Standard Oil Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 17, 1953

104 N.L.R.B. 195 (N.L.R.B. 1953)

STANDARD OIL COMPANY 195
4. 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:to
All production and maintenance employees'' at the Em-
ployer's Curwensville, Pennsylvania, plant, excluding office
clerical employees, guards, professional employees, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
to The parties stipulated as to the appropriate unit.
11 Ciprian and Dale, the two students who, depending on financial conditions, may or may not
leave the Employer's employ to return to school, perform the same work and receive the same
pay and benefits as others in the plant and therefore possess sufficient interest to participate
in the voting.
STANDARD OIL COMPANY and OIL WORKERS INTERNA-
TIONAL UNION, CIO, and its LOCAL 348, Petitioner. Case
No. 18-RC-1776. April 17, 1953
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hear-
ing officer of the National Labor Relations 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 withinthe meaning
of the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organization named below claims to represent
certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the
representation of certain employees of the Employer, within the
meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The unit requested herein involves 3 of the 4 product pipe-
line terminals on the Employer's western pipeline, the fourth
being presently represented in a separate unit by another union.
The parties are in agreement as to the classifications of em-
ployees to be included in an appropriate unit. The Employer,
however, urges that only 3 separate terminal units would be
appropriate. In its opposition to the single multiterminal unit
sought by the Petitioner, the Employer relies mainly upon: (1)
The fact that each of the 3 terminals falls under the jurisdiction
of the manager of a separate and distinct sales field division
in the Employer's administrative organization; (2) the assertion
that employees have no community of interest because of the
distance between terminals, the lack of interchange or transfer
of employees between the 3 terminals, and because their area
'The Employer 's request for oral argument is denied because in our opinion the record and
briefs adequately present the positions of the parties.
104 NLRB No. 12.
196 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
of interchange, promotion, and transfer lies within other
facilities within their respective field sales divisions; and (3)
the claim that a multiterminal unit is contrary to the established
bargaining unit pattern of the Employer, other than the unit
established by the Board for 4 of 5 terminals on the Employer's
northwest pipeline. 2 The Employer here requests reconsider-
ation of that decision, pointing out that in order to bargain
thereunder it had to establish a "freak" committee because
the unit crossed the lines of delegated authority under the Em-
ployer's administrative setup. However, there appears to have
been no difficulty encountered in administering the resulting
contract.
As the considerations which persuaded the Board to declare
a multiterminal unit appropriate in the prior decision are
substantially identical to those present in the instant pro-
ceeding,° we find the unit sought by the Petitioner herein appro-
priate for bargaining purposes for the reasons stated in that
decision.4 Accordingly, 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 products pipeline storage terminal employees, including
truckdrivers, at the Employer's Counsel Bluffs, Iowa; Sioux
City, Iowa; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota; terminals, exclud-
ing all employees of the warehouses at such terminals , office
and clerical employees, guards, technical employees, profes-
sional employees, commission drivers, commission agents, and
all supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication,]
Chairman Herzog and Member Murdock, dissenting:
We disagree with our colleagues' determination as to the
appropriateness of the multiterminal unit in this case. The
considerations given as the basis for Member Murdock's
dissent in the earlier decision6 involving the northwest pipeline
of the Employer are present and equally valid here. We believe
that they outweigh the considerations upon which our colleagues
rely.
These employees are not engaged inthe operation of the pipe-
line, but in the local distribution of products transported by that
= Standard Oil Company, 90 NLRB 1657.
SThe record in this case would indicate that the organizational change which took place in
June 1949 was not as extensive as indicated in the prior decision and that the hourly calls to
the chief dispatcher in Chicago are not the only source for operating instructions as may have
been implied in the earlier decision . However , these variations of fact are not so significant
as to have an important influence upon the conclusion reached in the prior decision . Accord-
ingly , the Employer 's motion for reconsideration of the prior decision is found to be without
merit . See Montgomery Ward Company, 88 NLRB 22.
4 We do not believe that, as indicated by our dissenting colleagues , the existence of a separate
bargaining unit at the 1 remaining terminal on this pipeline affords a cogent reason for the
establishment of separate bargaining units for each of the other 3 terminals . See Two States
Telephone Company, 90 NLRB 2008 ; see also North Electric Manufacturing Company, 89
NLRB 260.
5See footnote 2, supra.
THE TEXAS COMPANY 197
pipeline at terminals in various cities many miles apart. The
employees at each terminal are much more intimately connected
with other employees in their own geographical areas who are
engaged in distribution of petroleum products transported by
other means, than they are with the other pipeline terminal
employees with whom the majority places them. The lack of
employee interchange between the terminals, the absence of
common supervision over them, and the difficulties engendered
in bargaining by ignoring the Employer's administrative ar-
rangements all convince us that a unit combining these three
terminals is inappropriate. Indeed, a fourth one is already
separate.
We would order elections in 3 separate units, each confined
to 1 terminal.
THE TEXAS COMPANY and OIL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL
UNION, CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 10-RC-2198. April 17,
1953
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Morgan C.
Stanford, hearing 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 [Chairman Herzog and Members
Murdock and Peterson].
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 cer-
tain employees of the Employer.
3. A 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.
4. The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees at the
Company's Tampa Sales Terminal. The requested unit in-
cludes, together with operating and maintenance employees, a
group of clerical employees who have been bargained for as a
single unit since approximately 1937. The Employer contends
that all the clerical employees should be excluded from the unit.
The record discloses that the clerks in question are primarily
office clericals. Their duties are to check, prepare, and tabulate
stock records and forms, keep records of equipment at the
t The Employer 's motion to correct the record , received on February 16. 1953 , and the
Petitioner 's response thereto ( containing a request for modification of one correction re-
quested by the Employer ), received on February 20, 1953, are hereby granted , and the record
is hereby corrected as requested in the motion and response.
104 NLRB No. 26.
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