Constellation Brands, U.S. Operations, Inc. d/b/a Woodbridge Winery

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 26, 2015

32-RC-135779 (N.L.R.B. Feb. 26, 2015)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
CONSTELLATION BRANDS,
U.S. OPERATIONS, INC., d/b/a
WOODBRIDGE WINERY
Employer
and Case 32-RC-135779
CANNERY, WAREHOUSEMEN, FOOD
PROCESSORS, DRIVERS AND HELPERS,
LOCAL UNION NO. 601, INTERNATIONAL
BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
Petitioner
ORDER
The Employer’s Request for Review of the Regional Director’s Decision and Direction of
Election is denied as it raises no substantial issues warranting review.1
MARK GASTON PEARCE, CHAIRMAN
KENT Y. HIROZAWA, MEMBER
LAUREN McFERRAN, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., February 26, 2015.

1 We find no merit in the Employer’s contention that the Regional Director improperly “ignored
the Board’s long established precedent that a plant-wide unit ‘is presumptively appropriate.’”
That a certain kind of unit is presumptively appropriate means only that a party seeking such a
unit need not introduce evidence establishing a community of interest or other factors bearing on
unit appropriateness, unless the presumption has been rebutted. It does not alter the longstanding
principle that employees may seek to organize in any appropriate unit, which need not be “the
single most appropriate unit.” Specialty Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center, 357 NLRB No. 83,
slip op. at 9 (2011) (quoting American Hospital Ass’n v. NLRB, 499 U.S. 606, 610 (1991))
(emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted), enf’d sub. nom. Kindred Nursing
Centers East v. NLRB, 727 F.3d 552 (6th Cir. 2013). Because the Petitioner does not seek such a
unit, its presumptive appropriateness is irrelevant to the determination whether the petitioned-for
unit is appropriate. See id. at 7 (“A party petitioning for a unit other than a presumptively
appropriate unit … bears no heightened burden to show that the petitioned-for unit is also an
appropriate unit.”).