NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

184 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
(E) CLERICAL EMPLOYEEES, WATCHMEN, AND OTHER CATEGORIES
It is of value to discuss separately the manner in which the Board
has treated clerical workers 2 watchmen, technical employees, and
similar groups whose inclusion in a bargaining unit has been in
issue in several cases before the Board. The factors of skill, nature
of work, wages, and connection with the management, which are discussed
above, are each of weight with regard to some or all of these
categories.
The Board has held in many cases that clerical employees have interests
which normally render their inclusion in one unit with production
and maintenance employees inappropriate. In Matter of
Pacific Gas and Electric Company," it was contended by two unions
that the office force of the gas and electric utility company there
involved should be included in one unit with the company's outside
employees, and a third union argued that the clerical employees
should be excluded. The Board pointed out that :
The considerations advanced in support of the separation of clerical workers
from outside or physical workers follow familiar patterns. It was urged that
the difference in the type of work performed, the traditional divergence in their
social outlook and in their attitude toward labor organizations, and the fact that
75 percent of the clerical employees are women, that large numbers of the outside
or physical workers possess special training and skill, and that the outside or
physical workers are primarily concerned with hazards of work, a matter in
which clerical workers can have but little interest, are compelling reasons for
the separation of the two classes of employees into separate units. This contention
receives further support from the fact that in the past only the outside
or physical workers have become members of labor organizations, while the
clerical employees, until very recently, have never been organized as a distinct
group or as a part of a larger group.
After reviewing the arguments in support of inclusion of the clerical
employees and finding them unconvincing, the Board said :
There is thus no persuasive evidence tending to blur the well-defined line of
demarcation existing between the clerical workers and the outside or physical
workers in the operations of the company. We shall therefore not include the
clerical employees in the same unit with the outside or physical employees.
With regard to office employees, the Board has followed the practice
of excluding them from plant units where no showing has been made
that their inclusion is desirable. Thus, in Matter of Atlantic Basin
iron Works," the Board said :
As it is obvious that their status and function are essentially different from
the status and function of employees who do manual labor, our usual practice
has been to exclude office and clerical employees as well as timekeepers from a
unit largely composed of production and maintenance employees. Since no
affirmative showing has been made * * * nor any compelling arguments
advanced * * ' 0 as to why we should depart from this practice, we shall
exclude office and clerical employees and timekeepers from the unit!'
Et5 Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and United Electrical ct Radio "Workers
of America, 3 N. L. It. B. 835.
o° Matter of Atlantic Basin Iron Works' and Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding
Workers or America, Local No. 13, 5 N. L. It. B. 402.
rr See also : Matter of Atlas Mills, Inc.. and Textile House Workers Union, No. 2269,
United Textile Workers of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 10; Matter of Whittier Mills Company
and Textile Workers Organizing Committee, 3 N. L. R. B. 389; ii fatter of General Mills,
Inc., doing business under the trade name of Washburn Crosby Company and Flour, Feed,
and Cereal Workers Federal Union No. 19184, and United Grain and Cereal Workers, Local
No. 240, 3 N. L. B. B. 730; Matter of Pacific Gas and Electric Company and United Electrical
& Radio Workers of America, 3 N. L. R. B. 835; Matter of Alabama Drgdock X
Shipbuilding Co. and Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America,
Local No. 18, 5 N. L. R. B. 149; Matter of International Harvester Company Tractor