Standard Oil Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 1, 1950

90 N.L.R.B. 1657 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of STANDARD OIL COMPANY , EMPLOYER and OIL
WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, CIO, PETITIONER
Case No. 13-RC-1030.-Decided August 1, 1950
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Ivan C. McLeod, hear-
ing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free
from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel [Members Reynolds, Murdock, and Styles].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the
Act.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c)
(1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Employer, whose general offices are located in Chicago,
Illinois, is engaged in refining, distributing, and marketing petroleum
products in 15 midwestern States. For administrative purposes, the
Employer has divided the territory in which it operates into 26 geo-
graphical areas called "field-sales divisions." Among the Employer's
various facilities is a products pipe line, herein involved, which
originates in one field-sales division, crosses three other field-sales
divisions, and terminates in a fifth." Located on this pipe line are
5 storage terminals or depots in the following cities : Rochelle, Illinois ;
Dubuque, Iowa; Spring Valley, Minnesota; Minneapolis-St. Paul,
Minnesota; and Moorhead, Minnesota.
The Petitioner seeks a single unit of all the nonclerical employees
at the Employer's Rochelle, Dubuque, Spring Valley, and Moorhead,
Minnesota, pipe line storage terminals. The fifth storage terminal,
'The Company's pipe lines were all formerly operated by the pipe line department but
were transferred to the sales department, which controls the field-sales divisions, in
June 1949.
90 NLRB No. 208. 1657
1658 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the Minneapolis-St. Paul terminal, is presently covered by a collec-
tive bargaining contract between the Employer and a labor organi-
zation not a party to this proceeding. The Employer contends that
four separate -units should be established for the employees whom the
Petitioner seeks to represent jointly, each unit consisting of the em-
ployees at a separate storage terminal.
In support of its position, the Employer relies principally upon
the autonomy of the individual field-sales division.2 Because of this
autonomy, the Employer asserts, bargaining units of its employees
should be coterminous with the geographical limits of each field-sales
division. In addition, the Employer contends that the pipe line stor-
age terminal employees perform the same type of work as the em-
ployees at "A" stations, which are located in each field division, and
that, therefore, the pipe line storage terminal employees and the
"A" station employees should be joined together in field-sales division
collective bargaining units.
The record shows that the Employer has vested considerable ad-
ministrative power in the field-sales division manager, and that each
field-sales division is, therefore, as the Employer contends, in effect,
an autonomous entity. Nevertheless, it appears that the pipe line
operation transcends field-sales division lines. For example, the ter-
minal operators, who draw off products flowing through the pipe line
and divert them into storage tanks, read pressure and volume gauges
and make hourly reports to the chief dispatcher at Chicago. On the
basis of these hourly reports, the chief dispatcher issues operating
instructions to other terminal operators on the pipe line. Accord-
ingly, the pipe line is operated on a coordinated and integrated basis
with final control-and responsibility for its operation resting in the
Employer's main office located in Chicago. For this reason, we do
not believe that the mere division of the Employer's operations into
administrative areas is sufficient reason for denying the Petitioner's
request for a single unit of employees situated in more than one of the
administrative areas.
Nor do we believe that there is such a community of interest be-
tween the pipe line storage terminal employees and the "A" plant
employees in each field-sales division to require that those employees
be joined together in the same bargaining unit. The record shows
that the "A" station handles different types of products than does the
terminal; that these products are received by the "A" station through
tanks, rail, or barges, whereas all the storage terminal products come
2 Each field-sales division has its own payroll, each manager does his own hiring, and
there are virtually no transfers , interchange , or promotions between the divisions. How-
ever, certain over-all policies made in Chicago , such as pensions , sick leave , insurance, and
other benefits apply equally to all employees.
,STANDARD OIL COMPANY 1659
through a pipe line; that the "A" station products are destined for
distribution only within the field division, whereas the pipe line prod-
ucts usually cross many division boundaries; and, of prime impor-
tance, that there appears to be no coordination between the operation
of the storage terminals and the "A" plants. For these reasons, we
are of the opinion that a closer community of interest exists between
the employees of the respective pipe line storage terminals than exists
between the employees of those terminals and the "A" station
employees.
For the 'foregoing reasons, particularly the integrated and co-
ordinated nature of the pipe line operation with its direct over-all
control and supervision in the Chicago offices, it appears that the
optimum appropriate unit would include all employees of the five pipe
line storage terminals.3 However, as the employees at the Minne-
apolis-St. Paul terminal are, as stated above, currently represented by
a union not a party to this proceeding, we find that a unit consisting
of the employees at the four remaining pipe line storage terminals
is appropriate. Accordingly, we find that the employees at the Em-
ployer's pipe line storage terminals located at Rochelle, Illinois;
Dubuque, Iowa; Spring Valley, Minnesota; and Moorhead, Minne-
sota, including the terminal operators, loaders, and maintenance men,
but excluding all office and clerical employee's, guards, technical and
professional employees, all truck drivers, salaried or on commission,
all commission agents, and all supervisors as defined in the Act con-
stitute a unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining within
the meaning of Section 9 (b) of 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 payroll period immediately preceding the date
of this Direction of Election, including employees who did not work
during said payroll period because they were ill or on vacation or tem-
' See Rocky Mountain Pipe Line Company, 79 NLRB 1119 ; -Continental Pipe Line Com-
pany, 78 NLRB 379. The Employer, in its brief, cites a number of Board decisions in which
we have held that separate units coterminous with an employer 's geographic administrative
areas were appropriate rather than a single comprehensive unit. None of these cases, how-
ever, involved an integrated and coordinated pipe line operation.
1660 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL-LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
porarily laid off, 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, 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 bargaining, by the
Oil Workers International Union, CIO.
MEMBER MURDOCK, dissenting :
I disagree with my colleagues' conclusion that the unit sought by
the Petitioner in this case is appropriate. It appears to ine that the
pipe line terminal employees in each field- sales division have a. far
greater community of interest with the other sales and distribution
employees in their own respective areas, than they have with the other
pipe line terminal employees, working at distant locations in other
sales divisions of the Company. The majority argues that the termi-
nal employees-those at only four out of five terminals on this pipe
line, incidentally- should be combined in a single unit, and set apart
from their fellow employees in each sales division, merely because
the oil they receive and distribute comes through a pipe line, whereas
the "A" station employees handle petroleum products transported by
rail, truck, or barge. I think these slight differences in function
are purely artificial insofar as collective bargaining is concerned. All
employees in each sales division-but not all those in the proposed
unit covering four fragments of four different sales divisions-are
under the jurisdiction of a single division manager. Each division
manager does his own hiring, and conducts collective bargaining for
the Employer within his own division. To be sure, many important
collective bargaining issues are determined on a company-wide basis
by the Company's managerial officials at Chicago, but it does not fol-
low that the employees in these particular pipe line terminals, any
more than all distribution employees of the Company in all its divi-
sions, everywhere, have a distinct community of interest which war-
rants their establishment as a collective bargaining unit. Moreover,
the record shows that bargaining for the employees of this Company
has invariably been conducted on a divisional or single-plant basis,
never on the basis of a unit, such as the one established here, which
cuts across divisional lines and necessarily requires that more than
one divisional manager participate or be consulted in the negotiation
of contracts.
For these reasons, I would dismiss the petition in this case.