American Telephone and Telegraph Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 9, 1944

55 N.L.R.B. 327 (N.L.R.B. 1944)

In the Matter of AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY and
AMERICAN COMMIINICATIONs AssocI TION (ACA-CIO)
Case No. 7-R-16608.-Decided March 9,19/!
Mr. Max Rotenberg, for the Board.
Messrs. Walter G. Merritt and S. Whitney Landon, of New York
City, for the Company.
Newberger, Shapiro, and Rabinowitz, by Mr. Victor Rabinowitz,
of New York City, and Messrs. James Barnett and S. G. Deck, for
the ACA.
Messrs. Henry Mayer, J. J. Moran, and Fred Sweeney, of New
York City, for the Federation.
Mr. William Feldesman, of counsel to the Board.
DECISION
AND
ORDER
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
'Upon petition duly filed by American Communications Association
(ACA-CIO), herein called the ACA, alleging that a question affect-
ing commerce had arisen concerning the representation of employees
of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Detroit, Michigan,
herein called the Company, the National Labor Relations Board pro-
vided for an appropriate hearing upon due notice before Walter
Wilbur, Trial Examiner. Said hearing was held at Detroit, Mich-
igan, on January 18, 19, and 20, 1944. The Company, the ACA, and
Federation of Long Lines Telephone Workers, herein called the Fed-
eration, appeared, participated, and were afforded full opportunity to
be heard, to examine and cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce
evidence bearing on the issues. Subsequent to the hearing, the ACA
moved to reopen the record for the purpose of introducing evidence
it offered at the hearing which the Trial Examiner rejected? The
Trial Examiner's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial
error and are hereby affirmed. Accordingly, the ACA's motion is
denied. All parties were afforded and availed themselves of the op-
2 The offered evidence is mentioned in footnote 3, infra.
55 N. L. R. B., No. 59.
327
328 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
portunity to file briefs with the Board. Inasmuch as the briefs ade-
quately discuss the issues, all requests for oral argument are denied.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board makes the following:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. THE BUSINESS OF THE COMPANY
American Telephone and Telegraph Company is a New York
corporation having its principal office in the City of New York. Its
Long Lines Department, herein called the Department, is involved in
this proceeding. The Department is a separate operating unit pro-
viding interstate telephone toll facilities and services, sometimes de-
scribed as long distance telephone services, necessary to connect the
territories of independent companies and companies associated with
the American Telephone and Telegraph Comparoy located throughout
the United States of America. Other interstate services and foreign
communication services are also provided by the Department. Dur-
ing 1943 the gross operating revenues of the Department exceeded
$180,000,000. The Company admits that it is engaged in commerce,
within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.
II. TFIE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
American Communications Association, affiliated with the Congress
of Industrial Organizations, and Federation of Long Lines Telephone
Workers, affiliated with the National Federation of Telephone Work-
ers, are labor organizations admitting to membership employees of
the Company.
III. THE ALLEGED APPROPRIATE UNIT
It is the ACA's contention that certain of the Company's non-
supervisory employees engaged in District 65 of the Department con-
stitute an appropriate unit.' Both the Company and the Federation
insist, however, that all the Department's non-supervisory employees,
without regard to District lines, comprise a unit appropriate for col-
lective bargaining purposes.
Geographically, the Department is virtually Nation-wide. District
65, one of 34 in the Department, embraces offices situated in Detroit
and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Fort Wayne, La Grange, and South
2 Specifically, the ACA claims the following unit to be appropriate •
All the outside maintenance employees, Central Office employees and Administration
employees (excluding supervisor) and executive employees) of Distnet 65 of the Long
Lines Plant Department (including Detroit and Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Fort Wayne,
La Grange and South Bend, Indiana).
In addition to Plant employees there ate Tiaftic Commercial, and other workers
AMERICAN TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY 329
Bend, Indiana. That the Department as a whole is a highly inte-
grated operating unit of the Company is unmistakably clear from
perform parallelthe record. All the Districts, District 65 included,
functions, and they are interrelated and interdependent.
Since 1940 the Company and the Federation have been bound almost
continuously by written agreements which they executed according
the Federation recognition as the exclusive collective bargaining rep-
resentative of all non-supervisory workers employed in the Depart-
ment. The ACA urges that, despite the Department-wide unit estab-
lished by these contracts, collective bargaining between the Company
and the Federation has been conducted on a local basis. In practice,
the contracting parties negotiated local matters which arose on local
levels. If their local representatives reached an accord, the approval
of their respective national representatives was required before the
accord was deemed to be operative. In cases where local negotiations
were not successfully concluded, however, continued bargaining was
engaged in by their central representatives in an attempt to come to
terms. Moreover, annual contracts and other matters of concern to
the mass of the Department's employees were negotiated in the first
instance by the contracting parties' national representatives, without
any recourse to local bargaining machinery. Contrary to the ACA's
position, we find that these relations disclose a distinct pattern of De-
partment-wide bargaining.
Asserting that the Federation is in the "process of disintegration,"
the ACA argues that a, Department-wide unit is consequently inappro-
priate for the purposes of collective bargaining, and that the unit it
seeks is a proper one. Although the record reveals that a number of the
Federation's members were dissatisfied with their organization's
ability to secure from the Company more favorable terms and condi-
tions of employment, there is no evidence of a relevant nature indicat-
ing that a Department-wide unit is inappropriate for collective
bargaining purposes. We consider the ACA's argument to be with-
out merit.3
I In snppoi t of its argument the ACA offered to piove at the healing the following facts'
"a substantial number of locals of the Federation hale disaffiliated, and that in many
other cases, substantial numbers of membeis hale left the organization and have stopped
paying clues so that at the piesent time ACA represents a majority of members in at least
three Districts", other locals are weighing the possibility of withdrawing from the Federa-
tion; a substantial number of locals considering the question of withdrawal are actually on
the verge of severing their ties with the Federation and the Federation has not "disinte-
grated" completely solely because its otyiceis have publicized the Board s iefusal in similar
cases to caive smaller units from an established unit as extensive as the Department, and
have staled that seceding locals lose all rights to collective bargaining. These facts, if
proved, would show no more than discontentment with the Federation rather than dis-
satisfaction Rrth or inappropriateness of a Departnnent-wide unit See Matter of Rayentier
Incorporated , Grays Ha,her Disision, 52 N L R B 1269 we note, furthermore, Rrth
respect to the first matter of the offer of proof, that there are as maiiv as 34 Districts in
the Department Concerning the remaining matteis of the ACA's offer, they are in any
case remote and speculative.
330 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
From the foregoing facts, particularly the history of collective
bargaining on a Department-wide basis and the integrated nature of
the Department's operations, we find that the unit sought by the ACA,
restricted in coverage to District 65, is inappropriate.4
IV. THE ALLEGED QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION
Since the unit sought by the ACA is inappropriate , we find that
no question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Company.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, the National Labor
Relations Board hereby orders that the petition for investigation
and certification of representatives of employees of American Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company, Detroit, Michigan , filed by American
Communications Association (ACA-CIO), be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
MR. JOHN M. HOUSTON took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Order.
4 Matter of Pennsylvania Power & Light Company, 54 N. L. R. B. 1189.