General Telephone Co. of Michigan

46 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD the purposes of collective bargaining. Accordingly, we shall direct an election among the following employees : All truckdrivers, helpers, and warehousemen employed in the Em- ployer's feed, wholesale, produce, and retail warehouse departments lo- cated in Mobile, Alabama, excluding all other employees, office cler- ical employees, professional employees, guards, watchmen, and all supervisors as defined in the Act. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] MEMBER LEEDOM took no part in the consideration of the above De- cision and Direction of Election. General Telephone Company of Michigan and Communications Workers of America, CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 7-RC-2522. April 5, 1955 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 Russell W. Bradley, 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 this case,' the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain em- ployees of the Employer. 3. A 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.' i The Board, on January 4, 1955, issued an Order granting a motion filed by the Peti- tioner to correct the record in certain respects., 2 The Intervenor, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Locals 1177, 1401,. and 1410, AFL, intervened upon the basis of its contracts covering employees involved herein. 3 At the hearing, the Intervenor moved to dismiss the petition, alleging the absence of a question concerning representation, upon two gronnds: (1) contract bar; and (2) the Petitioner's failure at any time to request recognition. The hearing officer referred these motions to the Board. As the petition was filed before the Mill B date of the Intervenor's concurrent contracts, it is clear, under settled Board doctrine, that the contracts, which have since expired, do not bar the petition. E. g. Central Burma, 108 NLRB 307 ; J. C. Hirschman Company, 106 NLRB 529. As to (2), the Intervenor urged in its brief that the case of Advance Pattern Company, 80 NLRB 29, is distinguishable on the ground that there, unlike the instant case, a request for recognition was made after the petition was filed. nowever, Ave hold that the princ.pie of Advancc Pattern is applicabl,^ upon the facts herein, because, while the Petitioner at no time specifically requested recognition, the existence of a real question concerning representation was made fully apparent at the hearing. See also General Shoe Corporation, 109 NLRB 618; American Tobacco Company,. Incorporated, 108 NLRB 1211 ; Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., 102 NLIM 1259, footnote 1. 112 NLRB No. 7, GENERAL TELEPHONE COMPANY OF MICHIGAN 47 4. The Employer is a telephone utility' with general offices at Mus- kegon, Michigan. It operates 75 exchanges within the State of Michi- gan.' It is physically connected with the Bell System. Functionally, the Employer is divided into 3 staff departments-treasury, personnel, and accounting and 4 operating departments-engnleering, plant, traffic, and commercial. The operating departments are divided geo- graphically into western, eastern, and southern divisions, which divi- sions are in turn subdivided into 11 districts. The Petitioner primarily seeks an election in it single systemwide unit of employees ml the Employer's traffic and plant departments. The Employer is in accord with this request. The Intervenor opposes the Petitioner's primary unit proposal, contending that separate units of plant and traffic employees, for whom it has bargained with the Employer in the past,' are alone appropriate. The Petitioner alter- natively would accept such separate departmentwide units. Like most telephone companies, the Employer is operated as a single integrated system. Although the Board has long recognized that the interdependence of functions performed by a telephone utility war- rants the combination of all departments in a single systemwide unit,' is has not found appropriate units combining some but not all depart- ments of such utilities as requested herein by the Petitioner and the Employer, absent a bargaining history thereon,' or agreement of the parties.' In support of their request, the Petitioner and the Employer place main reliance upon the fact that the plant and traffic departments alone are together responsible for providing continuous service to the Em- ployer's customers on a 24-hour basis. However, as noted by the Inter- venor in its brief, a number of factors militate against such a unit. Thus, the traffic department embraces white-collar employees, while the plant department is composed almost exclusively of physical work- ers. Each department has a separate supervisory Hierarchy. There is no interchange of employees between the two departments. Finally, each department has separate records, training facilities, and seniority 4 The Employer is one of the associated companies of the General Telephone System, is hich is contiolled by General Telephone Corporation of New Yoik B Of the 75 exchanges, 13 are operated by independent contractors, none of whose em- ployees ate involved herein An unspecified number ate appaicntly unattended dial ex- changes The Intervenor's most recent contracts covei,ng these employees, for a 1-year period «hich expired August 23, 1954, were negotiated and ratified on a departmentwide basis Its next preceding contracts, which were for 3-year terms, likewise on their faces cover the same departmental units The Intervenor has bargained for the employees involved herein at least since 1945, but it is not clear from the record whether, prior to 1950, such bar- gaining was on the basis of 6 divisions or 2 departments. 4 See The Ohio Bell Telephone Company, 87 NLRB 1555, 1559 , Del Rio & Winter Garden Telephone Company, 85 NLRB 199, The People's Telephone Corporation, 69 NLRB 540, 543 , Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company, 61 NLRB 447, 450 8 See Sonthives tern Associated Telephone Company, 76 NLRB 1105, 1111. 9 See Ohio Telephone Company, 72 NLRB 488. 48 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD provisions. Moreover, the Intervenor, apparently in recognition of a diversity of interests, has never, in its bargaining relations with the Employer since 1945, merged these two groups of employees, but has negotiated contracts on the basis of separate departmentwide units at least since 1950. In these circumstances, we are of the opinion that the requested single unit of plant and traffic department employees is inappropriate,16 and in view of the Petitioner's alternative request and the bargaining history based thereon, we shall direct elections in sepa- rate systemwide units of employees in each of these departments here- inafter found appropriate. There remains for consideration the question of including or exclud- ing certain disputed classifications of employees from the traffic unit : Service assistants : The Employer, opposed by the Petitioner and the Intervenor, contends that the service assistants are supervisors as de- fined in the Act. These employees at present are included in the Intervenor's unit. The traffic department, under a superintendent, has between 400 and 500 operators handling manual calls at the exchanges. Each of the three geographic divisions of the department is under a traffic super- visor. At various exchanges are 16 chief operators and 17 cashier- chief operators. At the Muskegon exchange, by far the largest, there are also three assistant chief operators. Ranking next in the department and immediately above the operators are the disputed service assistants, junior and senior," 65 in number. At each exchange where they are utilized, service assistants are as- signed stations normally comprising 8 to 12 operators. While on such duty, the service assistants supply operators with equipment needs, handle certain types of calls, provide assistance when needed, correct errors in operating technique,'' and may vary seat assignments to accommodate for unexpected increases in certain types of traffic. Their duties may also require them to train new operators. They re- ceive a wage differential over operators of from 5 to 181/ cents an hour. Service assistants attend meetings with traffic department supervisors for the discussion of operational problems and changes in technique. While chief operators work weekdays from 8 to 5 o'clock," service assistants work split shifts around the clock. During evenings, nights, and weekends, when traffic is reduced, a service assistant (or, if none, an operator) is designated to be in charge. At such times, she 10 See Florida Telephone Corporation, 92 NLRB 1696. See also Michigan Bell Telephone Company, 63 NLRB 941 "As they have the same duties , junior and senior service assistants are treated the same for the purpose of the issues herein 13 The Employer's guide tor long-distance operating technique is the Bell System's Toll Operating Practices (TOP). The same general principles govern the Employer's technique for handling local manual calls - 13 At the Muskegon exchange, an assistant chief operator is usually on duty until 11 p. m. weekdays. GENERAL TELEPHONE COMPANY OF MICHIGAN 49) enjoys an additional 5 cents' wage differential and is responsible for maintaining operations in accordance with established procedures. If she is in doubt as to the proper handling of an operational problem,, she calls the chief operator or another local superior for instructions. In the course of their duties, service assistants make certain reports. to chief operators. For example, at the end of a trainee's initial train- ing, the service assistant instructor completes a training adaptability form 14 and gives her opinion (under remarks) as to the trainee's readi- ness for assignment to operator duty and whether special guidance in certain areas is advisable. In addition, service assistants are required to make formal observations of each operator's performance. An ob- servation is made by plugging in on an operator's switchboard for a period of time. Upon the basis of the calls thus monitored, the service assistant rates various aspects of the operator's technique, as well as the condition of the equipment, following which she gives an overall grade to the observation.15 Completed observations are kept on file in the personnel folders of the operators. Finally, from time to time,, service assistants prepare memoranda and make oral reports to chief operators, some of which point to persistent errors in technique or grossly improper behavior of operators,16 and others, usually solicited by the chief operators, render opinions as to the qualifications of oper- ators for promotion. Although chief operators make thorough in- vestigations before disciplining operators or effecting changes in their- status, and are in a position to form personal estimates of their quali- fications, the above-described reports of service assistants, where per- tinent, are always considered as part of such investigations. Apart from other indicia of supervisory authority," the issue most seriously contested by the parties at the hearing and in their briefs is whether or not the Employer's service assistants have the power effec- tively to recommend changes in status of the operators working under them. The Employer contends that such power exists and has been exercised by virtue of the fact that chief operators rely upon the re- ports of service assistants in deciding whether to make changes in status. The Petitioner and the Intervenor, on the other hand, urge that the effectiveness of these reports as recommendations is nullified by the fact that independent investigations are always made by the 1* At the Muskegon exchange , such reports are submitted to the assistant chief operator in charge of training 1s On infrequent occasions , a chief operator may make an observation. 19 In one instance , a service assistant, who was in charge at the time, sent an operator home for misconduct . However, the operator involved had been given a last warning by the chief operator of the exchange , and the incident is the only one cited by the Employer involving direct discipline by a service assistant. 17 The record clearly establishes that the Employer's service assistants have no authority to hire, discharge, assign, promote, or discipline employees In view of our finding below that service assistants are supervisors on the basis of then authority to effectively recom- mend, we find it unnecessary to decide herein whether or not they also give responsible direction to the opei atois N%oiking under them 50 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD chief operators before action is taken. The record shows, however. that service assistants have, by the very nature of their positions, more than any one else in the exchanges, an intimate knowledge of the oper- ators' work performance. Moreover, the reports hereinbefore de- scribed, which are required of the service assistants in the course of their dutles,18 are not merely factual but frequently contain evaluations o f the operators' work and abilities, which evaluations are of such Mature as to imply recommendations regarding changes in status.'0 For these reasons and upon the entire record in this case, we find that the opinions of service assistants are given substantial weight by chief operators in determining whether changes in status should be made, and that, despite the fact that they may be subject to an independent investigation, such opinions constitute effective recommendations.20 We conclude that the Employer's service assistants are supervisors as defined in the Act and, notwithstanding their past inclusion in the Intervenor's unit,21 we shall exclude them from the unit found ap- propriate herein. Service observers and PBX service representative: The Employer, unlike the Petitioner, contends that the two service observers and the PBX service representative are managerial employees and should therefore be excluded from the unit. The Intervenor has not in the past included them in its traffic unit and is now neutral as to their inclusion or exclusion. The service observers make random observations at the various exchanges,22 mainly Muskegon, upon the basis of which they grade the quality of services rendered at the exchange as a whole. They have no employees working under them and submit reports to the methods and results supervisor in the general office of the traffic department, who draws conclusions therefrom and formulates policy recommendations. As it is evident that their reports are of a factual nature and do not have as a function the making of policy recom- 18 The fact that sonic of these reports may be solicited by chief operators does not in itself detract from their character .is effective recominendations See Legion Utensils Coin- pan y, 109 NLIIr, 1327 ; United Aircraft Corporation. 108 NLRI: 52. " See Tropical S,adio & Telegraph Company, 63 NLRB 1118, 1120; Carthage Fabrics Corporation, 101 NLIIB 541, 547 (IR) , United Aircraft Corporation, supra, Legion Uten- site Company. supra ^ See Ceneial Telephone Company of California, 106 NLRB X413, fluff States Telephone Company, 101 NLRI: 270, 273 See also Aniei scan Luniber & Treating Co , 107 NLRB No 37 (not reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders) , Seashore ITrans- portation Company, 95 NLRB 1296 , Diane Safety Appliances Company, 85 NLRB 290, 296 , Radio Corporation of America, 74 NLRK 430, Republic Steel Corporation, 72 NLRB 525. 21 West Vii ginia Pulp ,f Paper Company, 89 NLRB 815, 821 22 In the case of service observer observations, unlike those made by service assistants, the identity of the operators under observation is an unimportant factor, and their identity is in fact usually unknown. -Moreover other diffeienees exist between the two types of ob- .sers ations GENERAL TELEPHONE COMPANY OF MICHIGAN 51 mendations, we find that the service observers are not managerial employees and we see no reason for excluding them from the traffic unit. They are therefore included. The PBX service representative travels throughout the State visiting the Employer's customers with private switchboards. She advises such customers as to operating technique and equipment needs, investigates their service complaints, and trains their employees. She reports directly to the superintendent of the traffic department. As it does not appear that the PBX service representative takes part in the formulation of management policy, we find that she is not a managerial employee.23 In the circumstances, we shall include her in the traffic unit. We find that the following employees of the Employer's telephone utility centered at Muskegon, Michigan, constitute separate units appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act, excluding from each unit all professional employees, managerial employees, confidential em- ployees,24 guards, all other employees, and all other supervisors as defined in the Act : (1) All employees in the plant department, excluding the following classifications: general plant superintendent, staff assistant for main- tenance, construction foreman, division maintenance supervisor, auto- motive equipment and building administrator, staff assistant for plant methods, warehouse foreman, division construction supervisor, divi- sion equipment engineer, district installation and maintenance super- visor, installation and maintenance foreman, PBX installation and maintenance foreman, chief switchman, wire chief, cable foreman, repairshop foreman, training and safety director, and division equip- ment supervisor ; and (2) All employees in the traffic department, excluding the follow- ing classifications : general traffic superintendent, general traffic en- gineer, methods and results supervisor, force adjustment supervisor, division traffic supervisor, chief operator, cashier-chief operator, assistant chief operator, and service assistant. [Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication.] MEMBER LEEDOM took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Direction of Elections. 23 See Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, 79 NLRB 549. 24 At the hearing, the parties stipulated to the exclusion as confidential employees of the following classifications : clerk to chief switchman, stenographer to installation and maintenance supervisor , stenographer to division plant superintendent, clerk to general equipment supervisor , and secretary to general plant superintendent in the plant depart- ment ; and secretary, senior clerk, and division traffic clerk in the traffic department 369028-56-vol 112-5