Teleprompter Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsNov 24, 1976

226 N.L.R.B. 1171 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION Teleprompter Corporation ; Teleprompter of Florida, Inc., St. Petersburg, a subsidiary of Teleprompter Corporation ; Teleprompter of Manatee County, a subsidiary of Teleprompter Corporation; Tele- prompter of Holly Hill, a subsidiary of Telepromp- ter Corporation ; and Teleprompter of New Smyrna Beach , a subsidiary of Teleprompter Corporation and International Brotherhood of Electrical Work- ers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Cases 12-RC-4953, 12- RC-4986,12-RC-4987,12-RC-5039, and 12-RC- 5040 November 24, 1976 DECISION, ORDER, AND REMAND BY MEMBERS FANNING, PENELLO, AND WALTHER Upon petitions duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hear- ing lasting 20 days was held between December 9, 1975, and March 29, 1976, before Hearing Officer C. W. Hunt, Jr., of the National Labor Relations Board. Thereafter, the Regional Director for Region 12 transferred the case to the Board for decision. Subsequently, the Employer and Petitioner filed briefs. 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 au- thority in these proceedings to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul- ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in these proceedings, the Board finds' 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pur- poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2 The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent certain employees of the Employer 3 Questions affecting commerce exist concerning the representation of certain employees of the Em- ployer within the meaning of Sections 9(c)l and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. The Employer's Cable Television Division oper- ates cable television systems' across the United States. The division is divided into three regions: West, Northeast, and Southeast. The Southeast Re- gion, which includes Florida, South Carolina, Ala- bama, Louisiana, and East Texas, is divided into dis- 1 A system is the Employer's basic administrative unit see discussion infra 1171 tracts. Three districts cover the State of Florida. The South Florida district is comprised of three systems: Plantation, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach. The Central Florida district is comprised of 10 systems: Haines City, Lakeland, Manatee, Holly Hill, New Smyrna Beach, Winter Garden, New Port Richey, Deland, Hillsborough, and St. Petersburg. The Southeast district includes systems at Quincy and Marianna, Florida, and systems located outside of the State .2 The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit comprised of the Employer's 15 Florida systems, but alterna- tively will accept a unit limited to the systems cov- ered by the Central Florida and South Florida dis- tricts, or the Central and South Florida districts as separate appropriate units.' The Employer argues that none of these three units would be appropriate. We agree with the Employer. The record shows that several of the systems have histories of collective bargaining. In 1973, the South Florida district included nine systems: Plantation, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, Riviera Beach, and Pahokee. IBEW, Local 2105 was certified as the bar- gaining representative for West Palm Beach in 1970, and recognition was thereafter extended to Local 2105 at the other eight systems. Individual 3-year contracts covering each of these systems were en- tered into during March 1973 and made retroactive to January 1, 1973. Between 1973 and 1975, however, the Employer consolidated the Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, and Riviera Beach systems into the West Palm Beach system and sold the Pa- hokee system. Local 2105 remains the bargaining representative at the Plantation, Boca Raton, and West Palm Beach Systems. International Chemical Workers Union was certi- fied as bargaining representative for the Lakeland system during 1970, and signed a 3-year contract with the Employer, effective from January 1, 1971, to December 31, 1973: it never sought to negotiate a successor contract. By letter dated December 15, 1975, the Chemical workers Union disclaimed any interest with regard to representing the Lakeland em- ployees Â° The Employer has voluntarily recognized indepen- 2 No system is closer than 20 miles to another Some are as far apart as 500 miles Petition 12-RC-4953 seeks a unit that includes All employees engaged in the installation operation maintenance, re- pair and inspection of the Employer's Community Antenna Systems, including all installers, technicians installer/ technicians dispatchers and helpers employed by the employer in the State of Florida, exclud- ing all clerical employees sales and administrative employees, profes- sional employees guards and supervisors as defined in the Act Â° A system at Plant City was recently consolidated into the Lakeland system 226 NLRB No. 187 1172 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD dent employee associations at St. Petersburg,' Mana- tee, Holly Hill, and New Smyrna Beach. After the hearing herein began, the Petitioner filed petitions for each of these four systems and the Regional Di- rector consolidated them for purposes of hearing with the initial petition.' During 1974, and indepen- dent employee association that the Employer had recognized at Hillsborough affiliated with IBEW Lo- cal 108.7 The Employer sells its cable television service pur- suant to franchise agreements granted by local mu- nicipalities . This service essentially involves the de- livery of a television signal to a purchaser or subscriber. The facility required to provide this ser- vice is a so-called "cable plant," which includes an antenna that receives television signals broadcast from stations subscribers cannot normally receive. Other equipment processes these signals for trans- mission by cable to the subscribers' residences. A system, the Employer's basic administrative unit, consists of one or more cable plants servicing one or more franchise areas. Each system has a staff of both salesmen and/or clericals who handle orders from new subscribers and cable plant employees who install and service the system's equipment. The Peti- tioner is seeking to represent the cable plant employ- ees. Each system is also assigned a system manager.' The system manager controls the hiring and firing of his system's employees, set criteria for hiring, and, together with the system's chief engineer, who is the immediate supervisor of the cable plant employees, directs the work of the system's employees. Absent a collective-bargaining agreement, the system manager 5 Systems at Largo and St Petersburg Beach were consolidated into the St Petersburg system during 1973 and 1974 The employees of these two systems were also represented by independent employee associations 6 The Petitioner's initial petition, 12-RC-4953, was filed October 31, 1975 Contracts covering Plantation , Boca Raton , West Palm Beach, were due to expire December 31, 1975 The contracts covering the St Petersburg and Manatee systems were due to expire February 28, 1976, while those covering the Holly Hill and New Smyrna Beach systems were due to expire April 30, 1976 To bar the renewal of these latter four contracts , the Peti- tioner filed petitions at each of these four systems These petitions, 12-RC- 4986, 12-RC-4987, 12-RC-5039, and 12-RC-5040, were timely filed with respect to the expiration dates of the contracts covering those four systems All four independent employee associations were served with notices of hearing, but only two, those representing the St Petersburg and Manatee systems , intervened at the hearing The Employer contends that the initial petition was untimely filed with respect to the St Petersburg, Manatee, Holly Hill, and New Smyrna Beach systems and that the subsequent petitions filed for each of these four sys- tems did not cure this defect The Employer further contends that the initial petition was untimely filed with respect to the Lakeland system because the 1971-73 contract with the Chemical Workers Union had been automatically renewed from year to year We disagree with the Employer's contentions and find the petitions were timely filed ' The contract with Local 108 covering the Hillsborough system also ex- pired December 31, 1975 B There are, however, only 12 system managers within the State Holly Hill and New Smyrna Beach share a manager, and a single manager is assigned to the Quincy and Mariana systems and the Employer's Dotham, Alabama, system also determines the employees' wage scale and the procedures for promotion and discipline.' The sys- tem managers also administer the collective-bargain- ing agreements that have been negotiated. Whether the system managers have the authority to execute a collective-bargaining agreement without approval from corporate headquarters is not clear. The record does show, however, that since 1973, Paul Gillert, the Employer's director of labor relations, has negotiated all the labor agreements applicable to the Florida systems. Gillert has also negotiated labor agreements for systems outside of Florida. With respect to staffing, the record shows that the systems advertise locally for help; new hires are trained at the system level; and no procedure exists for posting job vacancies at either a districtwide or statewide level. Further, laid-off employees are not transferred to understaffed systems within the State. There is no regular interchange of employees among the systems. Thus, only two or three cable plant employees were temporarily transferred during 1975 among the systems of the Central Florida dis- trict, and since 1971 only three or four such transfers have been made among the systems of the South Florida district. Nor does the record show any inter- district temporary transfers. Additionally, there have been few permanent transfers of plant employees among existing systems. As indicated, the systems are grouped into dis- tricts. Each district is assigned a district manager and district engineer. A district manager's role is to ad- vise the system managers within his district about specific problems, e.g., budgetary proposals, and to collect and distribute information for the regional manager. A district engineer's role is to advise the chief engineers within his district about technical problems and collect technical data about the sys- tems. The district engineers also help the chief engi- neers perform certain tests that are required by the Federal Communications Commission.10 The district managers. as such, do not hire, fire, or supervise sys- tem employees or adjust their grievances.11 The only personnel retained at the district level are the district manager and the district engineer. v Certain policies, affecting wages and benefits, applicable to the Florida systems have been imposed from corporate headquarters Thus, the Em- ployer has instituted pension and health care plans that cover almost all of the Employer's systems nationwide, including those within Florida During 1975, the Employer also imposed a corporatewide wage freeze that affected all employees not covered by collective -bargaining agreements A local service bureau prepares each system's payroll The payroll checks are drawn against the local bank account that each system has, and the system manager signs each check 10 The 10 systems that comprise the Central Florida district share FCC testing equipment, the 3 systems that comprise the South Florida district do not n All three district managers also serve simultaneously as system manag- ers As system managers , each exercises significant control vis -a-vis the labor relations of his system, but only as to his system TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION Each of the Employer's three regions is assigned a regional manager . The primary responsibility of the manager for the Southeast Region, Frank Webb, who is stationed at the Employer's New York head- quarters, is to insure that the systems within his re- gion adhere to corporate budgetary guidelines. Each system manager prepares and submits an annual budget to Webb for his approval; Webb has authori- ty to add or delete items to and from these proposed budgets. Webb also has the authority to consolidate systems. Thus, the Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Boyn- ton Beach, Riviera Beach systems were recently con- solidated into the West Palm Beach system at his directive in order to operate with fewer employees and thereby cut costs. Webb, however, does not of- ten get involved with the day-to-day operations of the systems, but does hire the system managers. As the above indicates, the Employer's Florida systems are not integrated at a statewide or district- wide level. Eleven systems are individually super- vised by a system manager. The four that are jointly supervised share system managers with no more than two other systems. Further, the system managers also otherwise retain significant control of system labor relations. As noted, a certain amount of labor rela- tions control has been centralized at the regional and national level. No centralized control exists at a state or district level. Additionally, the systems recruit at the local level, and employees are promoted primar- ily from within the individual systems. The tempo- rary and permanent interchange that does occur is minimal. The geographical separation among the sys- tems is also significant. Considering the above, we believe there is no basis for finding that the Employer's 15 Florida systems share the requisite community of interest necessary to comprise an appropriate unit. We therefore find the statewide unit requested by the Petitioner to be inappropriate.12 A consideration of the same factors 1173 leads us to also conclude that both a unit limited to the systems that comprise the Central Florida and South districts and units comprised of these two dis- tricts individually would also be inappropriate." We shall therefore dismiss the petition in Case 12-RC- 4953. Although both parties initially agreed that single system units would be presumptively appropriate for collective bargaining, and separate timely petitions were filed with respect to the St. Petersburg, Mana- tee, Holly Hill, and New Smyrna Beach systems, we will not direct elections at these individual systems at this time.14 Instead, we shall remand these four cases to the Regional Director to conduct further proceed- ings, if necessary, and to direct an election or elec- tions where appropriate. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case 12- RC-4953 herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Cases 12-RC-4986, 12-RC-4987, 12-RC-5039, and 12-RC-5040 be, and they hereby are, remanded for further proceedings, if necessary, consistent with this decision. 12 See Service Systems Corporation, 215 NLRB 757 (1974) 13 Cf The Lawson Milk Company Division, Consolidated Foods Corpora- tion, 213 NLRB 360, 361 ( 1974) The Petitioner also argues that the record shows that during the 1973 negotiations, the Employer and Local 2105 agreed to treat the nine systems that at the time comprised the South Flor- ida districts as a single unit We do not believe that the record clearly shows that the parties had agreed to a single , multisystem unit See generally Sambo's Restaurants, Inc, and Sambo's Riverside, 212 NLRB 788 (1974) The Petitioner 's contentions that the independent employee association rep- resenting employees at St Petersburg , Manatee, Holly Hill , and New Smyr- na Beach were employer-dominated were not properly litigable in this pro- ceeding Nathan Warren & Sons, Inc, 119 NLRB 292, 294 (1957) 14 At the hearing , the Petitioner stated that it had filed these four petitions to prevent the renewal of the contracts covering the four systems involved in order to protect its interest in having them included in any multisystem unit that might later be found appropriate The record is not clear whether Peti- tioner would seek to withdraw these four petitions if its initial petition in Case 12-RC-4953 were dismissed