, con-
sidered and rejected as inappropriate proposed units smaller
in scope than a companywide , departmental unit in cases in-
volving public utilities .' It has , rather , held to be appropriate
3Boston Consolidated Gas Company, 107 NLRB 1565; Rockland Light and Power Company,
105 NLRB 365; Southern Colorado Power Company, 104 NLRB 926; Pacific Gas and Electric
Company, 97 NLRB 1397; Elizabethtown Consolidated Gas Company, 93 NLRB 1270; Florida
Telephone Corporation, 92 NLRB 1696; New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, 90
NLRB 639; The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia, 82 NLRB 810,
and cases cited therein,
11 08 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
companywide or systemwide departmental4 or multidepart-
mental5 units , even in the face of a contrary bargaining history. 6
The Board ' s decisions in these public utility cases , rejecting
the narrow units and approving the broad units , have been
predicated upon the highly integrated and interdependent nature
of public utility operations , the similarity of employment condi-
tions and interests , the interests in serving the public of
the various groups involved , and the centralized control of
major policies relating to labor relations . The factors which
the Board found to be controlling in such cases are present
and controlling here . Accordingly , as no reason exists in this
case for departing from the Board ' s established policy with re-
spect to public utilities , we find that the unit sought by the Peti-
tioner is inappropriate for purposes of collective bargaining,
and shall dismiss the petition.'
[The Board dismissed the petition. ]
4 Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Florida Telephone Corporation, New England Telephone
and Telegraph Company, and The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company of Virginia,
footnote 3, supra.
5 Boston Consolidated Gas Company, Rockland Light and Power Company, Southern Colorado
Power Company, and Elizabethtown Consolidated Gas Company, footnote 3, supra,
6Boston Consolidated Gas Company, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Elizabethtown Con-
solidated Gas Company, and The Chesapeake and Potomac "Telephone Company of Virginia,
footnote 3, supra.
7 The Intervenor contends that its current contract with the Employer is a bar to this
proceeding. In view of our dismissal of the petition, we find it unnecessary to pass upon the
contract-bar issue. Rockwood & Company, 106 NLRB 1075.
PAGE AIRWAYS, INC. and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OP-
ERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL NO. 6 & 6A, AFL, Petitioner.
Case No. 17 -RC-1690 . May 26, 1954
AMENDED DECISION , ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
On December 30, 1953, the Board issued its Decision and
Order in the above - entitled proceeding , dismissing the petition
herein upon the ground that the employment of all employees
in the unit involved herein would soon be terminated. This
disposition was based on uncontradicted testimony of the Em-
ployer that within 6 weeks of the hearing installation of new
equipment would obviate the need for these employees . There-
after , on January 14, 1953 , the Petitioner filed a petition for
rehearing , with supporting affidavits stating that these em-
ployees were still working and the machinery had not been in-
stalled, some 8 weeks after the hearing . On March 9, 1954,
the Board issued a notice to show cause why the Board should
not vacate its Decision and Order of December 30, 1953, and
108 NLRB No. 150.