Fletcher Jones Chevrolet

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 11, 1990

300 N.L.R.B. 875 (N.L.R.B. 1990)

875
300 NLRB No. 117
FLETCHER JONES CHEVROLET
1 An election was held June 15, 1990, in the unit found appropriate by the
Regional Director. The ballots were impounded.
2 The Employer has requested oral argument. The request is denied as the
record and briefs adequately present the issues and the positions of the parties.
3 The quality control employees examine repaired vehicles to make certain
that the repair was properly completed.
Fletcher Jones Las Vegas d/b/a Fletcher Jones
Chevrolet and International Union of Oper-
ating Engineers, Local 12, AFL–CIO, Peti-
tioner. Case 28–RC–4806
December 11, 1990
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
REMANDING
BY MEMBERS CRACRAFT, DEVANEY, AND OVIATT
On May 18, 1990, the Regional Director for Region
28 issued a Decision and Direction of Election finding
that the petitioned-for unit limited to service techni-
cians was inappropriate and directing an election in an
overall unit of service department employees.
In accordance with Section 102.67 of the Board’s
Rules and Regulations, the Petitioner and the Employer
filed timely requests for review of the Regional Direc-
tor’s Decision and Direction of Election. The Em-
ployer contended that the unit was too limited and that
the only appropriate unit must include all employees in
the service, parts, body shop, and used-car depart-
ments. The Petitioner contended that the unit should
only consist of the service technicians, i.e., automobile
mechanics, working in the Employer’s service depart-
ment, excluding the get-ready technicians. The Board,
by Order dated June 15, 1990, granted both requests
for review.1
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case, including the briefs on review filed by the Peti-
tioner and the Employer,2 and has decided to reverse
the Regional Director’s conclusions and to find that
the petitioned-for unit of service technicians, excluding
the get-ready technicians, is an appropriate craft unit.
The Employer is engaged in the retail sale and serv-
ice of automobiles. The Employer has a ‘‘fixed oper-
ations department,’’ which includes the service, parts,
body shop, and used-car departments. These four de-
partments have separate managers. The Employer has
further divided the service department into five sepa-
rate work areas, where service technicians are em-
ployed: the get-ready, quick service, tuneup, heavy
line, and front-end/transmission areas. There is no his-
tory of collective bargaining.
The service technicians’ skills, duties, and pay vary
based on the service area in which each is employed.
Eighty-five percent of the service technicians are either
certified by Automotive Service Excellence or a vehi-
cle manufacturer. In addition, 65 to 70 percent of the
service technicians are considered journeymen techni-
cians. All the service technicians provide their own
tools, but the Employer provides some specialized in-
struments. Service technicians are paid on a flat rate
system. This wage system is based on an estimate,
which is provided in a repair manual, of the time need-
ed to complete a given task.
The Regional Director included other service depart-
ment employees, who are not service technicians, in
the unit. These service employees have varied duties.
The dispatchers, warranty clerks, service porters, cour-
tesy driver, cashiers, and secretaries do not perform
any mechanical work. Their duties, respectively, in-
clude assigning work, submitting warranty claims,
cleaning the service area, transporting customers, col-
lecting money, and providing traditional secretarial
services. They are paid either an hourly wage or a base
rate plus commission, and, thus, are compensated dif-
ferently from the service technicians.
There is no evidence of daily work-related contact
between the service technicians and the courtesy driv-
er, service porters, cashiers, secretaries, or quality con-
trol employees. The service technicians do have daily
contact with the dispatchers, and may ask questions of
the warranty clerks. The service technicians perform
their duties based on repair orders, which are prepared
by a service advisor and they may confer with the ad-
visor if additional customer authorization is needed for
a repair. Although both the service advisors and the
quality control employees have some mechanical
knowledge, they do not perform mechanical repairs.3
The Petitioner, relying on Dodge City of
Wauwatosa, 282 NLRB 459 (1986), contends that the
service technicians constitute a craft unit. The Regional
Director disagreed. He found that the service techni-
cians were not an appropriate craft unit because, in
cases where a craft unit of mechanics was found ap-
propriate, all the mechanics possessed specialized
training and/or extensive experience in automobile re-
pair, used specialized tools and equipment, and had
different duties from those of the other employees. The
Regional Director found that the service technicians do
not constitute a craft unit because the Petitioner sought
to include the relatively untrained quick service techni-
cians with highly trained technicians. We disagree and,
for the following reasons, find that the service techni-
cians, excluding the get-ready technicians, constitute
an appropriate craft unit.
In Dodge City, 282 NLRB at 460 fn. 6, the Board
stated that ‘‘mechanics possessing skills and training
unique among other employees constitute a group of
craft employees within an automotive . . . department,
and therefore may, if requested, be represented in a
separate unit, excluding other service department em-
876 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ployees.’’ Based on the Dodge City craft analysis, the
present service technicians constitute a separate appro-
priate craft unit. The service technicians form a homo-
geneous group, have little in common with other serv-
ice department employees, and possess skills that the
other service employees either do not have or do not
use to repair automobiles. The present service techni-
cians, like the mechanics in Dodge City, supply their
own tools, are compensated at a rate different from the
other employees, perform job duties that are distinct
from those of the other employees, and have limited
contact with other service department employees.
The present service technicians have duties that are
distinct from those of the other service department em-
ployees. The service technicians are the only service
department employees who perform mechanical work.
Their skills are dissimilar from the skills employed by
the other service department employees, such as the
service porters, the courtesy driver, and the secretaries.
Like the mechanics in Dodge City, the majority of the
service technicians are certified to perform their duties.
Thus, the service technicians share a community of in-
terest apart from the other employees in the Employ-
er’s service department.
After an automobile is sold, the get-ready techni-
cians prepare the vehicle for delivery to the customer.
The get-ready technicians road test as well as visually
inspect the automobile and its accessories to ensure
that it is in working order. They can learn this entry
level work in less than 1 day. The Petitioner states that
these employees are not automotive mechanics and
that they should not be included in the bargaining unit
with the other service technicians. We shall exclude
the get-ready technicians from the unit because they do
not perform mechanical work.
The quick service technicians handle lubrication, oil
and filter changes, belts, hoses, and other simple me-
chanical repair work. Although the quick service tech-
nicians are not as skilled as the other unit technicians,
they are engaged in mechanical work. We find that the
quick service technicians should be included in the
unit as helpers or trainees. The Board has long held
that a craft unit ‘‘consists of a distinct and homo-
geneous group of skilled journeymen craftsmen, work-
ing as such, together with their apprentices and/or
helpers.’’ American Potash & Chemical Corp., 107
NLRB 1418, 1423 (1954). Furthermore, in Dodge City
the Board included lube and oil work employees in the
craft unit. The present quick service technicians per-
form similar work. Although the Employer does not
have a formal apprenticeship program, it does provide
training and classes for service technicians to maintain
and upgrade their skills. For example, one quick serv-
ice technician testified that he attended classes to learn
the more highly skilled tuneup work. In addition, the
Employer considers the main shop as the training
ground where employees learn skilled mechanical
work by ‘‘interfacing’’ with the skilled technicians.
The Employer contends that the unit must include
all employees in the service, parts, body shop, and
used-car departments because those employees are in-
tegrally related to the single function of servicing and
repairing automobiles. We disagree with the Employ-
er’s argument because of the service technicians’ sepa-
rate craft identity and for the following reasons. The
record reveals significant distinctions between the serv-
ice technicians and the employees in the other depart-
ments. The parts department employees receive a base
pay plus commission. The used-car employees are
compensated on an hourly basis. Though the body
shop employees and the service technicians are both
compensated on a flat rate system, the Employer uses
different manuals to determine the wages of the two
groups of employees. Therefore, the service techni-
cians are compensated at a different rate from the other
employees. In addition, the four departments are sepa-
rately supervised. The body shop and used-car employ-
ees are located in buildings separate from the service
technicians. The record discloses that the service tech-
nicians use skills that are distinct from those of the
other employees. Occasionally, the parts department
employees perform incidental repair work such as in-
stalling wiper blades or fuses for customers. The
record reveals that the customers are not charged for
these installations. The body shop employees perform
body repairs rather than mechanical work. Although
the body shop employees may perform incidental me-
chanical work, complex work is sent to the service de-
partment. The body shop employees and the service
technicians use different tools. The body shop employ-
ees also attend specialized training courses, which are
different from those that the service technicians attend.
The nature of the work in the used-car department var-
ies considerably. The used-car department, however,
sends automobiles to the service department when the
repairs of a vehicle require the skills of a service tech-
nician.
The departments have clear lines of demarcation be-
tween them. The service department and the other de-
partments have minimal integration of work. There is
no evidence that the body shop and the used-car de-
partment send work to the service department on a fre-
quent basis. Employees have not temporarily trans-
ferred between the service department and the parts,
body shop, and used-car departments. There is no evi-
dence that the service department employees have any
work-related contact with the Employer’s other em-
ployees, except for the contact between the service de-
partment employees and four of the parts countermen.
Although the service technicians have contact with the
parts countermen from whom they obtain the parts
needed for a repair, there is no evidence that the serv-
877FLETCHER JONES CHEVROLET
4 Member Oviatt agrees with this craft determination based on his reading
of Dodge City of Wauwatosa, 282 NLRB 459 (1986). He understands that de-
cision as holding that the craft status of automobile mechanics depends on the
facts of each case and not as broadly holding that all automobile mechanics,
as such, are a craft.
ice technicians have day-to-day contact with other
parts department employees. There is no other evi-
dence of day-to-day contact between the service de-
partment employees and the body shop or used-car de-
partment employees.
For the reasons stated above, we find that the peti-
tioned-for unit of service technicians, excluding get-
ready technicians, is an appropriate craft unit.4 Accord-
ingly, we reverse the Regional Director’s decision in
that respect and shall remand the case to him for fur-
ther appropriate action.
ORDER
This case is remanded to the Regional Director for
Region 28 for further appropriate action consistent
with this Decision on Review and Order.