The Gas Service Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 3, 1963

140 N.L.R.B. 445 (N.L.R.B. 1963)

THE GAS SERVICE COMPANY
The Gas Service Company and Gas Workers Metal Trades Union,
Local Union No. 781, Petitioner . Case No. 17-RC-2613. Janu-
ary 3, 1963
DECISION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION TO CLARIFY
DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
On January 24, 1958, following an election conducted pursuant to
Decision and Direction of Election,' United Association of Journey-
men and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of
the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO, was certified as the
collective-bargaining representative for the following unit:
All physical employees in the operating department at the Em-
ployer's Kansas City, Missouri, division, including machine oper-
ators, working foremen, meter readers, and clerical employees in
the operating department, but excluding office clerical employees,
professional employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
On April 10, 1958, the Board issued an order amending the certifica-
tion by substituting the Petitioner herein as the certified Union.
Thereafter, on November 13, 1961, the Petitioner filed a motion to clar-
ify deternlinntion of representatives. In tliis motion, the Petitioner re-
quested the Board to clarify the above certification " by determining
that work done on high pressure transmission lines and regulating
stations within the territorial limits of the Kansas City Division of
The Gas Service Company belongs to employees within the bargaining
unit exclusively represented by Petitioner." On the basis of the facts
alleged in support of its motion, it appeared to be the Petitioner's
contention that employees working on such lines constituted an ac-
cretion to its unit to the extent that they performed work within the
territorial limits of the Kansas City division. The Employer and
District 50, United Mine Workers of America,2 which represents other
employees of the Employer, were served with copies of the aforesaid
motion but filed no response thereto. On December 18, 1961, the
Board issued a notice directing the parties to that proceeding to show
cause why the Board should not grant the Petitioner's motion, and
include within the unit with respect to all their duties the employees
servicing such lines. Thereafter, on January 18, 1962, the Employer
filed a response in opposition to the Petitioner's motion, with exhibits
attached. On February 9, 1962, the Petitioner and District 50 replied
to the Employer's response, both requesting a hearing in the natter.
On February 19, 1962, the Employer filed opposition to the positions
' December 23, 1957, not published in NLRB volumes.
2 Herein called District 50.
140 NLRB No. 45.
446 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
taken by the Petitioner and District 50, requesting that their motions
be denied or, in the alternative, that a hearing be held. On March 12,
1962, the Board remanded the matter to the Regional Director for
the Seventeenth Region for the purpose of arranging a hearing to
receive evidence on the issues raised by the Petitioner's motion to
clarify the unit. A hearing was held on various dates between May 1
and May 25, 1962, before William J. Cassidy, hearing officer. The
hearing officer's rulings are free from prejudicial error and are hereby
affirmed.'
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman McCulloch and Members Rodgers and Leedom].
Upon the entire record in the case, including the briefs filed by the
parties subsequent to the hearing, the Board finds :
The Employer, a public utility, is engaged in the distribution of
natural gas to consumers in residential, business, and industrial areas.
This distribution system is divided into 24 divisions located in 4
Midwestern States.4 As noted, in 1958, the Petitioner was certified
as the collective-bargaining representative of physical employees in
the Employer's Kansas City division. Since the certification, the
Employer and the Petitioner have entered into two collective-
bargaining agreements, the latest of which is effective from June 1,
1961, until June 1, 1963, covering employees in a unit substantially
similar to that for which the Petitioner was certified. In November
1960, the Employer purchased from Cities Service Gas Company and
Panhandle Eastern Pipe Company certain high pressure, large di-
ameter transmission lines.5 These lines are located in the geographic
areas served by the Employer's four Missouri divisions,e and are
utilized to transmit gas to those divisions for distribution to the Em-
ployer's customers. As will be more fully described below, the Em-
ployer in 1960 organized a new pipeline division for the purpose of
maintaining and patrolling these high pressure transmission lines.
It is the Employer's pipeline division employees which are involved
in this proceeding.
As noted, in its motion to clarify the certification, the Petitioner
requested the Board to find that the work performed by the pipeline
division employees within the territorial limits of the Kansas City
division belongs to the employees it represents.' At no time during
8 District 50 was permitted to intervene at the hearing for the purpose of supporting
the Petitioner' s motion for clarification.
'These States are Missouri , Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.
e Tbese lines form a part of a system which supplies gas to various distribution com-
panies from sources in Texas and Oklahoma.
G These divisions are Kansas City, Lee's Summit, Independence , and Liberty. Lee's
Summit and Independence employees are represented by District 50; Liberty employees
are unrepresented
7The Petitioner made the same request in its brief to the Board filed after the hearing.
THE GAS SERVICE COMPANY 447
this proceeding did the Petitioner state that it seeks to represent the
employees employed in the pipeline division; nor did it specifically
ask the Board to include such employees in the certified unit. In
fact, at the hearing, the Petitioner expressly denied that it sought
to represent pipeline division employees. Thus, it is now clear that
the Petitioner in effect is asking the Board to assign to employees in
the unit represented by the Petitioner certain of the work now being
done by employees in the pipeline division. However, work assign-
ment disputes are not properly matters for consideration and resolu-
tion in a representation proceeding. As the Board has said,' its sole
function in representation proceedings is to ascertain and certify the
name of the bargaining representative, if any, that has been designated
by the employees in the appropriate unit. It is not the Board's re-
sponsibility in representation proceedings to decide whether employees
in the bargaining unit are entitled to do any particular work or
whether an employer has properly reassigned work from employees
in the bargaining unit to other employees. Accordingly, the Peti-
tioner's motion, insofar as it requests the Board to assign certain work
to employees in the certified unit, is hereby denied.
But even assuming, as the Board initially believed, that the Pe-
titioner by its motion seeks to represent pipeline division employees
as part of its certified unit, we would nonetheless deny the motion
for clarification for the following reasons. When Petitioner was
certified as representative of employees in the Kansas City division,
the Employer was engaged exclusively in the distribution of natural
gas through low pressure lines. No pipeline division existed at that
time as part of the Employer's operation. The Employer intro-
duced the transmission of gas through high pressure lines for the
first time in November 1960, when it purchased from Panhandle and
Cities Services the lines now operated by the pipeline division. These
lines previously had been maintained and operated by Panhandle
and Cities Service with separate crews of employees. Unlike the
distribution lines of the Employer's Kansas City and other divisions,
these transmission lines traverse open country through four western
Missouri counties and carry pressures ranging throughout from 100
to 300 pounds per square inch. The distribution lines, on the other
hand, generally carry pressures of less 1 pound per square inch, and
are located under the streets in metropolitan areas. The pipeline
division is under the supervision of a manager, who, like the other
divisional heads, reports directly to the office of the Employer's chief
engineer. At the time of the hearing, the pipeline division person-
nel, in addition to the manager, consisted of a working foreman and
two other employees. While both Kansas City division employees
8 General Aniline & Film Corporation , Ansco Division . 89 NLRB 467; see American
Broadcasting Company, Inc , et al., 112 NLRB 605 , 607, 608.
448 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and pipeline division employees are responsible for maintaining and
patrolling gaslines, they utilize different methods in doing so 0 and,
in addition, Kansas City division employees work in job classifica-
tions covering a wide range of functions not encompassed by the
work of pipeline division employees.10 The pipeline division head-
quarters is located in the Lee's Summit division, about 15 miles from
the Kansas City division, in a separate brilding leased for that
purpose, where pipeline division employees report to work. Com-
pany vehicles used by pipeline division employees are housed in a
separate garage which is also located in Lee's Summit division. Pipe-
line division employees patrol and maintain the transmission lines,
not only in the Kansas City division, but also those in the Employer's
three other Missouri divisions. Pipeline division employees do not
interchange with employees in the certified unit, nor are they or-
ganized under a system of job classifications and progression such
as that provided by contract for employees in the Kansas City di-
vision. Although the pipeline division came into existence prior to
the execution of the current contract between the Employer and the
Petitioner, no discussion took place between the parties as to the in-
clusion of pipeline division employees in the certified unit.
Under these circumstances, and particularly in view of the fact
that the pipeline division and the Kansas City division are separate
administrative subdivisions of the Employer, that the employees in
each of these divisions are separately supervised, perform different
functions, and do not interchange with one another, and in view of
the further fact that pipeline division employees are based outside
the Kansas City division and perform their functions in a geographi-
cal area encompassing not only the Kansas City division, but three
other distribution divisions as well, we find that the Employer's pipe-
line division is not an accretion to its Kansas City division." As
the Petitioner, insofar as it seeks in its motion for clarification to
represent pipeline division employees, is attempting to add previously
unrepresented employees to the certified unit, we find that the mo-
tion raises a question concerning representation which may not be
resolved through a clarification of the existing unit." Accordingly,
we shall deny the Petitioner's motion for clarification.
[The Board denied the motion of Gas Workers Metal Trades Union,
Local Union No. 781, to clarify the certification in Case No.
17-RC-2613.]
O Thus, Kansas City division employees use a gas indicator for detecting leaks on low
pressure lines, while pipeline division employees detect such leaks without the use of
instruments.
10 For example , the pipeline division does not employ meter readers , dispatchers , appli-
ance installers , and numerous other classifications of employees.
11 See Chrysler Corporation, 129 NLRB 407, 411.
' General Electric Company ( River Works), 131 NLRB 1302.