Indiana Bell Telephone Co., Inc.

INDIANA BELL TELEPHONE CO., INC. Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated and Telephone Commercial Employees' Union, Peti- tioner and Local 336, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated, Employer-Petitioner and Communications Work- ers of America, AFL-CIO. Cases 13-RC-14035, 13-RC-14037, and 13-UC-89 April 21, 1977 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER CLARIFYING UNIT BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS PENELLO AND MURPHY Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Joseph Quirk of the National Labor Relations Board. On August 3, 1976, the Regional Director for Region 13 issued a Decision, Order, and Direction of Election, and on September 3, 1976, a clarification of that decision in which he found that certain employees of the Employer recently acquired, together with facilities and operations, from Illinois Bell Telephone Company' could constitute separate appropriate units. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employer and Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO (herein called CWA), filed requests for review of the Regional Director's decisions. Both took the position that, contrary to the Regional Director's conclusions, the acquired employees do not possess separate communities of interest or separate administrative or functional identities to warrant the finding that they may constitute appropriate units separate from the single systemwide unit of the Employer's employees represented by the CWA,2 to which, they claim, the acquired employees should be added. By telegraphic order dated September 22, 1976, the Board granted the requests for review and postpone- ment of the elections pending review. Thereafter, the Employer and CWA filed briefs on review. Tele- phone Commercial Employees' Union (herein TCEU), and Local 336, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO (herein Local 336), filed briefs in support of the Regional Director's decisions. I Illinois Bell was originally named as a party employer by the petitioning Unions. The Regional Director, properly we find, excluded Illinois Bell as a party on the ground that as of July 1, 1976, it no longer was the employer of any employees involved in this proceeding. 2 There are over 7,000 employees in the systemwide unit. 229 NLRB No. 34 Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, including the briefs on review, and makes the following findings: The issue in this case is, as indicated above, whether certain plant and commercial and marketing employees working in two Indiana counties who were acquired by the Employer from Illinois Bell on July 1, 1976, can constitute separate appropriate units for purposes of collective bargaining as con- tended by Local 336 and by TCEU, or whether those employees lack those identifying characteristics warranting separate representation and must, there- fore, be added by way of accretion to the established systemwide unit of the Employer's nonmanagement employees as the Employer and CWA contend. The Regional Director found that the requested separate units are appropriate. We disagree. Prior to July 1, 1976, Illinois Bell's operations were located not only in the State of Illinois but also in Lake and Porter Counties in Indiana. It employed there some 900 nonmanagement employees. Of these, approximately 530 were plant employees, about 110 were commercial and marketing department employ- ees, and the remaining involved classifications not involved herein. The 530 plant employees came within but were only a part of the territorial jurisdiction of Local 336 and were part of an Illinois Bell nearly companywide unit of plant employees represented jointly by several IBEW locals, including Local 336. The 530 plant employees in the Indiana counties had never, insofar as the record shows, comprised a separate administrative or functional subdivision of Illinois Bell's operations and had never been represented as a separate unit. It is these employees which Local 336 now seeks to represent as a separate unit. The situation is substantially the same with respect to the 110 commercial and marketing employees. They have been represented by the TCEU as part of its Illinois Bell nearly companywide unit.3 They have never comprised a separate administrative or functional division of Illinois Bell's operations and have never been separately represented. Nevertheless, the TCEU now seeks to represent these commercial and marketing employees as a separate unit. 3 The units represented by Local 336 and the TCEU did not include certain employees acquired by Illinois Bell from Southwestern Bell Telephone Company on January 1, 1975. See Illinois Bell Telephone Company, 222 NLRB 485 (1976). 187 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD On July 1, 1976, Illinois Bell's Lake and Porter County operations--the personnel, equipment, and facilities-were transferred to the Employer and became a part of its operations. There was no change, with perhaps inconsequential exceptions, in the services provided by the transferred operations or in the work performed by the transferred employees. As noted above, the Lake and Porter County operations had not been a separate administrative or functional division of Illinois Bell and they were not reorganized after the transfer to comprise any such separate divisions of the Employer. Rather, the acquired employees and facilities were incorporated into the Employer's structure and operations in a manner reflecting and continuing its organization existing before the acquisition. As a consequence, neither the acquired plant nor commercial and marketing employees constitute either separate orga- nizational or functional units of the Employer's operations. Thus, for example, employees whom Local 336 seeks are found in both the Employer's general engineering and plant departments, both of which are companywide in scope and include far more "existing" 4 than acquired employees. With respect to the engineering department, the requested employees are found in three separate divisions, each containing existing employees and each reporting separately to the chief engineer. As for the plant department which contains most of the employees Local 336 seeks, it is headed by the general plant manager who has under his supervision seven division managers. The ac- quired employees are under either the division manager, northwest, or division manager, staff, both of whom have a substantial number of existing employees in their divisions. Finally, the acquired employees in the northwest division are organized in three separate districts each with its own separate line of supervision under the division manager and one of which contains a substantial number of existing employees.5 Thus, it is apparent that the acquired employees Local 336 would represent conform, as concluded above, to no administrative, departmental, or other subdivision of the Employer's operations, but on the contrary cut across two 4 The term "existing employees" is used to refer to employees other than those acquired from Illinois Bell on July 1, 1976. , The northwest division manager also has under him a fourth district which is composed wholly of existing employees and a district staff made up of such employees. a See The Houston Corporation, 124 NLRB 810, 812 (1959). 7 See Sec. 9(c)(5) of the Act and National Telephone Company, Inc., 215 NLRB 176, 178(1974). 8 In view of our conclusions here we find no merit in Local 336's contention that under the Supreme Court's decision in N.LR.B. v. Burns International Security Services, Inc., 406 U.S. 272 (1972), the Employer is a successor to Illinois Bell and obligated to recognize Local 336 as the representative of the employees in its requested unit. 9 Cf. Illinois Bell Telephone Company, supra, where, unlike here, "the departments, five divisions, and a number of dis- tricts, all having separate lines of supervision culminating in high administrative officers having responsibility for companywide operations. The situation is essentially the same for those employees whom the TCEU seeks to represent. They are divided between the commercial department, which contains a large number of existing employees and which is under the overall supervision of the general commercial manager, and the marketing department, which also includes existing employees and which is under the general marketing manager. Thus, again we are faced with a number of the acquired employees having no common supervision apart from that of existing employees or other separate organizational or functional identity. It is thus apparent from the above that the employees whom the petitioning Unions seek to represent do not constitute separate appropriate units. There is no history of bargaining for them as separate units, but only a history of their being part of much larger bargaining units. 6 Also they do not now comprise, as we have said, separate organiza- tional or functional divisions of the Employer's operations or possess any other relevant separate identity distinguishing them from the Employer's other employees in similar categories and classifica- tions. At best it can be said that they are distin- guished by having been represented by-and perhaps by being members of-the petitioning Unions and by their location in Lake and Porter Counties. However, the former consideration essentially reflects those Unions' extent of organization among the Employ- er's employees, and neither consideration affords a proper basis, absent other supportive factors, for finding the requested units to be appropriate.7 Consequently, we find, in view of all the foregoing, that these proposed separate units are not appropri- ate.8 Rather, it is clear that the acquired employees have been incorporated into the Employer's opera- tions and are thus, in the circumstances here, an accretion to the existing systemwide unit represented by the CWA.9 In view of all the foregoing, we shall dismiss the petitions filed in Cases 13-RC-14035 and 13-RC- consolidation and subsequent administrative and operational reorganization had not materially affected the newly acquired operation" which apparently at the time of the Board's decision was "a complete and separate entity." The Employer and CWA contend that Illinois Bell is also distinguishable from this case on the grounds that the Illinois Bell system was fragmentized into several units, and supervision concerning matters of hire, transfer, promotion, training, collective-bargaining grievances, arbitration, discipline, and other personnel actions are centrally controlled at Indiana Bell. We find it unnecessary to pass on these arguments in view of our finding that the proposed groupings of employees are inherently inappropriate as bargaining units in that they neither constitute separate functional or organizational subdivisions of the Employer's operations nor possess other characteristics that would warrant their separate representation. 188 INDIANA BELL TELEPHONE CO., INC. 14037, but shall grant the Employer-Petitioner's request, supported by the CWA, and by way of clarification shall include the newly acquired em- ployees in the systemwide unit represented by the CWA. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petitions filed in Cases 13-RC-14035 and 13-RC-14037 be, and they hereby are, dismissed. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the collective-bargain- ing unit of all nonmanagement employees of Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated, represented by Communications Workers of America, AFL- CIO, be, and it hereby is, clarified by including in that unit all plant department employees and all commercial and marketing department employees located in Lake and Porter Counties, Indiana, at, or working out of, facilities formerly owned by Illinois Bell Telephone Company and acquired by Indiana Bell Telephone Company, Incorporated, on July 1, 1976. 189