Grill Concepts Services, Inc. d/b/a The Daily Grill

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 3, 2018

31-RC-209589 (N.L.R.B. Aug. 3, 2018)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
GRILL CONCEPTS SERVICES, INC. D/B/A
THE DAILY GRILL
Employer
and Case 31-RC-209589
UNITE HERE LOCAL 11
Petitioner
ORDER
The Employer’s Request for Review of the Regional Director’s Partial Decision on
Objections and Notice of Hearing is denied as it raises no substantial issues warranting review.1

1 We have treated the Employer’s Request for Review as also requesting review of the Regional
Director’s Decision and Direction of Election.
In Member McFerran’s view, the facts found by the Regional Director strongly suggest
that holding several staggered voting periods (instead of conducting a mail ballot election) would
not have yielded more complete and reliable results here. As found by the Regional Director,
most of the employees are part-time (51 out of 76), sometimes working only one day a week, and
work on either the breakfast, lunch, or dinner shifts. Moreover, even employees scheduled for
the same shift can have different start and end times. Further, the Regional Director found that
40% of the workforce is not scheduled to work “on any given day” and that more than 15% of
the workforce is not scheduled during any 2-day period. In those circumstances, the Regional
Director reasonably found that a manual election scheduled on a single day or even two
consecutive days would disenfranchise a substantial percentage of the workforce. Last, although
the Employer offered to schedule all employees to work on a particular day, so that a manual
election could be scheduled on that day, the Regional Director reasonably concluded that this
approach could negatively affect part-time employees who may have second jobs, familial
duties, or school obligations. See London’s Farm Dairy, Inc., 323 NLRB 1057
(1997)(inconvenience to employees with conflicting obligations could cause resentment of the
organizing campaign). In sum, this case appears to demonstrate the substantial benefits offered
by the Board’s current policy regarding mail ballot elections.
Member Emanuel finds, consistent with current Board precedent, that the Regional
Director did not abuse her discretion by ordering a mail ballot election. But in his view, this case
illustrates why the Board should consider revising its policy in this area to restrict mail ballot
elections to cases where a manual election is not feasible. Here, although the employees’ varied
work schedules made a manual ballot election difficult, scheduling several voting sessions
should have reasonably addressed the problem. Instead, the mail ballot process left nearly 30
percent of eligible voters (22 of 76) uncounted, followed by the current litigation. In Member
Emanuel’s view, a manual ballot election, which was certainly feasible, would have yielded
more complete and certain results.
JOHN F. RING, CHAIRMAN
LAUREN McFERRAN, MEMBER
WILLIAM J. EMANUEL, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., August 3, 2018