Iroquois Telephone Corp.

344 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Iroquois Telephone Corporation and Communications Workers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 3-RC-4158 January 26, 1968 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING AND ZAGORIA Upon a petition filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hear- ing was held before Hearing Officer John W. Irving of the National Labor Relations Board. Thereafter, the Petitioner and the Employer each filed a brief. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connec- tion with this case to a three-member panel. The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby af- firmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board 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 assertjurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of the Employer's plant employees' at Dryden, New York. The Employer, and Western Counties Telephone Corp. and Dalton Telephone Co. are all wholly owned subsidiaries of Continental Telephone Corporation and represent all of Con- tinental's NeWYork State telephone service opera- tions. It is the Employer's position that the only ap- propriate unit of the plant employees is one coex- tensive with the operations of the three subsidiar- ies.2 There is no bargaining history for the em- ployees involved in this proceeding. The record shows that Iroquois, Western, and Dalton have by and large the same officers and directors, and that the individual who is president of all three subsidiaries is also a vice president of Continental, the parent corporation, and general manager of its northwest I'egion. Further, there is one plant superintendent for the three subsidiary ' The plant employees include such classifications as switchman, in- staller-repairman, cable splicer, and line-construction personnel. I It would, however, exclude the Sanborn District employees currently represented in a separate appropriate unit by the Petitioner. 9 As Dalton has no employees, the work in its exchange must of necess- ity be done by employees of the other subsidiaries. companies and one outside and one inside plant en- gineer. Also, employees and their equipment may be assigned not only to areas of their own com- pany's exchanges but also to exchange areas of the other subsidiaries,3 and Iroquois and Western em- ployees may have the same immediate supervision. Finally, it appears from the record that labor policy for all employees is handled mainly by a Continen- tal office in North Syracuse. The above and other factors show that Continen- tal manages its New York State operations as a sin- gle integrated enterprise. In, fact, the operations are not broken down along company lines but, rather, are organized into districts which may contain exchanges of more than one subsidiary. Each dis- trict has its own separate district manager. In these circumstances, we agree with the Employer that Continental and its three New York subsidiaries are operated as a single integrated enterprise and for unit purposes constitute a single employer of all the plant department employees in Continental's New York operations. Consequently, the optimum appropriate unit of such employees may well be, as the Employer urges, one including all such em- ployees of Continental's system in that State. How- ever, it does not follow that such unit is necessarily the only appropriate unit, especially where as here no union seeks to represent the plant employees on such a comprehensive basis. In such circumstances, a more limited unit such as one coextensive with a smaller administrative subdivision may also be appropriate.4 Continental's New York operations are adminis- tratively organized into five districts for the stated purpose of achieving the most efficient operation of the exchanges of the subsidiary companies. The dis- tricts, each with its own manager, are not drawn up on company lines but rather on geographic lines. Thus, the Alfred district includes seven Iroquois and one Dalton exchange; while the Dundee Dis- trict includes five Western and two Iroquois exchanges. As for the approximately 12 employees the Petitioner seeks, they comprise all the plant em- ployees in the Dryden district, which includes five Iroquois exchanges and one of Western. Though they are formally Iroquois employees, they are, nevertheless, not under Iroquois supervision but rather under the immediate supervision of the Dryden district manager, and they regularly service not only the Iroquois exchanges but that of Western in their district. Consequently, it appears that the plant- employees whom the Petitioner seeks com- prise a unit of such employees coextensive in scope ° The Houston Corporation, 124 N LRB 810, 811; The Hartford Elec- tric Light Company, 122 NLRB 1421, 1423-24; New England Power Company, 120 NLRB 666, 668; Montana-Dakota Utilities, 115 NLRB 1396; see also Western Light & Telephone Company, Inc., 129 NLRB 719. 169 NLRB No. 53 IROQUOIS TELEPHONE CORPORATION 345 with the Dryden district, an administrative and operational subdivision of the New York State operations. The Employer contends that, nevertheless, the Dryden plant employees cannot be separately represented because they are frequently assigned to work outside their own exchange areas. However, the evidence submitted by the Employer in support of this point is in part ambiguous and also not wholly in point. It does show, though, that 1 1 of the 12 employees spent during 1966 over 50 percent of their time working within their district and strongly suggests that 9 of the 12 spent about 90 percent or more of their time in their home district. There is no evidence of any non-Dryden employees working substantial periods of time within the Dryden dis- trict. In view of the foregoing, we believe that the Dryden plant employees comprise a readily identifi- able group having a separate and distinct communi- ty of interests of their own. Consequently, and as the Dryden plant employees comprise a grouping coextensive in scope with the Dryden district, which is an administrative subdivision of Continen- tal's operations, and as no union seeks a more com- prehensive unit, we find that the following em- ployees of the Employer constitute a unit ap- propriate for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All plant department employeese employed by the Employer in its Dryden. New York, district, excluding all other employees, all office clerical employees, and all guards, professional employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election 7 omitted from publica- tion. ] The Employer presented this evidence in terms of exchanges, not dis- tricts . However, with respect to the interchange issue, we deem it irrele- vant that the requested employees did not work full time in Iroquois exchanges but spent substantial time in the Western exchange within their district. The evidence does show that during 1966 two employees worked over 50 percent of their time outside their district. However, these were heavy construction employees, and the Employer's witness testified that when major improvements requiring heavy construction are undertaken, heavy construction employees of the various districts and their equipment would usually be assigned to the job even though outside their own district. He added, however, that normally even the heavy construction employees would spend the majority of their time working in their own district. r The Petitioner would exclude William Nicholson from the unit as a su- pervisor. The Employer contends, however. that Nicholson is a nonsuper- visory working foreman. The record shows that Nicholson is frequently in charge of a crew of three or four men. Though he is responsible for see- ing that a job is properly completed . there is nothing to suggest that his responsibility runs to other than standard , routine operations . Most of Nicholson's time is spent working along with the members of his crew. He has no authority to hire, discharge. or otherwise affect employees' job status either directly or by means of effective recommendations. Although testimony was elicited that if a crew member proved incompetent, it would be Nicholson's function to recommend his discharge or transfer. the record nevertheless affirmatively shows that the occasion for such a recommendation does not ordinarily arise. In fact, there is no evidence Nicholson has ever recommended discharge or transfer and none that his recommendation would be acted upon by management without an inde- pendent investigation. Consequently. on the record before us. we find no basis for concluding that Nicholson has supervisory authority as defined in Section 2(11) of the Act. He is, therefore. included in the unit. An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director for Region 3 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and Direction of Election. The Regional Director shall make the list available to all parties to the election. No extension of time to file this list shall be granted by the Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances. 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.