Tidewater Telephone Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 30, 1970

181 N.L.R.B. 867 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

TIDEWATER TELEPHONE CO 867
Tidewater Telephone Company and Communications
Workers of America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case
5-RC-6990
March 30, 1970
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Donald J. Salins, Hearing
Officer of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the hearing, pursuant to Section 102.67 of
the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8,
as amended, this case was transferred to the Board
for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the
Petitioner filed briefs with the Board.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
Act, 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
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 organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists
concerning 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 department employees throughout
the system.' The Employer contends that it has no
plant department per se and that the only
appropriate unit is one encompassing all employees
in the system. There is no bargaining history for the
employees involved in this proceeding.
The Employer is an independent telephone utility
employing approximately 300-310 employees, of
whom about 80 work in job classifications related to
the construction, installation, and maintenance of
The plant employees petitioned for include all nonsupervisory employees
engaged in the construction , installation , and maintenance of the
Employer's equipment and facilities Some of the job classifications
included therein are trencher operator , tractor operator , groundsman,
linesman, cable splicer, engineer , repairman, technician,
craftsman-engineer , serviceman , and laborers The laborers are included
because the Petitioner expressed a willingness to represent them once the
hearing showed that they worked with the other plant employees The
engineers are included for the same reason and, also, because the
Petitioner concedes that they are not professionals , since they have little
more than a high school education and do mainly drafting work
equipment and facilities. It is organized into four
divisions on a geographic basis, with offices in
Warsaw, Bowling Green, Kilmarnock, and
Gloucester, Virginia; there is also a separate
headquarters office in Warsaw. The division offices
are all within about a 60-mile radius of the Warsaw
headquarters Each of the four divisions is headed
by a division manager who has control of the
day-to-day operations in the geographic area served
by his office. With the exception of telephone
operators, all of whom are located in the Warsaw
headquarters office, and certain plant employees
also located there, each division has employees from
all the operating areas of the system, including
commercial, engineering, service, central office
equipment, etc.
At the Warsaw headquarters, there are three
general managers below the company president, with
the following respective areas of responsibility: Plant
(construction, servicemen, outside plant
maintenance, central office equipment, and
engineering), Traffic and Commercial, and
Accounting The division managers report directly
to the appropriate general manager about the
activities in the latter's area of responsibility which
occur on the division level. The record indicates that
ultimate responsibility in each of the three areas
enumerated above falls on the respective general
manager. Thus, the plant general manager, besides
having immediate control of his own staff of
construction, engineering, and repair employees in
Warsaw, has ultimate responsibility for the activities
of the engineering, service, and central office
equipment employees located in the division offices,
as reported to him by the four division managers
There exists a uniform, systemwide policy
regarding wages, hours, and working conditions,
which, is established in the Warsaw headquarters.
Moreover, the applications of new employees must
be approved by the same office before the division
managers can hire them
While the Board has generally considered that the
optimum unit in public utilities is systemwide, it has
not required that it be multi-department at all times
and in all circumstances, particularly where, as here,'
no labor organization seeks to represent the
employees on a more comprehensive basis. In such
circumstances, a more limited unit, such as one
coextensive with a smaller administrative
subdivision, may also be appropriate.' The fact that
the Employer does not have a plant department per
se, does not, ipso facto, require us to find that a
systemwide unit encompassing all of its employees is
the only appropriate unit. Rather, since all the
employees whom the Petitioner seeks to represent,
whether located in the four division offices or
Warsaw headquarters, perform work customarily
done by telephone industry plant department
'Iroquois Telephone Corporation , 169 NLRB No 53, and cases cited at
fn 4 therein
181 NLRB No. 139
868 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
employees who we have found possess a separate
community of interest and may constitute an
appropriate unit, we find that a systemwide unit of
such employees is appropriate, here, particularly
since no union seeks a more comprehensive unit 3
The placement of certain employees is, however,
at issue:
Plant records clerks: The Petitioner sought to
exclude these employees on the grounds that they
share no community of interest with the plant
employees and perform mainly clerical duties. There
are about 1 I plant records clerks in the system, nine
of whom perform work for plant personnel, such as
the outside plant maintenance supervisor or
headquarters engineers, or in the division offices,
where they receive service complaints from
customers and pass them on to the servicemen,
either in person or by telephone. We shall include
those plant records clerks who work for persons
associated with the construction, installation, and
maintenance of the Employer's equipment and
facilities, and the division office plant records clerks,
since they have a closer community of interest with
the unit employees than with the clericals in the
commercial department, with whom they have less
contact.4
Supervisors- Since the central office repairman
foreman, two head craftsmen-engineers, trimming
crew foreman, construction line foreman, all located
at the headquarters, and the Warsaw division service
foreman, all do manual labor alongside the
respective employees whom we have included in the
unit, and possess none of the indicia of statutory
supervisory status, we find that they are not
supervisors within the meaning of the Act and shall
include them in the unit.
We find that the following employees of the
Employer constitute a unit appropriate for purposes
of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9(b) of the Act:
All employees employed by the Employer at its
headquarters and division offices in Warsaw,
Bowling Green, Kilmarnock, and Gloucester,
Virginia, who are engaged in the construction,
installation, and maintenance of the Employer's
equipment and facilities, including trencher
operators, tractor operators, groundsmen,
linesmen, cable splicers, engineers, repair men,
technicians, servicemen, laborers, and plant
records clerks working for plant personnel or in
the division offices, but excluding all other
employees, guards, and supervisors ds defined in
the Act
[Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
'Iroquois Telephone Corporation , supra, Sanborn Telephone Company,
Inc. 140 NLRB 512, Mansfield Telephone Company, 92 NLRB 83; cf
Genera! Telephone Company of Michigan , 112 NLRB 46
'Contrary to his colleagues , Member Jenkins would exclude the plant
records clerks from the unit as he views their interests more closely allied
to that of other office clericals particularly in light of the fact that plant
records clerks interchange with other office clericals in cases of illness,
vacations ; have substantially different pay scales than employees petitioned
for, are essentially in-office clericals in contrast to the outside work of the
majority of employees who install , construct , and maintain the employer's
equipment Moreover , if plant records clerks are to be included in the unit
because of work associations with employees in the unit, then other
employees in the commercial and traffic departments with similar work
associations should also be included in the unit
'In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to
be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all
parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their
addresses which may be used to communicate with them Excelsior
Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236, N L R B v Wyman -Gordon Company,
394 U S 759 Accordingly, it is hereby directed that 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 5 within 7
days of the date of this Order Correcting 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