Brockton Taunton Gas Co.

404 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Brockton Taunton Gas Company and Utility Workers' Union of America AFL-CIO, Local Union No. 273, Petitioner. Case 1-UC-57 September 11, 1969 DECISION AND ORDER By MEMRI^RS FANNING, BROWN, AND ZAGORIA Upon a petition of the Utility Workers' Union of America, AFL-CIO, Local Union No. 273, filed on March 21, 1969, under Section 9(b) of the National Labor Relations Act. as amended, a hearing was held on April 14, 28 and 29, and on May 5 and 27, 1969, before Hearing Officer Norman Zankel. On June 20, 1969, the Acting Regional Director for Region I issued an order transferring the case to the National Labor Relations Board. Thereafter, briefs were timely filed by the Petitioner and Employer. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the 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 that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby aft irmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: The Employer is engaged in the business of distributing gas for commercial and residential use, primarily from locations at Brockton and Taunton, Massachusetts. The Company, as it is presently constituted, resulted from a merger in 1952 between Brockton Gas Light Company and Taunton Gas Company. The Petitioner has represented production and maintenance employees of the Employer at Brockton for 25 years.' The Union filed the petition in this case seeking clarification with respect to the unit placement of certain employees classified as dispatch-supervisors, who it claims are part of its existing unit.' The Employer contends that the Union's petition raises a question concerning representation which may not be resolved in a unit clarification proceeding. The Employer further contends that the dispatcher-supervisors are supervisors within the meaning of Section 2(1 1) of the Act. The record indicates that persons in the category of dispatcher did not vote in the election which resulted in the original certification herein, although the Employer had utilized the services of dispatchers prior to the advent of the Union. It is noted that 'On April 17, 1943, the Board certified the predecessor of Local 273, Utility Workers' Union of America, AFL-CIO. as the bargaining representative of all shop, distribution , garage, and production plant employees. including distribution and production plant clerks, but excluding executives , office employees, supervisory employees nonworking foremen, plant guards, meter readers, bill collectors, and secretaries to the representative , Local Union 356 (a sister local to the Petitioner) By vole of the National Executive Board of the Union on March 10 1969, Local 356 was merged into Local 273. superintendent, at Brockton Gas Light Company, Brockton, Massachusetts fhe record shows that the raunton production and maintenance employees, sometime prior to 1952, designated as its 'The existing contract between the parties, executed on March 2, 1968 recognizes Petitioner as the representative of Brockton and Taunton some time later and over the years certain unit employees have performed some dispatching duties at the Employer's Brockton facilities. However, unit employees did not usually do such work during normal working hours but rather did it on a rotating basis on evenings and weekends. During the normal workweek, Monday-Friday. 8 a.m.-5 p.m., the dispatching was performed by nonunit dispatches. The record further shows that all dispatching at the Taunton facilities had been performed by dispatchers who at no time have been included within the bargaining unit. In connection with the Employer's Taunton operation, the record discloses that in 1963 the Employer proposed a training program for its employees which included training in dispatching duties. In addition to proposing this particular training, the Employer also indicated that it wished to have unit employees perform dispatching duties evenings and weekends on the same basis as they were performed in Brockton Neither of these proposals was adopted by the parties in the 1964 collective-bargaining agreement. Likewise, the Union's proposal in the 1968 contract negotiations that a classification for dispatcher be included in the bargaining unit was not adopted, as reflected in the most recent collective-bargaining agreement. Thus, although it appears that subsequent to the original certification, unit employees have performed some nighttime and weekend dispatching duties at Brockton. such use never became contractual; it has now been discontinued; and regular dispatchers have not been included in the unit, nor have their terms and conditions of employment been a subject of bargaining between the parties. Clarification of a certification or amendment of a unit description may be in order where a new employee classification has been created, or an employer's operations have been expanded subsequent to a certification, and the employees involved are normal accretions to the certified unit.3 Here. however, the classification of dispatcher is not new, since it antedates the certification, and dispatchers do not constitute an accretion to the existing unit.' Consequently, the proper procedure for resolving the issue concerning the unit placement of dispatchers would be that initiated by a petition filed pursuant to Section 9(c) of the Act, seeking an election. Accordingly, we shall dismiss the petition for clarification of the unit. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition be, and it hereby is, dismissed. employees in a single-unit described as follows All production and maintenance employees , except engine and boilerroom employees in Brockton , including garage employees, meter readers, collectors, draftsman-clerks, and working foremen 'See Brockton Taunton Gas Company, 132 NLRB 940, Lufkin Foundry and Machine Company, 174 NLRB No 90, and cases cited therein 'Although it is now alleged that their duties have undergone some change such change concerns itself with the question of whether the additional duties given these employees have created supervisory responsibility, a question we need not decide 178 NLRB No. 60