Mississippi River Fuel Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 2, 1954

110 N.L.R.B. 708 (N.L.R.B. 1954)

708 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
in the foundry operations and also making and repairing patterns for -
the Employer's customers.
Although, after the purchase of the pattern shop the Employer and
Intervenor added certain patternmaking classifications to their con-
tract, when patternmakers later were actually hired, the parties recog-
nized their membership in the Petitioner by waiving application of
the contract's union-security provisions as to them.
It is not, of course, the Board's policy to conduct a separate election
among employees who, though employed in classifications added after
the execution of an existing contract, are nevertheless merely "accre-
tions" to an existing unit .7 However, where the Employer has added
to its operations a new plant, or, as here, a new division which for-
merly was a separate enterprise, and no persuasive bargaining history
has since developed, the Board will customarily grant an election to
the employees of such division or plant to determine their desires as
to representation.' We believe that the latter is the proper course to
pursue here, and we would hold the contract no bar and direct an elec-
tion to determine their desires as to inclusion in the foundry unit.
7 The Budd Company, 107 NLRB 116.
8 Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc , 108 NLRB 1468 , and cases cited in footnote 6;
Michigan Limestone Division, United States Steel Corporation, 106 NLRB 1391; Arm-
strong Cork Company (Lancaster Floor Plant), 106 NLRB 1147.
Mississippi RIVER FUEL CORPORATION and UNITED GAS, COKE AND
CHEMICAL WORKERS OF AMERICA, C. I. 0., PETITIONER . Case No.
14-RC-2523. November 2,1954
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before William F. Trent, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and 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.
2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks to represent all the field operating employees
in the Employer's city division. The Employer contends that only a
systemwide unit is appropriate.
110 NLRB No. 103.
MISSISSIPPI RIVER FUEL CORPORATION 709
Engaged in the purchase and sale of natural gas, the Employer op-
erates a gas gathering, transmission, and distribution pipeline system
which extends from Texas and Louisiana to St. Louis and adjacent
areas in Missouri and Illinois.
The field operating employees who operate and maintain the pipe-
line system are organized for administrative purposes on two bases.
Functionally they are grouped into four operating departments,
headed by the city superintendent, the gas measuring superintendent,
the compressor station superintendent, and the main line superintend-
ent. Geographically, they are divided into 11 divisions-the 2 north-
ernmost divisions, the St. Louis division, and division 8-are little
separated administratively, and are designated the city division. The
predominant basis for the organization of these employees, however, is
the department, rather than the division. Thus the divisions repre-
sent, for the most part, the geographical subdivision, for purposes of
supervision, of employees in the compressor station and main line de-
partments. Employees in the gas measuring department are not sub-
divided and supervised along these divisional lines, while some em-
ployees supervised by the city superintendent are confined to the city
,division and others are found outside that division. Nor is there a
supervisor or foreman in each division who has authority over all the
field employees in the division.
The 28 employees the Petitioner seeks to represent constitute all the
field operating personnel of the city division. They work within the
boundaries of that division, for the most part, and receive a slightly
higher wage to compensate for the higher cost of living in the metro-
politan area. Very little interchange or transfer of employees in their
job classifications takes place between the city division and other divi-
sions. However, 21 of these employees, the utility man, inspectors, line
walkers, and regulator repairmen, are in the city superintendent's de-
partment; 7 of them, the meter readers, meter testers, and gas testers,
are in the gas measuring superintendent's department. Both these
superintendents also supervise employees who work in other divisions
whom the Petitioner does not seek to represent. Finally, all working
conditions, hours, and employment benefits except for the slight wage
differential for the city division employees, are uniform throughout
the system, and final authority to hire, promote, demote, and fire is
exercised on a systemwide supervisory level.
While the Board has found appropriate a geographical division in
a gas utility system, it has done so because, among other reasons, the
employees in the division constituted a "departmental grouping" su-
pervised by a single divisional superintendent.' In the instant case,
although the unit sought by Petitioner conforms to one of the Em-
ployer's geographical divisions, the employees in that division do not
' Western Kentucky Gas Company, 97 NLRB 917. at 920
710 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
constitute a single and complete department in any real sense. In-
stead, they are but a part of 2 of the Employer's 4 operating depart-
ments, albeit the only departments having employees in the city divi-
sion. On the basis of the foregoing we find that a unit limited to field
operating employees in the city division is inappropriate. We shall
therefore dismiss the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
MINERALS AND METALS CORPORATION and INTERNATIONAL CHEMICAL
WORKERS UNION, A. F. or L. Case No. 11-RC-604. November 2,
1954
Supplemental Decision and Certification of Representatives
Pursuant to a Decision and Direction of Election I issued by the
Board on April 29, 1954, as amended on May 26 and June 22, 1954, an
election by secret ballot was conducted on July 23, 1954, under the
supervision of the Regional Director for the Eleventh Region among
the employees in the appropriate unit at the Employer's operations in
Murphy, North Carolina. At the close of the election, the parties
were furnished with a tally of ballots, which showed that, of approxi-
mately 12 eligible voters, 7 voted for, and 3 against, the Petitioner and
19 ballots were challenged. The number of challenged ballots was
sufficient to affect the results of the election.
The Employer filed timely objections to conduct of the Petitioner
allegedly affecting the results of the election. In accordance with the
Board's Rules and Regulations, the Regional Director conducted an
investigation and, on September 3, 1954, duly served upon the parties
his report on challenges and objections, in which he recommended that
the Employer's objections be overruled. The Employer filed timely
exceptions to this recommendation.2
In its objections, the Employer alleged that the Petitioner had in-
terfered with the election by causing 19 former employees of the Em-
ployer to vote, the Petitioner knowing that they were ineligible. The
Regional Director found that the 19 were in fact ineligible, princi-
pally because they were not on the Employer's payroll on the eligibil-
ity date. He found further that the Petitioner had urged former
employees of the Employer to vote but that there was no disorder at
the polls or evidence of threats. He accordingly recommended that
the objections be overruled.
i Not reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders.
a With respect to the challenges , the Regional Director recommended that all 19 chal-
lenges be sustained. As no exception was taken to this recommendation , we hereby
adopt it.
110 NLRB No. 107.