Great Lakes Pipe Line Co.

In the Matter of GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY, EMPLOYER and OIL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, LOCAL 348, C. I. 0., PETITIONER Case No.'18-R=1713.Decided April 200,1947 Messrs. Charles Of. Blackmar and E. H. Skinner, of Kansas City, Mo., for the Employer. Mr. Ray Collier, of Kansas City, Kans., and Mr. John R. Burk- hart, of Kansas City, Mo., for the Petitioner. Mr. Stanley R. Strauss, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon an amended petition duly filed, hearing in this case was held at Des Moines, Iowa, on February 13, 1947, before Clarence A. Meter, hearing officer.' The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT 1. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, a Delaware corporation with its principal office located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a common carrier engaged in the transportation of refined petroleum products. Its op- erations are conducted in 8 States under tariffs filed with the Inter- state Commerce Commission. The Employer owns none of the prod- ucts which it transports. Its system embraces over 2,000 miles of pipe lines, 4,000 miles of wire, and more than 1,000 miles of pole lines. During 1946, the Employer transported through its pipe lines involved in this proceeding, running from Iowa to Minnesota, petro- leum products in excess of 25,000 barrels per day. I Gas and Oil Drivers, Bulk Plant Employees, and Service Station Attendants Union, Local 975 , A. F. of L., served with Notice of Hearing, did not appear and took no part in the proceeding. 73 N. L. R. B., No. 89. 454 GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY 455 The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. IL THE ORGANIZATION INVOLVED The Petitioner is a labor organization affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations, claiming to represent employees of the Employer. M. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit. We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT . At the time of the filing of the petition herein, the Employer divided its pipe-line operations into 5 districts, known as superintendent dis- tricts Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Each of the superintendent districts was concerned with the operation and maintenance of properties within its geographic confines. Subsequently, the Employer reorganized its operations, and established 3 instead of 5 geographic areas. The new areas were designated the Southern District, the Northern District, and the Northwestern District. As a result of the reorganization, super- intendent district No. 5,2 which included 525 miles of 6-inch pipe, 10 pump stations, and terminals at Mason City, Iowa, and Minneapolis, Minnesota,3 became a part of the newly created Northern District. The Petitioner seeks a unit composed of operating and maintenance employees in the Employer's previously designated superintendent district No. 5, excluding employees in the Minneapolis terminal, tele- phone linemen, the district clerk, the chief terminal clerk, and other supervisory employees. The Employer agrees generally with the ap- propriateness of the proposed unit, but contends that it should be de- fined in terms which would exclude future employees of an uncompleted branch line. The Employer also would exclude employees in the job classifications hereinafter discussed. 2 Superintendent district No. 5 commenced at a point approximately 3 miles north of Des Moines , Iowa, where the Employer's Chicago line branches off from the line to Minne- apolis, Minnesota. 8 Gas and Oil Drivers, Bulk Plant Employees , and Service Station Attendants Union, Local 975 , A. F. of L, has acted as bargaining representative of employees in the Minne- apolis terminal since 1945 , following proceedings before the Minnesota Department of Conciliation . A current contract with the Employer involving employees of the Minne- apolis terminal terminates on April 30, 1947. 456 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR. RELATIONS BOARD The Branch Line The Employer presently is constructing, within the area previously designated as superintendent district No. 5 and now within the Northern District, a branch line from the Albert Lea, Minnesota, pump station to a terminal being built at Mankato, Minnesota. The distance covered by the new branch line is approximately 65 miles. It is not now in operation, and the date of its completion is un- certain. No employees are presently engaged thereon, but it is contemplated that when the branch line is in operation as maiiy as 12 employees with classifications similar to those now employed by the Employer in like operations will be hired to maintain the pipe line and operate the Mankato terminal' The situation involving the branch line is unlike that in an expand- ing factory unit, where operations are unified and contiguous. We regard the branch line as a separate operation of the Employer, presently cut off from its other operations. The uncertainties inher- ent in such circumstances preclude-us from making a present deter- mination regarding the appropriateness of including within the unit employees who may be hired in the future to work on the branch line and terminal. Accordingly, we shall exclude the branch line and the Mankato terminal, and shall limit the scope of the unit to employees working on facilities currently operated by the Employer." Such limitation is without prejudice to later proceedings and a future determination of the proper unit placement of employees hired to operate the branch line and terminal. Disputed Job Classifications The job classifications in dispute involve clerks and laboratory employees : Clerks: At its Mason City terminal the Employer has six office employees classified as billing and terminal clerks. The clerks, who are paid an hourly wage,, work under the supervision of the chief terminal clerk. In addition to other clerical and stenographic duties, the billing clerks prepare bills of lading and shipping documents, and operate a teletype machine. The terminal clerks are beginners who serve as mail clerks and typists. During the war, in the absence of qualified personnel, non-typists were employed as clerks, but all clerks are now required to be qualified typists. In two previous proceedings before the Board involving the Em- ployer's operations, clerks in these classifications were included in operating and maintenance units for employees in superintendent " On January 27, 1947 , there were 58 non-supervisory employees in superintendent district No 5, exclusive of employees in the Minneapolis terminal. 5 Matter of The Texas company, 63 N. L. R B. 1334 GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY 457 districts Nos. 2 and 3.6 In neither of these cases did the Employer take a position regarding the unit placement of the clerks, although a decision including them was rendered by the Board in the second case because of a dispute between the Petitioner herein and another labor organization involved in the proceeding. As a result of these decisions, billing and terminal clerks have been included within the scope of subsequent contracts negotiated by the Employer and the Petitioner for employees in these units. They have also been in- eluded within a contract between the Employer and the Petitioner for a third group of operating and maintenance employees who were the subjects of a consent election.? However, clerks have been ex- cluded from the bargaining contracts covering employees at the Employer's Minneapolis terminal." In view of the lack of uniformity in the bargaining history of other organized divisions of the Employer's operations and the absence of prior bargaining history among the employees herein involved, we shall, in accordance with our usual practice, exclude the clerks from the appropriate unit. Laborator y employees: Although laboratory positions are presently unfilled, the Employer contemplates the hiring at the Mason City terminal of employees to fill positions of terminal testers, junior ter- minal testers, and tester helpers. These positions exist elsewhere in the Employer's system, and their incumbents receive an hourly wage. Employees who fill the positions will be supervised by the chief ter- minal tester, whom the parties have agreed to exclude from the unit. Terminal testers make octane number determinations and perform other complex chemical tests. If properly qualified, they can perform all work connected with the chemical testing of gasoline and other refined petroleum products. Before the manpower shortage caused by the war, only college graduates, with one exception, were hired for these positions. At the present time, approximately two-thirds of the terminal testers engaged by the Employer throughout its system are college graduates. Junior terminal testers and tester helpers per- form chemical tests less complex than those performed by the terminal testers, and are required to do the routine, maintenance work in the laboratory. Experience as a junior terminal tester and as a tester helper is valuable in acquiring the ability to qualify as a terminal tester and chief terminal tester. The Employer intends to fill all tester positions with college graduates in chemistry, or with personnel having college training in chemistry. Employees in the disputed laboratory classifications were excluded by agreement of the parties in the first Board case mentioned above, 0 Matter of Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, 56 N L. R. B. 227; and Matter of Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, 64 N L R B 1296 ° Case No 17-R-1211 The consent election was held on October 8, 1945. 8 See footnote 3, supra. 458 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and were not specifically mentioned in the second case.9 A contract, however, subsequently negotiated between the Employer and the Peti- tioner involving operating and maintenance employees in the unit found appropriate in the second case has been construed by the parties to include laboratory employees within its provisions. We are of the opinion that laboratory personnel in the disputed categories are to be a group of technical employees with interests, skills, and functions different from those of operating and mainte- nance workers. As in the case of the clerks discussed above, in view of the lack of uniformity in the bargaining history of other organized divisions of the Employer's operations, and in the absence of prior bargaining history among the employees herein concerned, we shall, in accordance with our usual practice,1° exclude the laboratory em- ployees from the appropriate unit. We find that all operating and maintenance employees in the form- erly designated superintendent district No. 5 which is now a part of the Employer's Northern District, excepting the branch line from Albert Lea to Mankato, Minnesota, and the terminal at Mankato, ex- cluding employees in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, terminal, telephone linemen, the district clerk, terminal and billing clerks, terminal testers, junior terminal testers, tester helpers, the chief terminal clerk, the chief terminal tester, and all other supervisory employees with au- thority to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, constitute a unit appropriate for the 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 pur- poses of collective bargaining with Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, Kansas City, Missouri, an election by secret ballot shall be conducted as early as possible, but not later than thirty (30) days from the date of this Direction, under the direction and supervision of the Regional Director for the Eighteenth Region, acting in this matter as agent for the National Labor Relations Board, and subject to Sections 203.55 and 203.56, of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions-Series 4, among the employees in the unit found appropriate in Section IV, above, who were employed during the pay-roll period im- mediately preceding the date of this Direction, including employees who did not work during said pay-roll period because they were ill or on vacation or temporarily laid off, and including employees in ° See footnote 6, supra. i° Matter of United States Gypsum Company, 72 N. L. R. B. 863; Matter of Sheffield Farms Co , Inc. , 71 N. L R. B., 427 ; Matter of Armour Fertilizer Works, 66 N. L. R. B. 365. GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY 459 the armed forces of the United States who present themselves in per- son at the polls, 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, to determine whether or not they de- sire to be represented by Oil Workers International Union, Local 348, C. 1. 0., for the purposes of collective bargaining. CHAIRMAN HERZOG took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Direction of Election. a