Central Greyound Lines

In the Matter Of CENTRAL GREYHOUND LINES, DivisioN OF THE CrRE, Y- HOUND CORPORATION, EMPLOYER and TRANSPORT WORKERS UNION OF AMERICA, CIO, PETITIONER Case No. 8-RC-546.-Decided January 6, 1950 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before Carroll Mar- tin, 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 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 representa- tion 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 contends that the transportation, terminal, and maintenance employees of the Employer who work within the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, Ohio, area constitute a separate appropriate bargaining unit, apart from other employees in other geographical areas of the Employer's bus transportation system.' The Employer and Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America, A. F. of L., herein called the Inter- venor International, and its Division No. 1043 contend that the pro- posed unit is not appropriate for the Employer's employees, alleging (1) that a system-wide unit, which is the present contract unit, is the 1 The Petitioner refers to the Akron , Canton, and Youngstown area as the "Akron, Youngstown , and Canton Division" and as the "Youngstown and Akron Districts." The record does not show that the Employer operates a division known as the "Akron, Youngs- town, and Canton Division," or that it operates a sector known as a "District." 88 NLRB No. 6. 13 14 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD only appropriate unit for the Employer's employees; and (2) that the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown area does not describe any ad- ministrative sector of the Employer's transportation system, but is a portion of the Cleveland Division of the Employer. The Employer, a wholly owned subsidiary of Greyhound Corpora- tion, operates a bus transportation system, using through routes to and from Chicago, New York, and Boston, and shorter routes in and through Illinois, Indiana., Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and other States. Its transportation system, with main offices at Cleveland, Ohio, is divided into eight operating divi- sions named after the following cities which serve as the respective division headquarters : New York, Albany, Syracuse, Scranton, Rochester, Buffalo, Chicago, and Cleveland.2 The Cleveland Division, which is the only operating division of the Employer involved in this proceeding, extends from Port Alle- gheny, Pennsylvania, west to Toledo, Ohio, including routes within a geographical area extending south from Cleveland to the Employ- er's other terminal cities of Akron, Canton, and Youngstown, Ohio, and their surrounding communities. The routes within this area, herein called the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown area, are substan- tially the same as those which were formerly operated by Ohio Grey- hound Lines, Inc., herein called Ohio Greyhound. On January 1, 1949, the Employer acquired the assets of Ohio Greyhound and com- menced its own operation of those routes as part of its transportation system in its Cleveland Division. Since January 1, 1949, the Employer has integrated the operations of Ohio Greyhound with its own, by transferring the functions of Ohio Greyhound's Youngstown headquarters to Cleveland, discon- tinuing the Ohio Greyhound maintenance garage at Canton and establishing a uniform maintenance policy for the other Cleveland Division maintenance garages, reemploying former Ohio Greyhound employees as its own employees, and interchanging former Ohio Greyhound equipment on its Cleveland Division routes. Working conditions are uniform throughout the Employer's sys- tem. Labor relations policies are formulated in Cleveland, and pay- rolls for the system are prepared there. Supervision of employees is organized on a division-wide basis. In the Cleveland Division, ulti- mate supervision over drivers is vested in the regional manager, who formulates division-wide policies which are administered locally by three superintendents at Cleveland, Canton, and Youngstown. In the salve manner, ultimate supervision over terminal employees is in 2 The Cleveland Division also maintains a separate accounting office in Syracuse, New York, in order to satisfy the requirements of New York law. CENTRAL GREYHOUND LINES 15 the general traffic manager, under whom are the terminal managers of the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown terminals. Ultimate super- vision over maintenance employees is in the manager of maintenance, under whom are three garage superintendents, located at the mainte- nance garages in Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown, respectively. Although drivers are hired in the field, they are required to take driver examinations in Cleveland. Before the Employer acquired the assets of Ohio Greyhound and be- gan its administration of the latter's routes, the Employer bargained with the Intervenor International for its transportation, terminal, and maintenance employees through Amalgamated Joint Executive Council, composed of representatives of the Intervenor Inter- national's Divisions 1200, 1201, 1202, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1206, and 1207.3 On January 1, 1949, a contract bearing an expiration date of October 31, 1949, and signed by Amalgamated Joint Executive Council on behalf of these eight named divisions of the Employer, was in effect covering the Employer's employees. On January 1, 1949, when the Employer acquired the assets of Ohio Greyhound, the Intervenor International's Division 1043 was the recognized bargaining represen- tative of Ohio Greyhound employees. On January 9, 1949, following the Employer's acquisition of the assets of-Ohio Greyhound, the Intervenor International's Division No. 1043 entered into an agree- ment with the Employer, adopting the contract executed between Amalgamated Joint Executive Council and the Employer for the Employer's newly acquired employees. Since that date, meetings were held, attended by representatives of the Employer and of the afore-mentioned eight Amalgamated divisions and of Division 1043, at which were discussed labor relations, contract interpretations and amendments, grievances, and working conditions. Understandings of system-wide application arrived at in the course of these meetings were put into effect throughout the Employer's operating divisions. Understandings of local application, on the other hand, were put into effect locally; these included agreements amending and supple- menting wage differentials, originally provided in the contract to reflect population and topographic variations in operating conditions, within areas and routes of the system.4 8 This contract also, covered terminal and maintenance employees of West Ridge Trans- portation Company and Buffalo and Erie Coach Corporation. Operators for those com- panies are represented by Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. The Employer has applied to Interstate Commerce Commission and to Public Service Commission of New York for permission to merge the operations of those companies with its own. 'The contract contains a schedule of mileage rates for drivers east of Scranton and Albany, and another for drivers west of those points, with a differential in favor of the eastern drivers, in view of the slower schedule speeds resulting from the populous and mountainous areas traversed by their routes. On some routes, and for similar reasons, compensation is figured on an hourly basis. 16 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD . In cases involving bus transportation companies, this Board has found appropriate division-wide 6 and system-wide 6 units of operat- ing and maintenance employees. In the instant case, the evidence shows that the Employer operates a highly integrated transportation system composed of eight divisions which administer locally the labor and other policies formulated at its main offices in Cleveland. Collective bargaining, in behalf of the Employer and its employees, is conducted on a system-wide basis through representatives of all interested divisions of both parties. The same pattern of collective bargaining is reflected in other Greyhound systems throughout the United States. The unit sought to be established by the Petitioner, on the other hand, is not a system-wide or a division-wide unit, nor is it coextensive with any recognized administrative sector within the Employer's entire system. Because the company under which the proposed unit formerly obtained is no longer in existence and the operations of that company have become so integrated with the Em- ployer's operations as to have lost their separate identity almost com- pletely, the mere fact that such a unit formerly existed, and presently defines the extent of the Petitioner's organization of the Employer's employees, is not, in our opinion, sufficient justification for its reestab- lishment at this time. We therefore find that the unit requested by the Petitioner is inappropriate, and we shall dismiss the petition. ORDER . IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and the same hereby is, dismissed. 5 Continental Bats System, Inc., 84 NLRB 670. 1 Transcontinental Bus System, Inc., supra, and cases cited therein.