Bank of America

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 14, 1969

174 N.L.R.B. 101 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

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