Phoenician

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 16, 1992

308 N.L.R.B. 826 (N.L.R.B. 1992)

826
308 NLRB No. 112
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
1 The Employer does not contest the Acting Regional Director’s
finding that the Board would assert jurisdiction over this Employer.
2 There are ‘‘a couple’’ landscaping employees who punch in at
dawn at the club house to perform ‘‘hardscape’’ duties, e.g., mainte-
nance of the swimming pools.
Phoenix Resort Corporation, d/b/a the Phoenician
and Arizona State District Council of Car-
penters, AFL–CIO, CLC. Case 28–RC–5020
September 16, 1992
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY MEMBERS DEVANEY, OVIATT, AND
RAUDABAUGH
On April 17, 1992, the Acting Regional Director for
Region 28 issued a Decision and Direction of Election
finding the petitioned-for unit of golf course mainte-
nance employees appropriate for collective bargaining.
Pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Rela-
tions Board Rules and Regulations, the Employer filed
a timely request for review of the Acting Regional Di-
rector’s decision. The Employer contended that the pe-
titioned-for unit was too limited in scope and that the
unit must include the landscape employees as well as
golf course maintenance employees. The Petitioner
filed a response to the Employer’s request for review.
By Order dated July 2, 1992, the Board granted the
Employer’s request for review as well as its motion for
stay of the scheduled election. The National Labor Re-
lations Board has delegated this proceeding to a three-
member panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
proceeding including the Employer’s brief on review1
and concludes, in agreement with the Employer, that
the petitioned-for unit is not an appropriate unit. The
Board further concludes that a unit of golf course
maintenance and landscape employees is an appro-
priate unit for bargaining.
The Employer operates a resort hotel with a golf
course located on adjoining grounds. During the peak
season, approximately 1100 to 1200 employees work
in the Employer’s 30 or more departments. During the
summer, the total employee complement is approxi-
mately 800 to 900. Both the golf course maintenance
and landscape departments are under the jurisdiction of
Technical Services Director Orville Thompson. Each
department has a superintendent, assistant superintend-
ent, and an employee complement. The finance depart-
ment prepares separate budgets for golf course mainte-
nance and landscaping in order to be accurately ap-
prised of the revenue separately produced by the golf
course. The landscaping budget is allocated to resort
support by the financial department.
Generally, department heads make hiring decisions
for their own departments after clearance by the human
resources department. Termination decisions are ini-
tially reviewed by the supervisor or department head
and then sent to human resources for final action. Su-
pervisors or department heads make recommendations
on pay increases at the time of review and these rec-
ommendations are forwarded to the vice president and
president for final review and approval. Each super-
visor takes care of time off and sick leave. The sched-
uling is done by each supervisor or leadman/assistant.
When setting salary or other economic terms and con-
ditions of employment, the Employer looks to prevail-
ing conditions in the Phoenix area for guidance.
About 24 employees comprise the golf course main-
tenance department while there are approximately 31
employees in the landscape department. All employees
are full time and hourly paid with the exception of one
golf course mechanic who is salaried. Golf course and
landscape employees are separately supervised by su-
perintendents. The superintendents meet on a daily
basis with their immediate superior, the technical serv-
ices director, and each superintendent then meets with
his departmental employees to go over the day’s work.
All employees eat in the same cafeteria at staggered
lunchtimes although they tend to sit with the employ-
ees in their department. There are also infrequent divi-
sion meetings at which all employees are present.
Golf course and landscape employees report to the
maintenance shed each morning punching the same
timeclock.2 However, the two departments’ starting
times are staggered by one-half hour in order to avoid
congestion in the maintenance yard. Most of the equip-
ment used by both departments is stored in the mainte-
nance yard although landscaping stores some of its
equipment in another area.
Golf course maintenance employees are responsible
for the care and upkeep of all golf course grounds.
They cut and fertilize or maintain the grass, care for
the bunkers, care for all the landscape elements of the
golf course, and care for the golf course irrigation sys-
tem, pumping system, and bathrooms. The 24 employ-
ees include 3 mechanics who work on small equipment
used for golf course maintenance including lawn-
mowers, power mowers, and sharpening reels.
Landscape employees provide for the care and up-
keep of the landscape other than the golf course. They
fertilize, cultivate, prune, and cut grass and other land-
scape features. They also care for all the trees at the
resort including trees located on the golf course.
A separate fleet service department maintains, re-
pairs, and services all larger equipment. This includes
the backhoes, large tractors, and roadway vehicles.
Fleet service not only services equipment for golf
course maintenance and landscape but also services
equipment for the entire resort.
Both golf course maintenance and landscaping uti-
lize similar equipment which is usually separately as-
signed. This equipment includes weed eaters, push
827PHOENICIAN
3 Technical Services Director Thompson testified that he did not
know what the average wage was when he arrived in 1989. He was
aware that there was a disparity which he wanted to ‘‘normalize.’’
He believes currently the highest paid landscaping employees re-
ceives about $9 plus per hour and that the highest paid golf course
maintenance employees make $6 plus per hour. A golf course em-
ployee who has been employed for 4 years stated that he began at
$4.75 per hour and now earns $5.50 per hour.
mowers, riding triplex mower, multigang mowers, a
ford tractor, a ford farm implement, a tractor, and
backhoe.
Smaller utility vehicles are assigned departmentally
while major equipment like the pickup and dump
trucks are shared. Smaller power tools are used prin-
cipally by one or the other of the departments but are
shared from time to time. For instance, the triplex
mowers are generally used by the golf course but land-
scaping does use them to maintain a cassia lawn area.
Golf course maintenance employees cut the putting
green and lawn bowling areas even though these are
not located on the golf course.
Fertilizers, supplies, and chemicals are drawn from
the same sources but separate accounting is kept for
the two departments’ uses because the golf course is
a separate profit center. For about 3 to 6 months prior
to the hearing, employees have been wearing identical
uniforms in the two departments.
When management changed in 1989, new manage-
ment perceived a disparity in the starting wages of golf
course maintenance and landscaping with landscaping
being paid at a higher level. Management has at-
tempted to bring these into parity by capping, by and
large, the landscaping wages.3 All employees receive
the same benefits. The human resources department
sets wage levels pursuant to market surveys.
Some different skills are required within each de-
partment and between the two departments. For in-
stance both departments have an irrigation specialist.
Landscaping has four rock masons and concrete work-
ers while there is no equivalent in golf course mainte-
nance. Landscaping also has three heavy equipment
operators for the backhoes and front loaders while the
golf course maintenance superintendent does this work
in golf course maintenance. Landscaping has one weld-
er fabricator for ornamentals and fences while golf
course maintenance has a mechanic who is a qualified
welder and does less highly skilled field repair work.
Usually each department works in its own area. To
the extent these areas are adjacent, the employees
come into contact with each other. However, there
have been some projects on which they worked jointly.
For example, in early 1990, the departments worked
together on an extensive drainage alteration project in-
volving moving sidewalks, recontouring landscape, and
creating new drainage passages. This work lasted about
6 weeks.
In the spring of 1992 there was a conversion of the
Jokake area involving contouring and adding bunker
work. This was done by golf course maintenance while
landscaping did one side of a berm. This project took
6 to 8 weeks. There is also an ongoing joint effort on
the perimeter fence.
Landscaping employees have built steps and done
the rock work on the driving range and the golf
course; assisted in converting the greens to bent grass;
installed decorative lighting along the first fairway,
tree elements, and water features around the clubhouse;
and performed trenching and placing conduit, pruning,
and maintenance of trees. When there are large func-
tions or joint efforts, the two groups work together
without retaining discrete lines.
The Act allows a union to petition for an appro-
priate unit. This does not necessarily mean that the
unit will be the most appropriate or that there might
not be others more appropriate. In Omni International
Hotel, 283 NLRB 475 (1987), the Board reinforced the
applicability of this general principle to the hotel/motel
industry.
While we recognize and adhere to this principle, in
disagreement with the Acting Regional Director, we
are unable to find that the golf course maintenance de-
partment employees possess a separate community of
interest from landscaping employees. On the facts of
this case, we find such a high degree of overlap in job
functions as well as a high degree of shared commu-
nity of interest among landscaping and golf course
maintenance employees that, in agreement with the
Employer, we find golf course department employees
do not constitute a separate appropriate unit. In further
agreement with the Employer, we find that golf course
maintenance department and landscaping department
employees constitute an appropriate unit.
As the record amply demonstrates, the employees
enjoy similar wages, hours, benefits, and working con-
ditions. Their work involves cutting, grooming, prun-
ing, caretaking, fertilizing, maintaining, and irrigating.
Although separately supervised, their supervisors meet
daily with a common director and plan each day’s
work. All hiring, firing, and labor relations decisions
are centrally administered with at least some commin-
gling of functions. The groups are instructed to assist
each other with projects and they perform limited func-
tions on each other’s areas.
Although there is no evidence of interchange be-
tween the two groups, there is a certain functional inte-
gration. They work together on common projects on a
regular basis.
Their general skill levels are strikingly similar. They
use similar equipment stored in the same area. They
report to the same facility, punch the same timeclock,
wear the same uniforms, work the same number of
hours per shift, and share the same lunchroom. Al-
828 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
though there has been a past disparity in wages, the
record reflects management’s decision to bring wages
into parity.
Although we have occasionally found appropriate a
separate unit of maintenance employees even where
there were other maintenance employees in the facility,
in those cases the unit found appropriate typically
demonstrated unique skills or functions differentiating
them from other maintenance employees. See, e.g.,
Omni, supra, 283 NLRB 475; University of Hartford,
295 NLRB 797, 798 (1989). In this case, no such spe-
cial skills or functions differentiate the two groups.
Accordingly, based on our review of the record utiliz-
ing our traditional community-of-interest criteria, we
find that golf course maintenance department employ-
ees alone do not constitute an appropriate unit.
We also conclude, based on this record, that golf
course maintenance employees and landscaping em-
ployees constitute an appropriate unit. The Petitioner
did not indicate whether it wished to proceed in such
a unit. We therefore remand this matter to the Re-
gional Director for Region 28 for further proceedings
consistent with this decision.