U.S. West Communications

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 26, 1993

310 N.L.R.B. 854 (N.L.R.B. 1993)

854
310 NLRB No. 152
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
U.S. West Communications, Inc., Petitioner and
Order of Repeatermen & Toll Testboardmen,
Local 1011, International Brotherhood of Elec-
trical Workers, AFL–CIO, Intervenor and
Communications Workers of America, AFL–
CIO, Party in Interest. Case 27–UC–128
March 26, 1993
ORDER DENYING REVIEW
BY MEMBERS DEVANEY, OVIATT, AND
RAUDABAUGH
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel. After careful consideration, the Board has de-
cided to deny the Intervenor’s request for review of the
Regional Director’s Decision and Order (pertinent por-
tions are attached). We agree with the Regional Direc-
tor that the Employer’s reorganization and continuing
technological changes have eliminated the separate
identity of the employees represented by ORTT. Ac-
cordingly, these employees were properly accreted into
the bargaining unit represented by CWA. The Interve-
nor’s request for a stay of the implementation of the
Regional Director’s decision is also denied.
MEMBER DEVANEY, dissenting.
I would grant the Intervenor’s request for review on
the issue of whether the employees represented by
ORTT have been accreted into the unit of employees
represented by CWA.
APPENDIX
REGIONAL DIRECTOR’S DECISION AND ORDER
4. The Employer, a Colorado corporation with head-
quarters in Denver, Colorado, provides telecommunications
services throughout 14 States. Pursuant to a court approved
settlement in 1984, A T & T divested itself of 23 telephone
operating companies. The Employer was formed as the result
of the consolidation of three of the companies: Pacific North-
west Bell, Northwestern Bell, and Mountain States Tele-
phone. Mountain States provided telephone services in
Southern Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado Ari-
zona, and New Mexico. Northwestern Bell serviced North
and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Pacific
Bell covered Washington, Oregon, and Northern Idaho.
Prior to the formation of the Employer, each of the three
operating companies maintained its own corporate and ad-
ministrative structure and its own operational and administra-
tive policies.
For a number of years the Employer and its three prede-
cessor companies have had collective-bargaining agreements
with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the
Order of Repeatermen and Toll Testboardmen (ORTT),
Local 111, IBEW. The last agreement between ORTT and
the Employer expired on August 15, 1992. Currently, IBEW
represents all employees in the state of Montana with the ex-
ception of a few clericals who are represented by the CWA.
CWA represents some 35,000 employees throughout the 14
state area of the Company. ORTT represents approximately
500 employees in Washington, Oregon, and Northern Idaho
in the job classifications of communication technician, an-
tenna technician, and power technician—Oregon.
The Employer filed this unit clarification petition seeking
to accrete the employees represented by ORTT into the unit
of employees represented by CWA. The Employer maintains
that as a result of technological, organizational, and adminis-
trative changes, the ORTT represented employees have
ceased to be a viable separate unit and now share a commu-
nity of interest with the CWA represented employees to such
an extent that they should be included in the near system
wide CWA represented unit.
ORTT maintains that the unit it represents continues to
exist as a separate identifiable unit of employees performing
historically distinct work, and should not be accreted into the
CWA represented unit of employees. The Montana state-
wide unit employees represented by IBEW is not at issue in
this proceeding.
Unlike most of the other Bell operating companies, Pacific
Northwest Bell owned, operated and maintained the long dis-
tance or ‘‘toll’’ equipment and facilities A T & T Long
Lines provided this service for most of the other Bell oper-
ating companies.
Historically, ORTT has represented those employees of
Pacific Northwest Bell who were generally engaged in pro-
viding and maintaining long distance or toll telephone trans-
mission work. Board certification of ORTT and collective-
bargaining agreements between ORTT and Pacific Northwest
Bell for ‘‘toll’’ employees date back to the late 1940s. CWA
has, during this period of time, represented Pacific Northwest
Bell employees engaged in providing and maintaining local
exchange telephone transmission.
At the time of certification and for some time thereafter,
each group required specialized training in their own area of
work as the technology differed. Local exchange employees
represented by CWA did not work on toll equipment and toll
employees represented by ORTT did not perform Local ex-
change work.
Telephone technology has developed so that equipment no
longer is dedicated solely to either local or toll transmission
and the technology has ceased to distinguish toll from local
transmissions. Technology has progressed from telephone
transmission by vacuum tubes, to transistors, to computer
digital technology to, most recently, the use of fiber optics,
which are capable of transmitting many times more messages
than previously allowed with old technology. New tech-
nology allows for remote testing whereas previously testing
had to take place in locations physically near the equipment
being tested. Toll and local technology have merged into a
single transmission technology. The Union admits as much
by stating the technological distinctions which had previously
existed between toll and local exchange equipment has been
‘‘largely obscured.’’
The merging of the two technologies has made it increas-
ingly difficult to determine whether the nature of the work
to be reformed is that of toll or local. As a result, jurisdic-
tional disputes have arisen between ORRT and CWA. In the
early 1980s, CWA and the Employer entered into an agree-
ment meant to resolve these disputes. Continued techno-
855U.S. WEST COMMUNICATIONS
logical advancement, however, further blurred the distinction
between ‘‘toll and local work’’ leading to further assignment
disputes between the two union.
In facilities where ORTT represented employees work, the
Employer must now engage in an additional operations step
to determine whether the work is of a toll or local nature in
order to assign work to the proper union. In all other States
serviced by the Employer, such an additional step is unneces-
sary. Technicians represented by CWA, and those rep-
resented by IBEW in Montana, perform all work regardless
is of its nature, toll or local. The work performed throughout
the Employer’s 14-state area in its Circuit Provisioning Cen-
ters, Central Offices, and in its Business Customer Service
Centers is identical. CWA technicians in other cities can and
do perform the work performed by ORTT represented techni-
cians. The presence of two unions in the Northwest leads to
an artificial division of work. Indeed, the technology exists
so that testing functions performed by ORTT represented
employees can be performed remotely by CWA represented
employees in any of the other states.
In some of the employer facilities, ORTT and CWA rep-
resented employees work in the same building, on the same
floor, and/or side by side. They use the same personal tools
and testing equipment. In some cases, they have common su-
pervision at the first or second level.
With the merger of the three telephone companies, the
Employer has a uniform operation throughout the 14-state
service area. Its management, administration, marketing, and
operational policies are developed and applied uniformly. A
single human resource department controls centralized per-
sonnel and labor relation functions. It has a single accounting
and payroll procedure. Training is centralized and uniform
throughout the service area.
The two collective-bargaining agreements have some dif-
fering provisions. Nevertheless, both ORTT and CWA rep-
resented employees share common working conditions to a
significant degree. The various benefit plans, EEO and af-
firmative action policies, transfer policies, vacations, holi-
days, seniority, and stock option plans are identical. The ad-
ministrative, locker, and lunch room areas are common to
both sets of employees.
As is the case here, most public utilities have a highly in-
tegrated and centralized controlled operation, wherein labor
relations policies, wage rates and progression, fringe benefits,
hiring and training procedures and other working conditions,
are centrally determined. In such cases, Board policy favors
systemwide units in public utilities. New England Telephone
Co., 242 NLRB 793 (1979).
Changes in technology, corporate, administrative, and
operational policies have caused the toll technicians to lose
their separate identity. In the central offices, the two groups
of employees often work side by side using the same equip-
ment performing similar tasks. They often work under com-
mon supervision, if not at the first level, then at the second.
They are, in reality, communication technicians. Other than
indicating they are represented by ORTT, then title of toll
technician has lost its significance. Despite some differences
created by the separate collective-bargaining agreements, the
two groups of employees share a significant community of
interest. The operations are highly integrated and there is evi-
dence of employee transfers between the two groups. They
are subject to common administrative and labor relations
policies and similar working conditions.
While the bargaining history of ORTT cannot be dis-
regarded, the significant changes occurring over the years
have eliminated the basis on which the ORTT represented
unit was deemed to be an appropriate unit.
The Board has found accretion of a separate unit of em-
ployees into an existing bargaining unit is appropriate where
the reasons for the exclusion have been eliminated. South-
western Bell Telephone Co., 254 NLRB 451 (1981). As in
Southwestern Bell, the employees represented by ORTT have
lost the distinction which previously allowed them to be rep-
resented by another labor organization in a separate bar-
gaining unit.
The Board will not impose a union through accretions
where one group is not sufficiently predominant. Boston Gas
Co., 221 NLRB 628 (1975). Such an issue does not exist in
the instant case as the CWA represented employees are over-
whelmingly predominate. CWA represents over 35,000 em-
ployees throughout the Employer’s 14-state service area,
while ORTT represents approximately 500 employees in the
Northwest. Thus, the ratio of CWA represented employees to
ORTT represented employees is 70 to 1. The unit rep-
resented by CWA is more than sufficiently predominant to
remove any question concerning overall representation in the
instant matter. Boston Gas Co., supra; Special Machine &
Engineering, 282 NLRB 1410 (1987).
As the record evidence is sufficient to make a determina-
tion in this matter, the Employer’s motions to reopen the
record for additional testimony, oral argument, and/or sub-
mission of affidavits, and to correct the transcript are denied.
Based on all the above, I conclude that all toll commu-
nication technicians, antenna technicians, and power techni-
cians which had constituted a separate bargaining unit rep-
resented by ORTT are an accretion to and part of the bar-
gaining unit set forth in the CWA agreement. Accordingly,
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the existing contractual bargaining
unit represented by the Communication Workers of America,
AFL–CIO, be, and hereby is, clarified to include all employ-
ees classified as toll communication technicians, antenna
technicians, and power technicians employed in Washington,
Oregon, and Northern Idaho, and who were previously rep-
resented by ORTT.