Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. NLRB, 7029.

• Decision Date: 06 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 7029.,7029.
• Citation: 310 F.2d 478
• Parties: The MOUNTAIN STATES TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

310 F.2d 478 (1962)

The MOUNTAIN STATES TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY, Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.

No. 7029.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

December 6, 1962.

G. M. Westa, of Akolt, Turnquist, Shepherd & Dick, Denver, Colo. (Carl F. Eiberger, Denver, Colo., on the brief), for petitioner.

Herman M. Levy, Attorney, N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C. (Stuart Rothman, General Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli and Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and James C. Paras, Attorney, N. L. R. B., Washington, D. C., on the brief), for respondent.

Before PICKETT, BREITENSTEIN and HILL, Circuit Judges.

PICKETT, Circuit Judge.

In a representation proceeding, the National Labor Relations Board found that all janitors, building mechanics and garage attendants employed by the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company in its plant department at Billings, Montana, constituted an appropriate unit for collective bargaining within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, 61 Stat. 136 (1947), as amended, 29 U.S.C.A. §§ 151-168. After a Board-supervised election, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local No. 532, was certified as the unit's exclusive bargaining representative. For the purpose of testing the Board's determination that this bargaining unit was appropriate, the company refused to bargain with the union, and an unfair labor practice charge was lodged against it. This latter proceeding culminated in the entry of an order requiring the company to cease and desist from such unfair labor practices, and to bargain with the union. The sole issue presented here is the validity of the Board's determination that the unit was an appropriate one within the meaning of the Act. The facts, upon which the Board's final order was entered, are stipulated or are undisputed.

The company is a fully integrated public utility providing general telephone and other communications services in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and El Paso County, Texas, with its central office in Denver, Colorado. In conducting its business throughout the area the company is divided into four separate operating departments which are designated as the plant, traffic, commercial and engineering departments. These departments are similarly organized in the different states in which the company operates, and there is a department head for each department in every state. Each department has a general personnel manager at the company's central office in Denver, Colorado, so that the application and administration of personnel policies will be uniform in all departments. The plant department is concerned with the installation, maintenance and operation of the physical properties which are used in the company's operations.

The State of Montana is divided into five districts, each embracing several exchanges, and Billings is the headquarters for the Billings district. Of the fifty separate exchanges in Montana where plant department employees are employed, twelve are located in the Billings district. The employees included in the unit in question here are in the plant department, and constitute all such employees in the Billings exchange area. They work in four different buildings in the city of Billings, and are supervised by a building foreman who has no other employees under him, and who reports to the central office foreman in charge of the Billings central office. Ordinarily these employees are not interchanged with employees in other exchanges of the employer. Excluding supervisory and confidential employees, the plant employees in Montana are represented by labor organizations except for 132 employees, including those involved in this proceeding.¹ These unrepresented employees are principally stenographers, typists, clerks, janitors, garage attendants, building attendants and utility men.

In a number of cases involving integrated telephone companies, the Board has stated that, because of the high degree of integration, the similarity of employment conditions throughout the system, and the centralized control of personnel policies, systemwide units are normally most appropriate for the purpose of collective bargaining, and best serve the public interest. E. g., Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 108 N.L.R.B. 1106; Two States Tel. Co., 90 N.L.R.B. 2008; New England Tel. & Tel. Co., 90 N.L.R.B. 639; Ohio Bell Tel. Co., 87 N.L.R.B. 1555; Southwestern Associated Tel. Co., 76 N.L.R.B. 1105. The company argues that the Board's finding in this proceeding that ten employees in one department of a single exchange in one state, with no prior history of collective bargaining, constitute an appropriate bargaining unit...