Crystal Bay Club

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 15, 1968

169 N.L.R.B. 838 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

838 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Washoe Investment Co., Inc., d/b/a Crystal Bay Club within its structure, each of which should comprise
and United Trades Council of AFL-CIO Af- a separate unit: (1) casino employees; (2) culinary
filiated Unions , Petitioner. Case 20-RC-7680 and bar employees; (3) office employees; and (4)
February 15,1968
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
By MEMBERS BROWN , JENKINS, AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Patricia J.
Kenny. Subsequent to the hearing, all parties filed
briefs with the Board.
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
powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af-
firmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pur-
poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. t
2. The Employer and Intervenor2 contend that
the Petitioner is not a labor organization within the
meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. The record
shows that Petitioner is a recently formed associa-
tion of some 14 local labor organizations which,
through the Petitioner, seeks to represent em-
ployees in hotels, motels, and gaming establish-
ments in northern Nevada. Individual employee
members of the locals are not admitted to member-
ship in the Petitioner, but each local is entitled to a
delegate. According to its constitution and bylaws,
the purpose of the Petitioner is to advance the wel-
fare of employees of any hotel, motel, or gaming
establishment by bargaining with employers con-
cerning wages, hours, or conditions of employment.
In view of the foregoing, we find that Petitioner is
a labor organization within the meaning of Section
2(5) of the Act.3
3. A question affecting commerce exists con-
cerning the representation of certain employees of
the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1)
and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks an overall unit of the
Employer's employees. The Employer contends
there are four separate and distinct departments
I El Dorado , Inc., dl b f a El Dorado Club, 151 NLRB 579.
2 The American Federation of Casino and Gaming Employees, Non-
Affiliated, was permitted to intervene at the hearing on the basis of a
showing of interest in the appropriate unit. The parties stipulated that the
Intervenor was a labor organization within the meaning of the Act. The
maintenance employees. The Intervenor claims
that a unit combining casino employees with other
employees would be an inappropriate unit.4
The Employer is engaged in the operation of a
casino, bar, restaurant, and approximately nine
hotel rooms, all known as the Crystal Bay Club. It
is owned by two stockholders who, along with the
vice president of the corporation, actively manage
the club. Each department in the club is separately
managed, with each manager being responsible to
the two coowners. All operations, except the office,
are run on a 24-hour basis with three 8-hour shifts.
Shifts in each department start at different times,
but there are fill-in shifts to carry over the opera-
tions.
There is no interchange of employees, but trans-
fers are permitted if employees are qualified and oc-
casionally there has been a permanent transfer of
qualified employees from one department to
another. Wage rates differ by department, and
within each department, with casino employees
generally the highest paid. The only fringe benefit
presently in existence is vacation pay and all em-
ployees receive a vacation check if they have been
with the Employer long enough.
The Board is faced here with determining
whether the interests of casino employees are so
different from the Employer's other employees as
to require their exclusion from an overall unit where
there has been no stipulation to exclude them. In
Holiday Hotel, 134 NLRB 113, we found that the
gambling casino employees had interests suffi-
ciently different from those of other hotel em-
ployees to justify honoring the parties' stipulation
to exclude them from the unit. But there is no sug-
gestion there that, absent such a stipulation, gam-
bling casino employees could not be included in a
bargaining unit with other hotel employees. El
Dorado Club, supra, is of little precedent as the
petitioner in that case sought only the gambling
casino employees.
Here it appears that the primary function of the
Employer is to attract customers to its gaming
casino and that the other functions are for the con-
venience of these customers. Illustrative of this is
the fact that there is no partition between the casino
and dining facilities. Although we do not subscribe
to the Petitioner's argument that one part of the
establishment could not operate without the others,
we do find that the operations are closely in-
tegrated. Thus, as pointed out, casino customers
can use the facilities of the two service bars and one
Intervenor expressed its desire to be on any ballot which would include
the casino employees.
3 Halliburton Company, 142 NLRB 644, 645.
" The Intervenor does not presently seek a separate election among the
casino employees and its showing of interest is in any event insufficient
for that purpose.
169 NLRBNo. 120
CRYSTAL BAY CLUB
regular bar without leaving the casino area, and the
casino area is visible from the dining room. The two
coowners are actively engaged in managing all de-
partments and are available at all times. Also, the
Employer apparently pays all its employees on a
shift or daily basis, and all employees, except the of-
fice personnel, work shift work.
Because of the fact that the same union seeks to
represent all the employees, the lack of any sub-
stantial bargaining history, the same ultimate super-
vision, and particularly the closeness of all the de-
partments which function for the most part to sup-
port the casino operations, we believe that a unit
consisting of all the Employer's employees5 is ap-
propriate here.
The parties are in disagreement as to the unit
placement of certain employees. First, contrary to
the Employer, the Petitioner would exclude as su-
pervisors the slot mechanics. There are 362 slot
machines which are used 24 hours a day. There is
at least one slot machine mechanic on duty each
shift. The primary duty of the slot mechanic is to
keep the machines operating properly and remedy
minor mechanical problems right on the floor.
While on the floor, a mechanic may authorize pay-
ment of a jackpot along with a change girl, but two
change girls can also sign for a jackpot. A mechanic
can tell a change girl to cover a particular section of
the slots, but the change girls are assigned to certain
areas by the slot machine manager. The mechanics
do not hire or fire or recommend hiring or firing.
Although the slot mechanics may tell a change girl
to service a particular area, they do not effectively
direct the activities of the change girls in any way.
Accordingly, we find they are not supervisors and
5 Although the office employees are physically separated from the
casino area and are not engaged in shift work, we find they are properly
within the overall unit , the parties did not stipulate to exclude them. Their
rate of pay compares with the bar employees, and as part of their duties,
they check the coowners' accounting of the casino banks.
6 El Dorado Club, supra, p 588
7 The parses stipulated that the following persons should be excluded
pit bosses or shift foremen , maintenance supervisor , and two maitre d's.
As the record shows that those persons, along with the casino manager,
slot machine manager, keno manager, chef, and bar manager , have the
839
shall include them in the unit.6 Secondly, the Em-
ployer would include and the Petitioner would ex-
clude, as supervisors, keno shift foremen. The keno
is managed by Mike Trainer, who covers all three
shifts. On each shift is a foreman, who does not
have authority to hire or fire. The keno manager
grants time off but, in his absence, a shift foreman
could grant time off in an emergency. It is the
responsibility of the shift foremen to watch the keno
game during the time they are on duty to see that
keno writers and runners "perform their duties prop-
erly." A shift boss can take a writer or runner off
the games temporarily, until the problem is resolved
by the keno manager. The Employer contends that
any direction of the game by the checker or shift
foreman, whose duties are similar to boxmen, is
purely mechanical in order to keep the game operat-
ing smoothly. As we are unable to determine from
this record whether the shift foremen possess and
exercise supervisory functions, we shall allow them
to vote subject to challenge.7
In view of the foregoing, we shall direct an elec-
tion in the following unit of employees which we
find appropriate for the purposes of collective bar-
gaining within the meaning of Section 9(c) of the
Act:
All regular casino employees, including slot
machine mechanics, change boys and girls, keno
writers and runners, boxmen, dealers, cashiers, and
shills, office employees, maintenance employees,
and culinary employees, including bartenders, but
excluding all guards and supervisors as defined in
the Act._
[Direction of Election 8 omitted from publica-
tion.]
authority to hire and fire, we will honor the stipulation and exclude the
above classifications from the unit we find appropriate.
8 An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all
the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional
Director for Region 20 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and
Direction of Election. The Regional Director shall make the list available
to all parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be
granted by the Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances.
Failure to comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside
the election whenever proper objections are filed . Excelsior Underwear
Inc., 156 NLRB 1236.