The Connecticut Power Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 13, 1950

88 N.L.R.B. 653 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of THE CONNECTICUT POWER COMPANY, EMPLOYER and
LOCAL UNION No. 468, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL
WORKERS, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No. 2-RC-1578.Decided February 13,1950
DECISION
AND
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before I. L. Broad-
win, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hear-
ing are free from prejudical error and are hereby affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a three-member panel [Chairman Herzog and Members
Houston and Murdock].
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 involved claims to represent employees
of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation 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:
4. The Employer, a Connecticut corporation with operating divi-
sions in Stamford, New London, Farmington, Manchester, and Mid-
dletown, Connecticut, manufactures and sells gas, and purchases, gen-
erates, and distributes electric current.
The Petitioner seeks to add meter readers to an existing unit of
production and maintenance employees in the Employer's Stamford
Division. The Employer contends that meter readers are clerical
employees, who are not included in the existing unit, and that the
petition should therefore be dismissed.
The Stamford Division, which alone is involved in this proceeding,
comprises an area of 61 square miles and covers the city of Stamford
88 NLRB No. 126. °
653
654 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and the town of Darien, Connecticut. The headquarters of this divi-
sion, at Stamford, includes a service building and an office building,
one-half mile apart. The office building, with six floors, contains the
following departments : The application, collection, and credit depart-
ments, on the first floor; the bookkeeping and accounting department,
on the second floor; the meter department, the company nurse, and
the restaurant, on the third floor; the personnel, sales, and electrical
distribution engineering and record department, on the fourth floor;,
the general engineering department and drafting room and the pur-
chasing and executive departments, on the fifth floor; and an audi-
torium, on the sixth floor. The Employer's eight meter readers, who,
are the employees concerned in the instant case, are based on the second
floor of this building in a room adjacent to the accounting department.
They are under the immediate supervision of the meter reading super-
visor, who, in turn, is under the supervision of the chief clerk of the
accounting department. An undisclosed number of metermen, as
distinct from meter readers, employed in the Employer's meter depart-
ment and under the immediate supervision of the meter department
supervisor, work on the first floor of the office building, due to the excess
of available space in this building; the other meter department
employees work in the service building.
Since 1941, the Petitioner's Local 468 has represented employees in
the Employer's Stamford Division and since 1943 or 1944, the Peti-
tioner's Locals 469, 1419, and 383 have respectively represented em-
ployees at the Employer's New London, Manchester, Middletown, and
Farmington Divisions., A current contract, covering production and
maintenance employees in these five divisions, and bearing an expira-
tion date of May 1, 1951, is signed by each of the afore-mentioned
locals in behalf of the Petitioner, and accords to each local recogni-
tion as the bargaining representative of specified employment cate-
gories within the division or divisions under its jurisdiction. With
respect to the Stamford Division, Local 468 is recognized as the bar-
gaining representative of employee categories in the Employer's line
department, garage, electric station, gas manufacturing and distribu-
tion department, and service, stores, and meter departments. Meter
readers in the Stamford, New London, and Middletown Divisions are
1On May. 22, 1946, in Case No. 2-R-6505 , the Board certified the Petitioner as the
bargaining representative of employees in the Stamford Division. The Petitioner was
similarly certified as the representative of employees in the New London Division, on
September 19, 1944, and on May 24, 1946, in Cases Nos. 1-R-2023 and 1-R-3057, respec-
tively ; in the Manchester Division, on September 19, 1944, in Case No. 1-R-2022 ; in the
Farmington Division, on October 23, 1944, in Case No. 1-R-2079 ; and in the Middletown
Division, on March 27, 1946, in Case No. 1-R-2913. Local 1419 was certified, on October
1, 1948, in Case No. 1-RC-635, as the bargaining representative for other employees in
the Middletown Division.
THE CONNECTICUT POWER COMPANY 655
not within the contract coverage. Ga the other hand, meter readers
in the Farmington and Manchester Divisions are within the contract
coverage.
Seven of the eight meter readers in the Stamford Division whom the
Petitioner seeks to add to the Stamford Division unit read electric
and gas meters, jot down the readings in specially prepared books,
reset demand meters 2 and water heater clocks, check meter seals,
deliver mail returned to the Employer by the United States Post
Office, report customers' complaints, and prepare daily work reports
of meter readings and "holdups," or meters to which they are not able
to gain access. The eighth meter reader, known as a special meter
reader, investigates and disposes of customers' high bill complaints,
delivers and explains estimated bills, holdups, and rereadings of
meters to customers, reads meters and holdups, trains and instructs
meter readers, and assigns work in the absence of the regular
supervisor.
Unlike meter readers in the Manchester and Farmington Divisions,
meter readers in the Stamford Division do not install, remove, or repair
meters. This work is performed entirely by metermen attached to the
meter department. Meter readers in the Stamford Division do not
interchange with metermen, are separately supervised, and, unlike
metermen, are promoted to nonproduction and nonservice jobs .3 The
work of meter readers requires no special knowledge or skill. Al-
though they spend most of their working day away from the office
building and are subject to traffic and weather hazards, not encountered
by clerical employees within the building, these hazards are less than
those encountered by metermen and linemen, who are included in the
existing unit. Meter readers daily provide readings on which depend
the Employer's billing operations, in which the majority of its clerical
employees is engaged. Although, as noted above, meter readers are
included in units covered under the current contract for the Farming-
ton and Manchester Divisions, the reason for their inclusion appears
to lie in the fact that meter readers in those divisions spend only up to
5 hours of their day reading meters and the remaining 3 hours in the
meter departments, repairing and servicing meters 4
4 Demand meters record, on a paper roll, variations in current demand over a period of
time.
8 Dieter readers are usually promoted to jobs in the fields of sales and promotion.
' The accounts rendered by the Employer to the Connecticut Public Utilities Commission
and the Federal Power Commission separately reflect the time spent by these employees in
each occupation , in accordance with the accounting procedures prescribed by those two
regulatory bodies. The accounting manuals of both organizations provide that meter
reading expenses shall be charged as items of "Customers ' Accounting and Collection
Expenses ," rather than as items of production , transmission , and distribution expenses.
Board 's Exhibits 8-J and 9-G.
656 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
. We have in the past excluded meter readers from units which include
production and maintenance employees where the work of meter read-
ers is primarily clerical in nature.5 In certain instances we have re-
laxed this rule where there appeared special factors of controlling
importance, not present in the instant case. Thus, we have included
meter readers in units of physical employees where the parties have
agreed to their inclusion,e or where an established bargaining history,,
or industrial pattern 8 indicates the propriety of their inclusion. In
the instant case, meter readers are primarily clerical employees and no
special factors appear which would warrant their inclusion in a unit
of physical employees from which other clerical employees are
excluded. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition in this proceeding be, and the"
same hereby is, dismissed.
s Wachusett Electric Company, et al., 65 NLRB 1207 ; Public Service Company of.
Colorado, 60 NLRB 109 ; Florida Power Corporation, 59 NLRB 1493 ; Hartford Gas
Company, 58 NLRB 654; The Gas and Electric Company, 57 NLRB 1298; Connecticut
Light and Power Company, 53 NLRB 130; Boston Edison Company ,, 51 NLRB 118.
e Columbus and Southern Ohio Electric Company , 59 NLRB 1429.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company , 87 NLRB 257.
Nebraska Power Company , 46 NLRB 601.