Alaska Steamship Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 17, 1968

172 N.L.R.B. 1200 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

1200 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Alaska Steamship Company , Petitioner and Interna-
tional Longshoremen 's and Warehousemen's
Union Local 62, Independent and United Industri-
al Workers of North America , Pacific District,
SIU, AFL-CIO.' Case 19-UC-32
July 17, 1968
DECISION AND ORDER GRANTING PETITION
TO CLARIFY NONCERTIFIED BARGAINING
UNIT
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition of Alaska Steamship Company
for clarification of unit duly filed on November 22,
1967, under Section 9(b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held on
March 18, 1968, before Hearing Officer John N.
Zimmerman. On April 9, 1968, the Regional
Director for Region 19 issued an order transferring
the case to the Board. Thereafter, briefs were time-
ly filed by the Employer and the Unions.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional 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 that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
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. Both Unions are labor organizations within
the meaning of the Act, and both claim to represent
certain employees of the Employer.
3. The Employer-Petitioner, Alaska Steamship
Company, has requested clarification as to whether
its contractual bargaining unit with ILWU should
include all longshoremen engaged in the barge
loading and unloading and the warehouse operation
at the Employer-Petitioner's newly leased facility in
Saxman, Alaska.
The Employer-Petitioner is a State of Washing-
ton corporation engaged in the transportation of
cargo by water between Seattle , Washington, and
State of Alaska ports. Prior to the fall of 1967, the
Employer-Petitioner operated two ships in
southeast Alaska which made regular calls at the
port of Ketchikan. Both ships used the Ketchikan
Wharf Company terminal in downtown Ketchikan.
In the fall of 1967 the Employer-Petitioner discon-
tinued the operation of one of its ships and
replaced it with a barge. While the remaining ship
still uses the Ketchikan facility,2 this facility does
not lend itself to loading and unloading barges, and
it became necessary for the Employer-Petitioner to
find a new facility to handle its barge operation. Ini-
tially, temporary use was made of the State of
Alaska ferry terminal approximately 4 miles north
of the Ketchikan terminal. Thereafter, the Em-
ployer-Petitioner entered into an agreement with
the receiver of the Saxman terminal, William
Moran, for the use of that facility.
The Employer-Petitioner is a member of the
Alaska Longshore Employer's Association. This as-
sociation has a current multiport collective-bargain-
ing contract, the All-Alaska Longshore Agreement,
with certain ILWU locals, including Local 62.3 The
agreement broadly covers the "handling of cargo
and its transfer from vessel to first place of rest, and
vice versa...... Longshoremen from ILWU Local
625 handled the loading and unloading of the Em-
ployer-Petitioner's ships at the Ketchikan facility.
When the Employer-Petitioner's barge operation
was initiated at the State of Alaska ferry terminal,
longshoremen from the ILWU were utilized and
paid according to the All-Alaska Longshore con-
tract. In anticipation of the transfer of the barge
operation to the Saxman facility the Employer-Peti-
tioner and the ILWU signed an addendum to the
All-Alaska Longshore Agreement on November 22,
1967, which sets forth certain terms and conditions
which are applicable to loading and unloading of
the barge at Saxman terminal, as well as certain
terms and conditions applicable to the warehousing
operation at Saxman. This agreement was ratified
in early February 1968. Since the inception of the
barge operation at the Saxman terminal, ILWU
longshoremen have performed the loading and un-
loading of the Employer-Petitioner's barge at the
Saxman facility.
Saxman terminal was constructed in 1962-63 on
i Hereinafter referred to as SIU SIU was allowed to take part in the
proceeding on the basis of its claim to represent employees who have previ-
ously done longshore work at the Saxman terminal
' The Employer eventually plans to replace the remaining ship with a
barge
' Other Locals include Juneau Local 16, Seward Local 60, Haines Local
65, Cordova Local 66, Pelican Local 83, Sitka Local 84, and Wrangell
Local 87 The agreement does not specify the jurisdicational limits of any
172 NLRB No. 124
of the locals
' More specifically, the agreement covers the "movement of outbound
cargo from the time it enters a dock and comes under the control of any
terminal , stevedore , agent or vessel operator covered by this agreement
and covers movement of inbound cargo only so long as it is at a dock and
under the control of any vessel operator, agent, stevedore , or terminal
covered by this agreement "
' Hereinafter referred to as IL W U
ALASKA STEAMSHIP COMPANY
land which was acquired and owned by the city of
Saxman. The terminal was financed by the sale of
revenue bonds issued by the city of Saxman and
which were underwritten by the United States
Government through the Area Redevelopment Ad-
ministration. The evidence reveals that one of the
major purposes in constructing the facility was to
provide employment and give an economic boost to
the residents of Saxman. The city of Saxman leased
the terminal to the Ketchikan and Northern Ter-
minal Co. as a rail-barge facility. The Ketchikan
and Northern Terminal Co. hired residents of Sax-
man to perform the work of loading and unloading
cargo onto and from barges, even though by the
terms of the lease, the company was not restricted
in any way to the persons to be employed by the
company in the operation of the terminal. On Au-
gust 5, 1964, the Ketchikan and Northern Terminal
Co. entered into a collective-bargaining agreement
with the SIU effective from August 1, 1964, to Au-
gust 1, 1967, covering certain work performed at
the Saxman facility. During the term of this agree-
ment with SIU, in September 1965, Ketchikan and
Northern Terminal Co. ceased operating the Sax-
man terminal. The city of Saxman was unable to
make payments to the Federal Government as
required by the indenture with the Government and
the District Court for the District of Alaska ap-
pointed William Moran as receiver of the Saxman
terminal. Moran entered into a collective-bargain-
ing agreement, dated October 20, 1967, with the
SIU, even though at that time and at all times since
September 1965, the terminal had been inopera-
tive. The lease which Moran thereafter signed with
the Employer-Petitioner, on November 26, 1967,
does not in any way restrict the Employer-Peti-
tioner with regard to the hiring of personnel.
The present petition for unit clarification was
filed by the Employer-Petitioner as required by its
lease with Moran. Both the Employer and the
ILWU contend that the Employer's employees per-
forming longshore work at the Saxman terminal are
properly represented by the ILWU pursuant to the
current All-Alaska Longshore Agreement. The
position of the SIU is that longshore work at the
Saxman terminal was not included in the All-Alaska
Longshore Agreement, nor should the contract be
extended to cover the work. To support its conten-
tion, the SIU relies on the fact that Saxman is a
separate and independent municipality which is not
named in the All-Alaska Longshore Agreement.
Also, the SIU alleges that the work at Saxman is
significantly different from the work formerly done
at Ketchikan.
1201
The record reveals that the town of Saxman is
only 2.8 miles from Ketchikan. Furthermore, it is
not unusual for longshoremen from Local 62 to
work at locations outside the city limits of
Ketchikan, since longshoremen perform their work
wherever the particular job is located. Thus, Local
62 longshoremen perform work at the Ketchikan
Pulp Company which is 7 miles outside Ketchikan;
at Ward cove, which is 6 miles outisde of
Ketchikan; and at Ometlakatla, located on Annette
Island, 28 to 30 miles from Ketchikan. They also
formerly performed work at the George Inlet Can-
nery which is located 14 miles from Ketchikan;
and, as noted, they performed the longshore work
for the Employer-Petitioner when the specific barge
operation in question was located at the State of
Alaska ferry terminal, 4 miles north of Ketchikan.
Since the agreement between the Employer-Peti-
tioner and the ILWU is not limited to any specific
geographical area but covers the handling of cargo
at a terminal whenever the Employer has control
over any inbound or outbound cargo, we do not
view the fact that Saxman is a separate municipality
not mentioned in the All-Alaska agreement as bar-
ring a finding that the work at Saxman is within the
terms of that agreement.
The barge operation at Saxman is a roll-on, rol-
loff procedure while the Ketchikan ship operation
utilizes a lift-on, lift-off method. The same pool of
longshoremen from the ILWU that does the lift-on,
lift-off operation at Ketchikan also does the roll-on,
rolloff operation at Saxman. While the roll-on, rol-
loff barge operation requires a smaller work force
and is a faster operation, the skills required of the
longshoremen are essentially the same; and, once
the cargo is hauled off the barge, the work is almost
exactly the same. The work at Saxman is identical
to the work ILWU longshoremen performed at the
Employer-Petitioner's prior barge operation at the
State of Alaska ferry terminal.
Thus, the Employer-Petitioner's operation at Sax-
man was within the geographical area where ILWU
longshoremen performed work under the All-
Alaska Longshore Agreement; the same pool of
ILWU longshoremen used by the Petitioner-Em-
ployer at Ketchikan is also performing the
longshore operations at Saxman; and the work per-
formed at Saxman utilizes essentially the same skills
as the Employer-Petitioner's operation at
Ketchikan. In these circumstances, we find that the
Employer-Petitioner's Saxman operation should be
included in the purview of the unit established
between the Employer-Petitioner and the ILWU.6
The SIU would seem to argue that, aside from
6 Martin-Burns Sportables, Inc , 129 NLRB 364
1202 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL
other considerations, the Board should not clarify
the existing contractual unit because public interest
indicates that the residents of Saxman should be
given the longshore work at the Saxman terminal.
The argument proceeds as follows: There is chronic
unemployment at Saxman, the purpose in building
the federally financed terminal at Saxman was to
relieve this unemployment, and therefore residents
of Saxman and not ILWU longshoremen should do
the longshore work at the Saxman terminal. The ar-
gument, however, fails to note that employment of
Saxman residents may create unemployment among
ILWU longshoremen who had previously done the
Employer-Petitioner's work at Ketchikan and at the
State of Alaska ferry terminal, and who presently
do the work at Saxman. Moreover, a dispute over
who should do the longshore work at the Saxman
terminal is not within the scope of the petition for
' Ingersoll Products Division (Chicago Works) of the Borg-Warner Cor-
poration, 150 NLRB 912
' Although the IL W U has not been certified by the Board for the existing
LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
unit clarification.' As we have found that the Em-
ployer-Petitioner's Saxman operation is within the
purview of its contractual unit with the ILWU, we
shall, accordingly, clarify the parties' contractual
collective-bargaining unit as including the Saxman
terminal operation.'
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the existing contractual
collective-bargaining unit represented by Interna-
tional Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union
Local 62, Independent, be, and hereby is, clarified
by specifically including all longshoremen engaged
in the barge loading and unloading and the
warehouse operation of Alaska Steamship Com-
pany at Saxman terminal.
unit, the Board does have the authority to clarify a unit represented by an
uncertified union Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 145
NLRB 1521