Reliance Insurance Companies

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 26, 1968

173 N.L.R.B. 985 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

RELIANCE INSURANCE COMPANIES 985
Reliance Insurance Company and Planet Insurance
Company d/b/a Reliance Insurance Companies
and Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, Pro-
fessional , Office and Industrial Department
AFL-CIO. Case 20-RC-8188
November 26, 1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Jesse R. Fleschute and
Edward D. McDaniel, Hearing Officers. The Employer
filed a brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
Act, the National Labor Relations Board has dele-
gated its powers in connection with this case to a
three-member panel.
The Hearing Officers' rulings made at the hearing
are free from prejudicial error and 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 The labor organization involved claims to repre-
sent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The employer is engaged in the sale and
service of casualty and property insurance and bonds.
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit designated as
office clericals employed at the Employer's two San
Francisco locations, its main office and its 1000
Sansome Street "dead storage" plant. Specifically
excluded from the unit requested by the Petitioner
are underwriters, engineers, claims adjusters, and
special agents The Employer contends that the unit
should include underwriters, engineers, claims ad-
justers, and certain individuals alleged to be super-
visors, but should exclude the Sansome Street em-
ployees. There is no bargaining history.
There are approximately 165 employees who work
in the Employer's San Francisco office. These em-
ployees are all located on floors six and seven of the
building. The Employer is administratively organized
in 17 departments or groups, according to work
function, as follows: underwriting, engineering,
bonding, claims, coding, steno pool, premium ac-
counting, policy typing, audit, switchboard, cancella-
tion and re-insurance, mail and supply, personnel
premium files, quality control, and agency. The
Employer employs no agents or salesmen. The em-
ployees in each department are physically located
together, and each group is adjacent to others in the
same general area on each particular floor. Managerial
authority is delegated departmentwide although some
managerial personnel are responsible for more than
one department.
There is no dispute regarding the inclusion of the
great bulk of employees sought by Petitioner. These
employees perform tasks of a normal clerical nature,
such as switchboard operating, typing, filing, mail
distribution and routing of reports. For example,
steno pool employees transcribe dictation and written
memos, and send telegrams; policy typists type all
policies, endorsements, cancellation notices, motor
vehicle reports and credit reports, and mail work to
agents, mail and supply employees open and distribute
mail and pass out supplies; premium filing employees
maintain daily report files along with audit copies of
daily reports used by the audit review department,
match mail received to daily reports and deliver such
reports to various units; agency department clericals
maintain agency contract files, issue licenses to agents
and route all contracts through the office for appro-
priate signature, engineering department clericals
maintain and file inspection cards, order credit
reports, and process payment of inspection bills,
claims clericals type up files, drafts, letters, subroga-
tion notices, closing notices, releases and proofs of
loss, open and index mail, pull and index files, and
sign drafts; underwriting clericals pick up and type
execution reports, prepare the premium entry, send
reports back to underwriting, and file papers.
The parties have also agreed to include coding and
premium accounting employees, premium audit re-
viewers, and underwriting raters in the unit. The
duties of these employees are as follows. coding
employees apply statistical information to premium
entries for the purpose of determining rates, using
printing calculators (a type of adding machine) rather
than typewriters. Premium accounting employees are
responsible for collecting premiums from independent
agents, preparing casualty payments for keypunching,
and resolving premium and commission differences.
Premium audit employees extend audits; thus, they
review an insured's payroll records, supplied by an
independent auditing firm, in conjunction with a rate
provided by the underwriting department, to deter-
mine the premium, apparently for workmen's com-
pensation insurance. Underwriting raters consult in-
dustry manuals to ascertain rates for use by the
underwriters in determining costs.
All of the following classifications are apparently in
dispute:
Underwriters* It is the function of the underwriters
to sort out the many risks presented for company
action, accept certain of them, and then underwrite
173 NLRB No. 147
986 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the risks accepted. Although the Employer's general
overall risk guidelines are set forth in manuals and
bulletins, underwriters are required to exercise in-
dependent judgment in applying such guidelines to
the risk presented. A college degree is desired for hire,
although many years of experience as a rater may
qualify one to become an underwriter Beginning
underwriters participate in an extensive training pro-
gram, and thereafter participate in a continuing
educational program at company expense. Although
underwriters work the same hours and receive the
same company benefits, they apparently are higher
paid than those included in the unit by agreement.
Engineers Engineers conduct physical inspections
of property and casualty risks, to obtain information
for determining whether such risks are safe. They also
perform and maintain safety programs on large
casualty risks. Under normal circumstances a college
education is desired for this position, which requires
the exercise of specialized skill and independent
judgment. Engineers do most of their work outside
the main office, and report to the office but once a
week. They have an expense account, a car, and a
telephone credit card.
Claims Adjusters The claims department consists
of outside adjusters, resident claims representatives,
and claims service representatives (CSR's), as well as
the clericals whom the parties agreed to include. The
outside adjusters, resident claims representatives and
CSR's all adjust claims. The outside adjusters report
to the main office but once a week. The resident
claims representatives work out of separately located
suboffices. The CSR's work fulltime in the Em-
ployer's main office, and therefore do not have an
automobile or an expense account. They are normally
college graduates, although some are promoted from
claims clericals.
As indicated above, a majority of the employees
included in this unit by agreement perform tasks
usually referred to as office clerical functions, which
are largely routine, involving little, if any, independ-
ent judgment. No specialized, advanced education is
required of the clericals, and they do not participate
in a company training program.
Underwriters, engineers, and adjusters, on the other
hand, all perform duties of a technical, specialized
nature, in which they are called upon to exercise
considerable independent judgment. A college educa-
tion is expected of new hires, and they receive
extensive training upon hire. Continued education
and training at company expense is also available to
these employees. Although physically located near
i Cf Farmer 's Insurance Group, 164 NLRB No. 24, fn. 2,Fireman's
Fund Insurance Company, 173 NLRB No. 146 See also North Carolina
Mutual Life Insurance Company, Durham, North Carolina, 109 NLRB
625, Southern Aid Society of Virginia, Inc, 64 NLRB 780, 783
clericals, and although having considerable contact
with employees included in the unit, particularly the
raters, their work obviously requires a higher level of
responsibility. In these circumstances, we find that
the underwriters, engineers, and adjusters have inter-
ests sufficiently different to warrant their exclusion
from the unit.'
The position of the Petitioner is not clear con-
cerning the claims service representatives and resident
claims representatives. We shall, however, exclude
them from the unit, as their interests are most closely
identified with employees previously excluded.
1000 Sansome Street Employees Although the
Employer, at the hearing, agreed with the Petitioner
that these employees should be included, in its brief it
requests their exclusion. This facility is located about
eight blocks from the Employer 's San Francisco main
office, and is a repository for records, as well as
supplies and foams to be used in the main office.
There are six employees who perform the receiving,
storage, and transportation duties.
These Sansome Street employees have contact with
main office employees through their delivery func-
tions. There is a considerable amount of interchange
with included mailroom employees at the main office,
all of whom were formerly employed at Sansome
Street.
Although the Sansome Street employees might
appropriately be separately represented if sought on
that basis, because of the similarity of their duties and
interchange with employees in the unit, we are
satisfied that they have sufficient interests in common
with other included employees to warrant their
inclusion in the same unit.2
Alleged Supervisors Petitioner alleges that four
"unit leaders" in the premium accounting department
- Roger Palmer, Tony Boyhen, Joyce Carr, and Ed
Gibson - are supervisors and should be excluded
from the unit, the Employer asks for their inclusion.
Palmer, Boyhen, and Carr receive salaries about 10
percent larger than others in the department. Al-
though they can recommend salary increases and
dismissal , the manager decides such matters on the
basis of his own judgment, whereas he accepts such
recommendations when made by admitted super-
visors. There is also testimony that these unit leaders
"are being developed so they could possibly become
supervisors, with more experience" after " at least a
year." In these circumstances, we find their super-
visory status and responsibility appear to be specula-
tive.3 As they perform the same work as others in the
department, we find that Palmer, Boyhen, and Carr
2 Utica Mutual Insurance Company, 165 NLRB No . 105, fn. 12.
3 Hilton -Bums Hotel Co, 167 NLRB No. 29.
RELIANCE INSURANCE COMPANIES 987
are not supervisors and include them in the unit.
We find it unnecessary to decide the supervisory
status of Ed Gibson. The Employer had decided to
transfer Gibson to another office on August 15, 1968,
and he will therefore not be working in the Em-
ployer's San Francisco office at the time of the
election.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees
constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9(b) of the Act
All employees in the Employer's two San Francisco
locations, 320 California Street, and 1000 Sansome
Street, excluding underwriters, engineers, claims
adjusters, claims service representatives, resident
claims representatives, confidential secretaries,
managerial personnel, and supervisors as defined in
the Act.
[Direction of Election omitted from publication]
4 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 20 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and
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.
Excelsior Underwearlnc, 156 NLRB 1236