Inverrary Country Club, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsAug 27, 1980

251 N.L.R.B. 1143 (N.L.R.B. 1980)

INVERRARY COUNTRY CLUB. INC I 143 Inverrary Country Club, Inc. and Hotel and Restau- rant Employees Union, Local 39, Petitioner. Case 12-RC-5784 August 27, 1980 DECISION ON REVIEW, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF NEW ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND TRUESDALE On March 6, 1980, the Regional Director for Region 12 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found inappropriate the Petitioner's requested unit of employees in the food and beverage, house maintenance and laundry departments of the Em- ployer's Lauderhill, Florida, facilities, and found appropriate instead a broader unit, including all of the Employer's manual operating employees. The Regional Director directed an election in the broader unit, contingent upon the Petitioner's sub- mission of an adequate showing of interest. There- after, pursuant to the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Petitioner filed a timely request for review of the Regional Director's decision on the grounds that he departed from precedent in making this unit determination. By telegraphic order dated April 14, 1980, the National Labor Relations Board granted the Peti- tioner's request for review. Thereafter, the parties filed briefs on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, including briefs on review, and makes the follow- ing findings: The Employer is engaged in the operation of a private membership club in Lauderhill. It furnishes golf, tennis, swimming, and fitness facilities for its members and their guests and provides a main clubhouse building with swimming pool and pro shop, two regulation-length 18-hole golf courses; a racquet club consisting of 30 tennis courts, tennis pro shop, and pool; an executive golf course and clubhouse; and locker rooms with fitness facilities. Several maintenance and golf cart barns service all of the Employer's operations. In addition, the Em- ployer operates two kitchens, two dining rooms, two bar/lounges, and a grill in order to sell food and beverages to members and their guests. These facilities are available also for special group func- 251 NLRB No. 155 tions. The Employer has a membership totaling 2,400. The Petitioner requested a unit of all of the Em- ployer's food and beverage department employees (which includes banquet department employees) and its house maintenance and laundry depart- ment-approximately 119 employees. The Regional Director, noting that the parties agreed to include these classifications in the bargaining unit, conclud- ed that several other categories of manual operat- ing employees shared a close and continuing com- munity of interest with unit employees. Thus, he directed an election in a broadened unit of employ- ee classifications which included grounds mainte- nance, golf course maintenance, golf cart mainte- nance, golf pro shop, and bag room employees, golf rangers/starters, pool attendants, tennis court maintenance employees, tennis court rangers, tennis court schedulers, locker room attendats. masseuses and masseurs-totaling approximately 213 employ- ees. The Petitioner contends that the Regional Direc- tor erred in broadening the unit to include manual operating employees other than those agreed upon, and states that, should the Board find that the house maintenance and laundry room employees share no greater community of interest with the food and beverage department employees than do the other manual operating employees, it would, in the alternative, limit its unit request to food and beverage department employees. The Employer contends that, because it is a pri- vate membership club, its food and beverage facili- ties are highly integrated with the recreational facilities it provides for its members and their guests. Therefore, the Employer would distinguish its food and beverage operations from those of a public and commercial nature found in restaurant/ hotel enterprises, and urges that the Regional Di- rector's unit determination be affirmed. As found by the Regional Director, the main clubhouse building houses the golf operation for the East and West courses. It is a two-story build- ing containing a PBX/reception area, meeting rooms, a dining room and bar, kitchen facilities, a grill, men's and ladies' locker rooms, a pro shop, a bag room, a cart barn, executive offices, a member- ship office, the house maintenance department and a swimming pool. A second cart barn is located about 50 feet from the main clubhouse and houses golf carts, a mechanics' workshop, and a laundry facility. Another maintenance barn is located on the periphery of the East course. The racquet club facility is about half a mile south of the main clubhouse and is a two-level building housing a PBX/reception area, a dining 1144 DI)CISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and bar/lounge area, a kitchen, an observation room, men's and ladies' locker rooms, a pro shop, and a swimming pool. Access to the club's 30 tennis courts and the tennis pro shop is through the racquet club facility. The executive golf club is housed in a separate facility 1-1/2 to 2 miles from the racquet club. The executive course is contigu- ous to the East and West courses, and within the executive club building itself are limited locker room facilities and limited food and beverage serv- ices at the pro shop counter. There is a small golf cart barn at this facility. The Employer operates year-round but curtails operations to days per week from mid-April to mid-December. Staff is increased or decreased as the need arises. As stated, the Employer's oper- ations are divided into nine departments: food and beverage; accounting; membership; grounds main- tenance; house maintenance; fitness; tennis court maintenance; golf course maintenance; and golf course operations. The food and beverage department has approxi- mately 114 employees, under the separate supervi- sion of the food and beverage director and an as- sistant director. In the main clubhouse are approxi- mately 26 employees (waiters, waitresses, bartend- ers, busboys, cooks, dishwashers), and in the rac- quet club are approximately 35 in the same classifi- cations, and 1 food and beverage employee works at the executive golf course building. There are only 10 banquet employees who work enough hours to qualify for health benefits and profit-shar- ing plans. However, the Employer has a list of ap- proximately 60 names to call upon for this part- time work, including 20 who are regularly em- ployed in other positions at the club-the majority within the food and beverage department. In the main clubhouse, food and beverage em- ployees assigned to the grill occasionally will bring drinks to the locker room. If the grill employees are busy, the locker room attendant may assist in serving the members. Golf pro shop employees may go into the grill to get ice and soda for a member's golf cart. Members will bring their own food and drinks into the pool area, or a pool attendant may go into the grill to get something for the member. Occasionally, a grill employee will serve members at the pool; but the Employer has three waitresses rotating such services at the pool. At the racquet club, the grill operates like a snack bar, serviced by pool attendants or dining room employees. Lunch, dining, and grill service person- nel share in a tip pool, and pool attendants share as to beverages served poolside. As indicated, the ex- ecutive club facility has modest food and beverage facilities-only a counter serviced by two employ- ees--and all food and beverages are prepared in the main facility and trucked over twice a day. Ad- ditionally, the main kitchen in the clubhouse serves as a commissary kitchen for the entire facility; it performs preliminary preparation steps for certain foods which are then conveyed to other kitchens; it does the carving for all food service areas. The record shows few, if any, instances of actual interchange, but rather that a number of employees are sometimes hired for second jobs elsewhere in the Employer's establishment-particularly as part- time banquet employees. Other examples include a few food and beverage personnel who assist in mailing out monthly statements, in addition to their regular work 2-3 days a month and are paid for such work by the accounting department: one pool attendant who drives to pick up the payroll once a week and is paid by the accounting department for that task. Employees in all departments do their own cleanup work, although the Employer employs outside contractors to scrub the facilities' floors. The record shows that there are three house main- tenance employees who vacuum the clubhouses each morning, clean the clubhouse restrooms, issue paper products, and do janitorial and minor maintenance. They may also assist other depart- ments occasionally, setting up for a banquet or cleaning the locker rooms during an extremely busy time. These employees work out of the coun- try club cart barn. They are under the same super- vision as the Employer's two laundry room em- ployees who work out of the laundry facility locat- ed in another cart barn. The laundry room employ- ees collect towels and linens throughout the club or receive them in the laundry facility where they are inventoried and counted jointly with employees from the delivering departments (locker room at- tendants, busboys, etc.). It is clear from the record that the house mainte- nance and laundry room employees share no stronger a community of interest with the employ- ees in the food and beverage department than do the other manual operating employees included by the Regional Director. Thus, if the maintenance and laundry room employees are to be included, so also must other manual operating employees enu- merated by the Regional Director. We are satisfied, however, from our review of the record, that a unit limited to food and beverage department employees, as alternatively sought, is appropriate. The Board frequently has held that employees performing food and beverage service functions may themselves constitute an appropriate bargain- ing unit if they are a definable and sufficiently dis- INVERRARY COUNTRY CLUB, INC. 1 14S tinct group apart from the other employees. See, e.g., Dunfey Family Corporation, d/b/a Sheraton Motor Inn;I John Hammonds and Roy Winegardner, Partners, d/b/a 77 Operating Company, d/b/a Holi- day Inn Restaurant. 2 See also Denver Athletic Club,3 where the Board found appropriate a sepa- rate unit of food service and housekeeping employ- ees and noted that the hotel and restaurant facilities of the private membership club operated indepen- dently of the health, athletic, recreational, or main- tenance facilities which the club also provided. In the instant case, as in Denver Athletic Club, the food and beverage department employees' distinct and independent function in the Employer's operations warrants a finding that they possess a sufficiently separate community of interest to support the es- tablishment of a separate food and beverage depart- ment unit. The record shows that the employees in the Em- ployer's food and beverage department constitute the largest segment of the Employer's operation. They are separately supervised by a specialized de- partment head and his assistant. These employees work basically in defined food and service and/or preparatory areas of the facilities, performing tradi- tional food preparation and service functions. As previously indicated, there is little or no inter- change between these employees and other operat- ing employees. 4 Although other operating employ- ees may perform food service-type functions, such as serving a beer poolside or "icing down" a golf cart, such services are done only as a very inciden- tal part of their normal work duties and as a con- venience to members, and do not constitute a regu- lar or substantial part of the specific job responsi- bilities of thoses employees. Accordingly, we con- ' 210 NL RH 790 (1974). 2 160 NLRB 927 (1976), enfd 387 F 2d t46 (4th Cir. 1967) 3 164 NLRB 677 (1967) 'We do not regard as interchange he act that some employees who have full-time jobs in various depart ments of the Employer's operations may also be hired o work a second job as a part-time banquet employee clude that, as in Denver Athletic Club, supra, the employees in the food and beverage department may constitute a separate appropriate unit. Inasmuch as the ballots in the April 16, 1980, election were not segregated, we shall order that the results of that election be vacated and direct an election held in the following unit which we find to be appropriate for the purpose of collective bar- gaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All full-time and regular part-time waiters, waitresses, waitresses/barpersons, cooks, bu- spersons, dishwashers, cocktail waitresses, bar- tenders, executive club food and beverage em- ployees, main kitchen stewards, and banquet department employees employed by the Em- ployer at its Lauderhill, Florida, facilities; but excluding all house maintenance employees, laundry room employees, grounds maintenance employees, golf course maintenance employ- ees, pool attendants, tennis court rangers, tennis court maintenance employees, tennis court schedulers, golf pro shop employees, bag room employees, cart maintenance employees, golf rangers/starters, locker room attendants, masseuses and masseurs, executive office secre- taries, banquet department secretaries, ac- counting department employees, membership department employees, PBX telephone opera- tors, resident managers, managers, associate managers, golf pro shop buyers, tennis profes- sionals, golf professionals, assistant golf profes- sionals, security employees, guards and super- visors as defined in the Act. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the election conducted on April 16, 1980, be, and it hereby is, vacated. [Direction of Election and Ecelsior footnote omitted from publication.]