Bank of America

BANK OF AMERICA Bank of America, National Trust and Savings Association' and Miscellaneous Warehousemen, Drivers & Helpers, Local 986, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. Case 21-RC-10899 January 14, 1969 DECISION AND ORDER By MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Sylvan L. Katz." Following the hearing, pursuant to Section 102.67 of National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, this case was transferred to the National Labor Relations Board for Decision. Thereafter, briefs were filed by the Employer and the Petitioner, and also a Joint Motion and Stipulation of Facts was submitted by these parties, which is hereby accepted and made a part of the record herein, all of which have been duly considered. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds no prejudicial error. The rulings 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, and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons: The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees employed in Department 4097 who work in the basement of the Employer's Data Processing Center Building, 3 or, in the alternative, all employees employed in Department 4097 wherever they may be working. These employees are classified as preparation and distribution clerks, 4 and auto The names of both the Employer and the Petitioner appear as amended at the hearing. 'Service and Maintenance Employees , Local 399, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, was allowed to intervene in this proceeding on the basis of a showing of interest After entering its appearance to protect its right to appear on the ballot, the Intervenor waived any right to participate in stipulations and any other issues that would arise, and left the hearing room. 101 messengers, and are employed in the Employer's Southern Division, which includes the area of the State of California south of a line just north of Bakersfield, California. Should such a unit be found appropriate, the Petitioner would accept, in addition to the above, all outlying auto messengers and pilots, who at no time report to the DPC for work. The Employer contends that the employees petitioned for are office clerical employees, and that the Board should find an employerwide unit appropriate, consisting of approximately 32,000 office clerical employees throughout the State of California. Alternatively, the Employer contends that the minimal appropriate unit consists of all office clerical employees employed at the DPC in the Southern Division of its Centralized Services Administration, a unit of approximately 1700 employees. The evidence herein indicates that the Employer is one of the largest privately-owned banks in the world, and that it operates through approximately 944 branch banks in the State of California, and also through branches in various foreign countries which are not under consideration here. In order to operate this business, the Employer has a detailed administrative structure, which includes a statewide Centralized Services Administration. This statewide section is divided into northern and southern divisions, each of which is divided into a Centralized Services Division and a Purchasing, Supplies and Services Division. The employees petitioned for herein are employed in the Centralized Services Division, of the southern division of the Employer's Centralized Services Administration. This, Division is primarily a computer operation, through which the Employer is able to maintain a daily balance of the Bank's monetary position, by processing all transactions, which are in various computer application forms, through the computer. To do this, the records of the transactions must first be transported to the DPC from the bank branches where they took place. This is the work performed by the auto messengers who are petitioned for herein. Having reached the basement of the DPC, the records are then sorted by -the mail clerks who are likewise petitioned for herein, according to the method of computer application, (i.e., keypunch, magnetic ink character recognition, tab, etc.), and once sorted they are delivered to the various areas of the DPC by these mail clerks. As a product from the computer's accounting, various reports come out in printed form. These reports are delivered back to the basement, where the mail clerks remove carbon paper, separate reports, and sort and prepare them for delivery back to the branches by the auto messengers. The auto messengers spend 30 to 40 percent of their time assisting the mail clerks in 'Hereinafter referred to as the DPC. 'Hereinafter referred to as mail clerks. 174 NILRB No. 21 102 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD their work. This division operates on a 24-hour basis, to enable the Employer to process the transactions overnight, after the branch banks have closed, and to return the reports to the branch banks before they open in the morning. The Employer employs approximately 100 mail clerks and 200 auto messengers at the DPC to do this work. In addition, there are approximately 65 auto messengers in outlying areas, who never report to the DPC, but who transport work between the branch banks and nearby airports, where pilots fly this work between the outlying branches and Los Angeles. The parties also entered into a post-hearing stipulation that there are approximately 40 employees classified as preparation and distribution clerks working in departments other than Department 4097, the department in which the employees petitioned for work. The Petitioner contends that the employees petitioned for constitute an appropriate unit in view of the following: (1) the unique nature of the mail department in the Employer's operations, as shown by the difference in work surroundings of the mail clerks, who work in the mailroom; (2) the unique nature within the Employer's operation of the work of the auto messengers; (3) the difference in fringe benefits; (4) the separate location and supervision of the mail clerks in the mail department; and (5) the lack of significant transfers or interchange. between the employees petitioned for and other groups. The Employer contends that the employees petitioned for have no distinct interests or skills, but are an essential and integral part of a larger group of office clerical employees in the DPC. The Employer contends that the Board should establish a bankwide unit as the appropriate bargaining unit, but alternatively contends that the minimum sized appropriate unit is all the office clerical employees working at the DPC and the buildings in the immediate vicinity. The contentions of the Petitioner are not supported by the record, even if the outlying auto messengers and the pilots were to be included in the unit. Thus, the Employer's Central Office, another department under the Centralized Services Administration, also has a mail room, with similar tables and sorting racks to those found in the basement mail room, and both the Central Office and the Regional Payment Section employees perform mail sorting functions, and sorting operations are performed in sections of the DPC other than the basement mailroom. Likewise, there are employees who work in departments other than the department petitioned for herein, who have the same job classification and description as the mail clerks petitioned for herein. As to the messengers, the only aspect of their work which is unique is that they are the only employees who transport work between the branch banks and the DPC. Some 100 other bank employees are also required to drive in their work, some of these spending as much as 70 percent of their time driving, as compared to the auto messengers who spend 30 to 40 percent of their time working in the mailroom. The difference in fringe benefits which the Petitioner points to is caused by the fact that employees who are employed on a part-time or hourly basis are not entitled to share in all of the benefits available to full-time employees. Part-time employees are only eligible for sickness benefits, vacation with pay, and preferred deposit and loan rates, and hourly employees are eligible for only the preferred deposit and loan rates. Among the auto messengers, there are 75 full-time, 137 hourly, and 79 part-time employees, and among the clerks in the mailroom all 58 are full-time employees. Of the 40 clerks working in areas other than the mailroom, 8 are full-time, 24 are part-time, and 8 are hourly employees. Although this indicates an obvious difference in benefits, the employees petitioned for are not the only employees denied benefits, since the record shows that about 25 to 30 percent of all bank employees are employed less than full-time. Further, although a high percentage of the auto messengers are employed less than full-time, this does not give them a special community of interest with the mail clerks, all of whom are full-time, or with the general group of preparation and distribution clerks, the majority of whom are employed full-time. - While it is true, as the Petitioner points out, that both the auto messengers and mail clerks have separate immediate supervision, this supervision extends only to routine direction of work. The record indicates that the lowest level of supervision which effectively recommends hiring and firing is the position of assistant manager for all operations of the DPC, with one exception being the supervisor of the outlying auto messengers, and that the reports of the supervisors below the assistant manager are fully investigated before action is taken. Thus, the record fails to support the Petitioner's contention that these employees are separately supervised from employees excluded from the unit. And although the record shows that these employees are separately located, this is not a sufficient argument for finding appropriate the unit petitioned for herein, especially in view of the fact that the mail clerks deliver the sorted mail and bank transactions to the various departments in other areas of the DPC for processing, and the auto messengers transport work between the various buildings of the Centralized Services Division, in addition to their branch bank work. Finally, Petitioner points to a lack of significant transfer or interchange as supporting its unit contention. The record does show that there is little if any interchange within this department or with other departments, but while this is a factor to be considered, its presence or absence is not controlling, since it is only one of the numerous elements which the Board considers in' making unit determinations. BANK OF AMERICA 103 As the Employer correctly points out, all of the Bank's employees enjoy uniform privileges and benefits, with the benefits varying only according to whether the employee is employed full-time, or less than full-time. Likewise, the employees petitioned for possess no special skills which set them apart from other employees, nor is there any special training required to prepare them for their duties. Finally, in addition to the mail clerks whom the Petitioner would include in the requested unit, there are other employees in the DPC and the related buildings, some of whom have the same job classification, and all of whom perform similar functions; and the record also shows that there are other employees in the Bank, in addition to the auto messengers, whose work also entails driving. The Petitioner does not seek to include either of these latter two groups in the requested unit. While we recognize the fact that the primary duty of the employees petitioned for is to provide a transporting and sorting function for the transactions of the branches of the Bank, to enable the DPC to process these transactions and provide a daily balance for the entire Bank, this is an insufficient reason for finding appropriate the unit petitioned for herein. Apart from the driving duties of the auto messengers, the duties of the employees petitioned for are similar to those of other office clerical employees. The personnel policies of the Employer result in common supervision of all employees in regard to matters of more than a routine nature, identical benefits for all employees dependent only upon their hours worked, and standarized pay rate procedures for all employees. Appropriately, the employees petitioned for would be included in an office clerical unit unless some factor involved in their work sets them apart. Customarily the Board has not found appropriate a unit limited to a segment of the office clerical employees, even though the grouping sought was based on an administrative or functional division.5 In all of the above circumstances, we are of the opinion that neither all of the auto messengers and all of the preparation and distribution clerks, nor any parts thereof, as originally requested by the Petitioner, have a sufficient community of interest separate from that of other employees of the Employer to warrant their establishment as a separate appropriate unit for collective-bargaining purposes.' Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition.' ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 'See General Electric Company, 148 NLRB 811, El Paso Electric Company, 168 NLRB No 136. 'See R B.P. Inc, d/b/a Royal Blue Print Company, 166 NLRB No. 25 'In view of our determination herein, we find it unnecessary at this time to pass on the other unit contentions of the parties