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NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

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184 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF <strong>NATIONAL</strong> <strong>LABOR</strong> <strong>RELATIONS</strong> <strong>BOARD</strong><br />

(E) CLERICAL EMPLOYEEES, WATCHMEN, AND OTHER CATEGORIES<br />

It is of value to discuss separately the manner in which the Board<br />

has treated clerical workers 2 watchmen, technical employees, and<br />

similar groups whose inclusion in a bargaining unit has been in<br />

issue in several cases before the Board. The factors of skill, nature<br />

of work, wages, and connection with the management, which are discussed<br />

above, are each of weight with regard to some or all of these<br />

categories.<br />

The Board has held in many cases that clerical employees have interests<br />

which normally render their inclusion in one unit with production<br />

and maintenance employees inappropriate. In Matter of<br />

Pacific Gas and Electric Company," it was contended by two unions<br />

that the office force of the gas and electric utility company there<br />

involved should be included in one unit with the company's outside<br />

employees, and a third union argued that the clerical employees<br />

should be excluded. The Board pointed out that :<br />

The considerations advanced in support of the separation of clerical workers<br />

from outside or physical workers follow familiar patterns. It was urged that<br />

the difference in the type of work performed, the traditional divergence in their<br />

social outlook and in their attitude toward labor organizations, and the fact that<br />

75 percent of the clerical employees are women, that large numbers of the outside<br />

or physical workers possess special training and skill, and that the outside or<br />

physical workers are primarily concerned with hazards of work, a matter in<br />

which clerical workers can have but little interest, are compelling reasons for<br />

the separation of the two classes of employees into separate units. This contention<br />

receives further support from the fact that in the past only the outside<br />

or physical workers have become members of labor organizations, while the<br />

clerical employees, until very recently, have never been organized as a distinct<br />

group or as a part of a larger group.<br />

After reviewing the arguments in support of inclusion of the clerical<br />

employees and finding them unconvincing, the Board said :<br />

There is thus no persuasive evidence tending to blur the well-defined line of<br />

demarcation existing between the clerical workers and the outside or physical<br />

workers in the operations of the company. We shall therefore not include the<br />

clerical employees in the same unit with the outside or physical employees.<br />

With regard to office employees, the Board has followed the practice<br />

of excluding them from plant units where no showing has been made<br />

that their inclusion is desirable. Thus, in Matter of Atlantic Basin<br />

iron Works," the Board said :<br />

As it is obvious that their status and function are essentially different from<br />

the status and function of employees who do manual labor, our usual practice<br />

has been to exclude office and clerical employees as well as timekeepers from a<br />

unit largely composed of production and maintenance employees. Since no<br />

affirmative showing has been made * * * nor any compelling arguments<br />

advanced * * ' 0 as to why we should depart from this practice, we shall<br />

exclude office and clerical employees and timekeepers from the unit!'<br />

Et5 Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and United Electrical ct Radio "Workers<br />

of America, 3 N. L. It. B. 835.<br />

o° Matter of Atlantic Basin Iron Works' and Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding<br />

Workers or America, Local No. 13, 5 N. L. It. B. 402.<br />

rr See also : Matter of Atlas Mills, Inc.. and Textile House Workers Union, No. 2269,<br />

United Textile Workers of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 10; Matter of Whittier Mills Company<br />

and Textile Workers Organizing Committee, 3 N. L. R. B. 389; ii fatter of General Mills,<br />

Inc., doing business under the trade name of Washburn Crosby Company and Flour, Feed,<br />

and Cereal Workers Federal Union No. 19184, and United Grain and Cereal Workers, Local<br />

No. 240, 3 N. L. B. B. 730; Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and United Electrical<br />

& Radio Workers of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 835; Matter of Alabama Drgdock X<br />

Shipbuilding Co. and Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America,<br />

Local No. 18, 5 N. L. R. B. 149; Matter of International Harvester Company Tractor

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