Trane

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsJul 29, 2003

339 N.L.R.B. 866 (N.L.R.B. 2003)

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 866 Trane, an Operating Unit of American Standard Companies and Local Union No. 562, United As- sociation of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada, AFL–CIO. Case 14– RC–12421 July 29, 2003 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN BATTISTA AND MEMBERS WALSH AND ACOSTA On March 11, 2003, the Regional Director for Region 14 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in this proceeding. The Regional Director found appropriate the petitioned-for single facility unit of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technicians working out of the Employer’s Fenton, Missouri facility. The Employer argued that the unit must also include HVAC technicians working from its Cape Girardeau, Missouri facility. Re- lying on the distance between the two facilities, the lack of significant employee interchange, the absence of bar- gaining history, and the fact that no other labor organiza- tion sought to represent the HVAC technicians in a larger unit, the Regional Director concluded that the Employer failed to rebut the single-facility presumption and di- rected an election in the petitioned-for unit. Thereafter, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board’s Rules and Regulations, the Em- ployer filed a timely request for review of the Regional Director’s Decision and Direction of Election contend- ing, inter alia, that the petitioned-for single-facility unit is not appropriate. On April 23, 2003, the Board granted the Employer’s request for review solely with respect to whether the Employer had rebutted the single-facility presumption. The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. After careful consideration of the entire record, includ- ing the Employer’s brief on review, we find, contrary to the Regional Director, that the Employer rebutted the single-facility presumption and that the unit must include the HVAC technicians working from the Employer’s Cape Girardeau facility. I. FACTS The Employer manufactures, installs, and services commercial and residential HVAC equipment throughout the United States and abroad. The Employer’s opera- tions are divided into various District Sales Offices (DSOs). The St. Louis DSO includes the Employer’s facilities in Fenton, Missouri (Fenton); Cape Girardeau, Missouri (Cape); and Bridgeton, Missouri (Bridgeton).1 The Fenton facility is the DSO’s “main office” and employs approximately 16 HVAC technicians and ap- prentices and approximately 69 administrative and sales employees. The 35,000 square foot facility is divided between 5000 square feet of warehouse and 30,000 square feet of office space. The 1000-square-foot Cape facility consists of some small offices, a restroom, and storage space where air filters and specialty tools are stored. The Cape facility employs four HVAC technicians and apprentices and one salesperson. A. Control Over Daily Operations and Labor Relations All decisions with respect to policies, procedures, hir- ing, firing, discipline, leave, vacation, and wages for the St. Louis DSO emanate from Fenton management. In fact, there is no management stationed at the Cape site, and there is no separate supervisor assigned to oversee the Cape HVAC technicians. The St. Louis DSO general operations manager, Randy Crampy, directly supervises both the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians.2 Crampy’s office is located in Fenton. The Fenton office houses all of the St. Louis DSO’s administrative functions, such as dispatching, payroll, personnel, finance, and human resources. Both the Fen- ton and Cape HVAC technicians receive their assign- ments from a common dispatcher, located in Fenton. Incoming calls to the Cape office are automatically for- warded to the Fenton dispatcher. The Fenton dispatcher then decides which technician to send to the site based on the technical requirements of the job and the job’s loca- tion. Finally, all training classes, such as service train- ing, safety training, and sexual harassment training, are conducted at Fenton for all facilities in the St. Louis DSO. B. Employee Skills, Functions, and Working Conditions With the sole exception of working from two geo- graphically separate facilities, the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians share identical skills, functions, and working conditions. Both Fenton and Cape technicians 1 The Employer’s Bridgeton facility is a warehouse providing parts for both the Fenton and Cape offices. The Bridgeton facility does not employ HVAC technicians, and no party asserts that its employees are appropriately included in the unit. 2 Prior to January 2003, the Employer’s service supervisor directly supervised the HVAC technicians. That position was eliminated some- time in January 2003, and the technicians began to report to Crampy. However, at all times, a manager located at the Fenton facility com- monly supervised both the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians. 339 NLRB No. 106 TRANE 867 install new and maintain existing HVAC equipment for both residential and commercial customers using the same equipment and tools.3 The Fenton and Cape tech- nicians also share identical qualifications. All HVAC technicians working out of the St. Louis DSO are re- quired to have a commercial driver’s license, a refrigera- tion certificate permitting refrigerant gas recovery, and a St. Louis County license. The Employer requires the Cape HVAC technicians to carry a St. Louis County li- cense despite the fact that Cape Girardeau is not in St. Louis County because they often perform work in the St. Louis area when needed. Further, both the Fenton and Cape technicians work under the “Trane St. Louis Em- ployee Handbook” and receive identical 401(k), health, dental, vacation, sick leave, stock option plan, and per- sonal day benefits. All HVAC technicians receive an hourly wage based on experience and technical skill. There is no significant wage differential between the Fenton and Cape technicians. Moreover, HVAC technicians from the Fenton and Cape sites primarily are dispatched from their homes. The Employer does not require the technicians to come into the office every day. Instead, the technicians usually receive their daily work orders at home over the phone or via facsimile. Similarly, they often return the completed work orders and submit their timesheets to the Fenton office via facsimile from home. C. Employee Interchange While the Fenton and Cape facilities service different general geographic areas, there are no rigid lines of de- marcation between the two. Instead, decisions regarding which HVAC technician to send to a given job are made by considering who has the necessary technical ability and who is closer to the jobsite. The Employer’s district manager, Richard Campbell, testified that crossovers between the two facilities happen “hundreds of times a year.” Further, workloads in the two areas peak at dif- ferent times of the year. The Fenton area sees its largest volume of work during January and February when high- rise buildings conduct their annual HVAC overhaul. Because the area serviced by the Cape facility does not have such buildings, Cape technicians are sent to work with Fenton technicians during this time. Similarly, when the Cape area’s workload peaks, Fenton techni- cians are sent to help out. Aside from this yearly inter- change, Fenton and Cape technicians work together on jobs that are on the border between the two areas. Spe- 3 The Fenton HVAC technicians perform more commercial work and carry a heavier work volume because they are closer to metropoli- tan St. Louis. cifically, they worked together on jobs at a large drug store and at a local college. Moreover, the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians of- ten contact each other for direction and advice while out on a job. The Employer provides mobile phones and a list of phone numbers allowing the technicians to call each other during the day when they need to get their co- workers’ advice on a work-related problem. D. Distance Between the Facilities and Bargaining History The Fenton and Cape offices are approximately 108 miles apart. There is no history of bargaining on either a single facility or multifacility basis. II. ANALYSIS With respect to unit determinations regarding employ- ees at a single versus multilocation units, the Board has long held that a petitioned-for single-facility unit is pre- sumptively appropriate, unless it has been so effectively merged into a more comprehensive unit, or is so func- tionally integrated, that it has lost its separate identity. See J & L Plate, Inc., 310 NLRB 429 (1993). The party opposing the single-facility unit has the heavy burden of rebutting its presumptive appropriateness. However, the Board “has never held or suggested that to rebut the pre- sumption a party must proffer ‘overwhelming evidence . . . illustrating the complete submersion of the interests of employees at the single store,’ nor is it necessary to show that ‘the separate interests’ of the employees sought have been ‘obliterated.’” Petrie Stores Corp., 266 NLRB 75, 76 (1983). To determine whether the single-facility presumption has been rebutted, the Board examines a number of community of interest factors, including (1) central con- trol over daily operations and labor relations, including the extent of local autonomy; (2) similarity of employee skills, functions, and working conditions; (3) the degree of employee interchange; (4) the distance between the locations; and (5) bargaining history, if any exists. J & L Plate, Inc., 310 NLRB at 429; R & D Trucking, Inc., 327 NLRB 531 (1999). Here, it is clear that the employees possess identical skills, perform identical functions, and labor under iden- tical working conditions. Further, all supervisory func- tions for both Fenton and Cape are centralized at the Fen- ton office. The DSO’s general operations manager is the direct supervisor for both the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians—responsible for all hiring, firing, discipli- nary, and other supervisory decisions. Cape technicians enjoy no separate supervisors or even leadmen apart from their Fenton colleagues. In the same vein, it is also clear that Fenton management centrally controls the daily DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 868 operations and labor relations of the Fenton and Cape offices. In fact, the same Fenton dispatcher dispatches all the technicians. All administrative and management functions are located in Fenton, including payroll and human resources. The complete absence of any separate supervision or other oversight at the Cape site in these circumstances necessarily leads to the conclusion that the Cape location has no local autonomy apart from Fenton. See Petrie Stores Corp., 266 NLRB at 76 (“Not only does the lack of individual store manager’s autonomy compel a finding that single-store units are inappropriate, so does the high degree of centralization of administration and control.”) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Cf. AVI Foodsystems, Inc., 328 NLRB 426 (1999) (finding local autonomy based on separate immediate supervision and separate day-to-day control over operations); New Brit- ain Transportation Co., 330 NLRB 397 (1999) (finding local autonomy where, among other facts, local dispatch- ers set schedules, approved time off, and training con- ducted on a site-by-site basis); Cargil, Inc., 336 NLRB 1114 (2001) (finding local autonomy based on separate supervisory staff). Accordingly, this case is distinguishable from Esco Corp., 298 NLRB 837 (1990), and Bowie Hall Trucking, 290 NLRB 41 (1988). In both cases, the Board found that the single-facility presumption stood unrebutted based in part on evidence of local autonomy. In Bowie Hall Trucking, the Board found sufficient local auton- omy where the local terminal manager conducted initial screening for new hires and was consulted on major dis- ciplinary issues. See id. at 43. In Esco Corp., supra, the Board found sufficient local autonomy in the absence of a statutory supervisor assigned to the excluded site. However, the Board found “significant” the fact that the employer relied on a leadman to oversee the operations at the excluded warehouse. The Board relied in part on this “limited local autonomy” in finding that the single facil- ity presumption remained unrebutted. See Esco Corp., supra at 838. Here, the Cape location lacks even the “limited local autonomy” found sufficient in Esco Corp. In finding that the Employer failed to present sufficient evidence to rebut the single-facility presumption, the Regional Director relied heavily on the geographic dis- tance between the Fenton and Cape locations and the Employer’s failure to present specific evidence of em- ployee interchange.4 However, in the circumstances pre- sent here we find that the Regional Director placed too much emphasis on these two factors. First, while we would generally consider a geographic distance of 108 miles between facilities significant, here, its significance is reduced by the fact that the employees are dispatched from their homes, only occasionally go into their respec- tive offices, and the two areas are only loosely defined by fluid lines of demarcation. Second, the Employer’s evidence of regular interchange between the two sites, while general in nature, stands unchallenged in this case. However, even if we were to consider the geographic distance significant and the Employer’s evidence of in- terchange wanting because it was not of the caliber re- quired under New Britain Transportation Co., supra at 398, we find that the centralized control over daily opera- tions and labor relations; lack of local autonomy; com- mon supervision; identical skills, duties, and other terms and conditions of employment; and contact between the Fenton and Cape HVAC technicians outweigh the geo- graphic distance and the lack of specificity as to the level of interchange. See Waste Management of Northwest, 331 NLRB 309 (2000). ORDER Accordingly, we find that the Employer has rebutted the presumptive appropriateness of the petitioned-for single-facility unit, and we remand this case to the Re- gional Director for further processing in accordance with this decision. 4 The Regional Director’s reliance on the lack of historical bargain- ing on a multilocation basis to find the petitioned-for unit appropriate is misplaced. Here, the Employer has no bargaining history whatsoever. The complete absence of bargaining history is at most a neutral factor in the analysis.