Red Hook Telephone Co.

260 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Red Hook Telephone Company and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 3-RC-4125 November 16, 1967 DECISION ON REVIEW BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING AND BROWN On May 5, 1967, the Acting Regional Director for Region 3 issued a Decision and Direction of Election, attached hereto, in which he found ap- propriate a unit of all production and maintenance employees in the Employer's plant and traffic de- partments, excluding, inter alia, all commercial de- partment employees. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Rela- tions Board Rules and Regulations, as amended, the Employer filed with the National Labor Relations Board a timely request for review of said Decision on the grounds that the Acting Regional Director erred in finding appropriate a unit smaller than systemwide, encompassing the commercial depart- ment employees as well as those in the plant and traffic departments. The Board, by telegraphic Order dated June 30, 1967, granted the 'request for review and stayed the election. Thereafter, the Petitioner filed a brief on review. The Employer filed a motion to suppress and strike from the files said brief on review, which motion was denied by the Board on July 20, 1967. The Board' has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, in- cluding the Petitioner's brief on review, and makes the following findings. The Employer is a telephone utility servicing some 13,000 people in an area of about 226 square miles in upstate New York. Its operations are or- ganized along lines conventional in the industry, being subdivided into accounting, commercial, traf- fic, and plant departments. There are 17 operators in the traffic department; 11 construction and in- stallation men, 1 stockroom man, and 2 plant clerks in the plant department; 11 clerical employees in the commercial department; and 1 accountant in the accounting department. The Petitioner seeks a unit confined to employees in the traffic and plant de- partments. The Employer contends that only a systemwide unit of employees in all departments is appropriate. We find merit in this contention. Most plant department employees are located in a building in Rad Hook, New York, but two plant department clericals are quartered in the Em- ployer's main office in Rhinebeck. All traffic de- partment employees are situated at the Rhinebeck main office building. Three commercial department employees are located in Red Hook, and the remaining eight at the Rhinebeck main office build- ing on the same floor as the aforementioned plant department clericals. Although each department ap- pears to be separately supervised, benefits, terms and conditions of employment, and labor policy ap- pear to be common on a systemwide basis. There is no relevant history of collective bargaining. We do not agree with the Acting Regional Director's conclusion that a multidepartment but less than systemwide unit is here appropriate. The record amply supports the Acting Regional Director's description of the degree of interdepart- mental functional overlap present in the Employer's operations, and we note that there are substantial contacts between employees in the various depart- ments throughout the system. However, contrary to the Acting Regional Director, we find that the overlap is such as to militate against the separate identity of the requested departmental unit, particu- larly in light of the smallness of the Employer's complement of employees and the small geographi- cal area involved. Accordingly, we conclude, in agreement with the Employer's contention, that the appropriate unit herein for the purposes of collec- tive bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act is a systemwide unit of all of its employees.' Although the unit we thus find appropriate is broader than that sought by the Petitioner, we shall not dismiss the petition inasmuch as the Petitioner had indicated its desire to proceed to an election in the broader unit if found appropriate. We shall therefore remand the case to the Regional Director for the purpose of conducting an election pursuant to the Acting Regional Director's Decision and Direction of Election, as modified herein, subject to the Regional Director's ascertaining that the Peti- tioner has made an adequate showing of interest among the employees in the appropriate unit,3 and with the further exception that the eligibility date shall be that immediately preceding the date below. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Rela- tions Act, as amended, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel 2 As the record does not enable us to ascertain whether or not a basis exists for excluding the sole accountant in the accounting department, we shall permit him to vote subject to challenge ' A corrected election eligibility list, containing the names and ad- dresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director within 7 days after the date of this Decision on Review The, list may initially be used by the Regional Director to assist in determining an adequate showing of interest The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election when he shall have determined that an adequate showing of interest among the employees in the unit found appropriate has been established No extension of time to file this list may be granted except in extraordinary circumstances Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the elec- tion whenever proper objections are filed Excelsior Underwear Inc , 156 NLRB 1236 168 NLRB No. 32 RED HOOK TELEPHONE COMPANY 261 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELEC- TION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before a Hearing Officer of the National Labor Relations Board. 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 Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connec- tion with this case to Regional Director Thomas H. Ramsey. Upon the entire record in this case, the Regional Director finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pur- poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organization involved claim(s) to represent certain employees of Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of col- lective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: I All production and maintenance employees of the Employer at its Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Tivoli, Staatsburg, and Elizeville, New York, places of business including construction men, central office employees, operators, traffic clerks, and building service employees and ex- cluding all commercial, accounting and busi- ness office employees, professional employees, guards and all supervisors as defined in the Act.2 DIRECTION OF ELECTION [Direction of Election3 omitted from publica- tion.] ' The parties disagree as to the scope of the unit The Petitioner , contra- ry to the Employer, would exclude all commercial accounting and busi- ness office employees (herein referred to as the commercial department) The Employer maintains that only a systemwide unit of all its employees is appropriate The Employer bases its contentions on the relative small- ness of its operation and the alleged interchange of employees involved in its operation The Employer maintains its principal office at Red Hook, New York, and is engaged in providing telephone service to an area which includes Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Tivoli, Staatsburg, and Elizeville, New York The total employee complement of the Employer numbers approximately 41 employees There are approximately 17 operators , I I construction and in- stallation men , I stockroom man, 2 plant clerks , and I I commercial de- partment clerical employees The Tivoli, Elizeville, and Staatsburg offices are nonattended dial of- fices where switching equipment at each location automatically takes care of telephone calls Each day a maintenance employee will visit these of- fices to make certain they are operating properly The Employer's business office is located at Red Hook and is manned by the employees of the commercial department who accept customer payments , take service orders from customers, and handle customer problems and disputes They are supervised directly by General Manager Gray, who, along with the Employer's lone accountant , is also located at Red Hook Commercial employees , according to the record , assist the ac- countant with his accounting work There is also automatic dial equipment located at Red Hook The Employer 's garage , located at Red Hook, houses its construction and installation employees, a storeroom, and its trucks The construction and installation employees build pole lines and run, splice , and maintain cable There are no operators located at Red Hook The Employer also has a business office located at Rhinebeck which houses more commercial department employees who perform the same functions as those at the Red Hook office, except they also post customer payments Also, at Rhinebeck , the Employer has IBM equipment for toll billing which is operated by two employees who are classified as belonging to the commercial department All of the operators in the traffic department are located at Rhinebeck One operator devotes part of her time performing other traffic work which includes the posting of traffic information records on new service going into or listings coming out of the information files Also located at Rhinebeck are the repair servicemen and a plant clerk who relays incom- ing repair calls to the installer repairmen Another plant clerk also located at Rhinebeck posts plant records related to pole and cable information She summarizes all the time sheets for the installer repairmen As the Em- ployer has its trucks maintained by an outside garage , there are no em- ployees who fit the description motor vehicle service employee , and for that reason the said title has been deleted from the unit description Except for wage rates and wage progression steps, the benefits received by the employees in all of the departments are the same . All are hourly paid and are compensated for overtime . The plant department works from 7 30 to 4 30 p in , the commercial department works for the most part from 8 to 4 30 p in , with the exception of a few employees who work from 8.30 to 5 p in The operators work on a rotating schedule because of the necessity for manning that function on a 24-hour basis While the record indicates that the employees from various departments do perform work which is related to or properly classified as work of another department , it does not disclose any significant degree of actual interchange between employees of the various departments Thus, in the late evening hours when operators are not busy in the traffic department and have time to spare , there is a practice of letting certain operators rate cards or toll tickets which , according to the record, is a task normally han- dled by the commercial department employees Also, about twice a year the A T & T Company will request a special study on toll calls which employees from the commercial department usually handle According to the record , the employees in the traffic department will frequently help out during the period of the study which requires from I to 2 weeks to complete Also, one of the plant clerks from the plant department will devote 2 or 3 days a month helping the commercial department in their billing operations She also counts coin box money which the Employer considers commercial department work Further, a girl from the commer- cial department will relieve a girl in the repair department during the day for 15-minute periods to permit the latter to take her break About once a year, there is a large amount of work to be done on the change of service cards which is ordinarily the task of the plant repair service girl Commer- cial department employees will, at this time, be assigned to help with this task The Employer also stresses the fact that the employees in the com- mercial department write all work or service orders and sometimes post them in the plant department records Finally, according to the record, the operators do not intermingle with the commercial employees and the com- mercial employees never act as operators The record also discloses that the employees in the various departments perform their work in areas which are physically separated from each other The parties stipulated , and I find , that Bravender , the chief operator; H Abnal, the supervisor of the installation men, E Abnal , the wire chief and supervisor of the plant department (central office equipment), Cohen, the chief accountant, Lawn, the supervisor of construction , Gray, the general manager who supervises the commercial and business office employees, (Footnotes continued on following page) 262 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD (Footnotes continued from preceding page) Peter Troy II, assistant general manager, and Peter F Troy, vice pres- ident and director , have authority to hire or discharge or effectively recommend such action, and are supervisors within the meaning of the Act Thus, it appears that the employees of the various departments in- volved herein are separately supervised It does not appear from the record that any other union is seeking a larger unit than the unit requested by the Petitioner herein While the Em- ployer stresses on the record that the Petitioner , at a former time, unsuc- cessfully sought recognition to bargain on behalf of a systemwide unit, the record does not establish that there has been a history of bargaining for such a unit The Employer, in substance , contends that a separate unit excluding his commercial , accounting , and business office employees is inappropriate because the Board has held a separate departmental unit to be inap- propriate in the telephone industry in the absence of a history of bargain- ing for such a smaller unit it is noted , however , that in those cases another union was seeking a larger unit than the unit requested by the Petitioner therein Philadelphia Electric Company, 110 NLRB 320, California Water and Telephone Company, 117 NLRB 1056 The facts in the present matter illustrate that the work of the various departments is functionally related and that there are, to some degree, common work tasks for which employees from the commercial and other departments are utilized For these reasons the Board regards a systemwide unit as the optimum unit in the public utility industry, General Telephone Company of Ohio, 112 NLRB 1225 While a systemwide unit may be optimum, the Board has frequently found departmental or multidepart mental units ap- propriate in cases involving public utilities where, as here, no union is seeking a larger unit Philadelphia Electric Company, supra The Em- ployer apparently contends that the commercial employees have a strong community of interest with the clerical employees in the plant and traffic departments because of similarity in working conditions , the sharing of common benefits , and facilities However, as noted above , the employees of the various departments are not intermingled , do not interchange to any significant degree, and are separately supervised For these reasons, I find that the employees in the multidepartment unit requested by the Petitioner have sufficient special community of interest to warrant establishing them as a separate unit, and accordingly , I find that those employees constitute an appropriate unit for collective-bargaining purposes within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act California Water and Telephone Company, supra 2 The Petitioner, contrary to the Employer, maintains that Elsie Mc- Donald and Mabel Harms are supervisors within the meaning of the Act McDonald is classified as a senior business office girl, who , according to the record , has had more experience with the Employer than most other employees in the business office While she does tell Gray, the general manager, when another employee is not measuring up to par , it appears that Gray will always make an independent investigation of her report and that Gray is guided by her recommendations on such matters to the same extent he is guided by other nonsupervisory employees' suggestions She can ask other employees to assist her on short projects, but would need approval for such purposes if the need involved any extended period of time As an older employee, she does train new employees and can correct or criticize their work However , employees go to Gray rather than to Mc- Donald for time off and with their grievances She does not transfer or discipline employees Gray would seek her opinion of an employee's work before promoting an employee to a more difficult task. However, accord- ing to the record, he would also check with other employees in the same manner, and rely upon their opinion to the same extent he would rely on McDonald's in making his decision McDonald is paid in the same manner as all other employees, but with the exception of one elderly and longtime employee, receives about 10 percent more than the next highest paid employee in her department This difference, however, can be explained by the fact that while she has ap- proximately 15 years of service with the Employer, the next highest paid employee has worked for a period of only 4 years for the Employer From the record as a whole, it appears that McDonald does not possess sufficient authority to affect employee status or responsibly direct their work to qualify her as a supervisor within the meaning of the Act. She ap- pears to be a more experienced employee whose recommendations are re- lied upon no more than other experienced employees Her opinions are subjected to independent investigation by her immediate supervisor when they might affect the employment status of other employees. For these reasons , I find that McDonald is not a supervisor within the meaning of the Act, but I shall not include her in the unit as it is clear that her work function is related to, and is a part of, the commercial and business office operation Harms, along with two or three other girls in the traffic department, is classified as a service assistant who, in the absence of the chief operator, will perform several but not all of her functions Thus, she will excuse operators for relief purposes and will ask other operators to stay overtime, which, according to the record, appears to happen infrequently , and at a time when other recognized supervisory persons are present In the case of an absent employee whose position needs to be filled, Harms would call the chief operator to make the replacement , and only in the event that the chief operator was unavailable , would she call another operator directly The record does not disclose that Harms , in the absence of the chief operator, exercises any of the other supervisory functions possessed by the chief operator The service assistants handle customer complaints and will fill in as an operator at peak periods They watch the switchboards to see that calls are answered properly If an operator is overloaded, they will fill into help outt at the switchboard In an emergency they will take over a call They also will instruct the operators when to take their breaks Service assistants receive 15 percent more in wages than do the regular operators. From the record it appears that any authority that Harms possesses to direct the work of others is routine in nature and is performed in the capacity of a more experienced employee rather than a supervisor As it appears that Harms does not possess sufficient indicia of supervisory authority, I conclude and find that she is not a supervisor within the mean- ing of the Act and, therefore , shall include her in the unit S An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed with the Regional Director within seven (7) days of the date of this Decision and Direction of Election The Re- gional Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election. In order to be timely filed, such list must be received in the Albany Resident Office, Drislane Building, 7th Floor, 60 Chapel Street, Albany, New York 12207, on or before May 12, 1967. Under Board directives, no ex- tension of time to file this list may be granted except in extraordinary cir- cumstances , nor shall the filing of a request for review operate to stay the filing of such list Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper objections are filed Excelsior Underwear Inc , 156 NLRB 1236