Ford Motor Company

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 5, 2018

367 NLRB No. 8 (N.L.R.B. 2018)

367 NLRB No. 8
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
bound volumes of NLRB decisions. Readers are requested to notify the Ex-
ecutive Secretary, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D.C.
20570, of any typographical or other formal errors so that corrections can
be included in the bound volumes.
Ford Motor Company and Local 324, International
Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), AFL–
CIO and International Union, United Automo-
bile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement
Workers of America (UAW), AFL–CIO, and its
Local 245. Case 07–CA–198075
October 5, 2018
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN RING AND MEMBERS MCFERRAN,
AND EMANUEL
On February 8, 2018, Administrative Law Judge David
I. Goldman issued the attached decision. The Respond-
ent filed exceptions and a supporting brief. The General
Counsel and the Charging Party, Local 324, International
Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), AFL–CIO, filed
answering briefs. The Respondent filed a reply brief.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the decision and the record
in light of the exceptions and briefs and has decided to
affirm the judge’s rulings, findings,1 and conclusions and
to adopt the recommended Order as modified.2
ORDER
The National Labor Relations Board adopts the rec-
ommended Order of the administrative law judge as
modified below and orders that the Respondent, Ford
Motor Company, Allen Park, Michigan, its officers,
agents, successors, and assigns, shall take the action set
forth in the Order as modified.
1. Substitute the following for paragraph 1(a).
“(a) Failing and refusing to recognize and bargain with
Local 324, International Union of Operating Engineers
(IUOE), AFL–CIO (Union) as the exclusive collective-
bargaining representative of the employees in the bar-
gaining unit.”
2. Substitute the following for paragraph 2(a).
“(a) On request, bargain with the Union as the exclu-
sive collective-bargaining representative of the employ-
ees in the following appropriate unit concerning terms
and conditions of employment and, if an understanding is

1 The Respondent has excepted to some of the judge’s credibility
determinations. The Board’s established policy is not to overrule an
administrative law judge’s credibility resolutions unless the clear pre-
ponderance of all the relevant evidence convinces us that they are in-
correct. Standard Dry Wall Products, 91 NLRB 544 (1950), enfd. 188
F.2d 362 (3d Cir. 1951). We have carefully examined the record and
find no basis for reversing the findings.
2 We shall modify the judge’s recommended Order and substitute a
new notice to conform to the Board’s standard remedial language.
reached, embody the understanding in a signed agree-
ment.
All full-time and regular part-time operating engineers
and electricians employed by the Respondent at
the Drivability Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 En-
terprise Drive, Allen Park, Michigan, engaged in the
operation, mechanical maintenance and repair of all re-
frigeration, heating and air-conditioning machinery in-
stalled at the DTF, and in the performance of general
building maintenance.”
3. Substitute the attached notice for that of the admin-
istrative law judge
Dated, Washington, D.C. October 5, 2018
______________________________________
John F. Ring, Chairman
_____________________________________
Lauren McFerran, Member
_______________________________________
William J. Emanuel, Member
(SEAL) NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO EMPLOYEES
POSTED BY ORDER OF THE
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
An Agency of the United States Government
The National Labor Relations Board has found that we vio-
lated Federal labor law and has ordered us to post and obey
this notice.
FEDERAL LAW GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO
Form, join, or assist a union
Choose representatives to bargain with us on
your behalf
Act together with other employees for your bene-
fit and protection
Choose not to engage in any of these protected
activities.
WE WILL NOT fail and refuse to recognize and bargain
with Local 324, International Union of Operating Engi-
neers (IUOE), AFL–CIO (Union) as the exclusive collec-
tive-bargaining representative of our employees in the
bargaining unit.
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner interfere
with, restrain, or coerce you in the exercise of the rights
listed above.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD2
WE WILL, on request, bargain with the Union as the
exclusive collective-bargaining representative of our
employees in the following appropriate unit concerning
terms and conditions of employment and, if an under-
standing is reached, embody the understanding in a
signed agreement:
All full-time and regular part-time operating engineers
and electricians employed by the Respondent at the
Drivability Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 Enter-
prise Drive, Allen Park, Michigan, engaged in the op-
eration, mechanical maintenance and repair of all re-
frigeration, heating and air-conditioning machinery in-
stalled at the DTF, and in the performance of general
building maintenance.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
The Board’s decision can be found at
https://www.nlrb.gov/case/07-CA-198075 or by using the
QR code below. Alternatively, you can obtain a copy of the
decision from the Executive Secretary, National Labor Re-
lations Board, 1015 Half Street, S.E., Washington, D.C.
20570, or by calling (202) 273–1940.
Robert A. Drzyzga, Esq., for the General Counsel.
Stephen M. Kulp, Esq. (Ford Motor Co.), of Detroit, Michigan,
for the Respondent.
Amy E. Bachelder, Esq. (Sachs Waldman, P.C.), of Detroit,
Michigan, for the Charging Party.
William J. Karges, III, Esq. and Phillip Mayor, Esq. (UAW), of
Detroit, Michigan, for the Interested Party.1
DECISION
INTRODUCTION
DAVID I. GOLDMAN, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE. This is a
successorship case involving a small group of skilled mainte-
nance employees represented by the International Union of
Operating Engineers Local 324 (IUOE Local 324). These
maintenance employees worked for a succession of contractors
at a wind tunnel facility in Allen Park, Michigan, called the
drivability testing facility (DTF), where customers, primarily
Ford Motor Company (Ford), tested vehicles.
In approximately 2014, Ford (or its subsidiary Ford Land)

1 On my motion, I have amended the caption to reflect that at the
trial in tis matter the UAW and its Local 245 moved for and were
granted leave to intervene.
acquired ownership of the DTF. On April 24, 2017, Ford “in-
sourced” the maintenance at the DTF operation, terminating the
use of the predecessor employer to perform the DTF’s skilled
maintenance work. Ford rehired four of the five incumbent
skilled maintenance employees and also transferred in two
additional Ford skilled workers from a United Auto Workers
(UAW) skilled trades local, UAW Local 245. UAW Local 245
performs skilled maintenance throughout Ford’s Research &
Engineering facilities, composed of approximately 58 buildings
spread across four to five miles of Allen Park, Melvindale,
Dearborn, and Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Rejecting IUOE
Local 324’s demand for recognition to continue as the repre-
sentative of the DTF skilled maintenance employees, Ford rec-
ognized UAW Local 245 as the DTF maintenance employees’
bargaining representative.
Upon Ford’s assumption of the maintenance operation, the
six employees assigned to the DTF—four of whom had been
employed by the predecessor—immediately began, without
hiatus in operations, performing the same skilled maintenance
for Ford that the predecessor’s employees had performed, using
the same tools, with the same building supervisors, and, of
course, working for the same customer, Ford. Indeed, the
“business as usual” approach Ford brought to its new mainte-
nance unit was agreed to by Ford and the UAW, at least until
some later date when Ford could train and familiarize addition-
al Local 245 tradesmen with the DTF. As of the time of the
hearing, more than six months after Ford had assumed the op-
eration, the employee complement remained the initial six indi-
viduals. A Ford manager and UAW representative testified that
ultimately Ford intends to assign ten, rather than six, skilled
tradesmen to the DTF, and that after sufficient outside Local
245 members have been trained at the DTF, outside Local 245
workers may use their shift seniority agreements with Ford to
bump into the DTF maintenance positions.
The Government and the IUOE allege that Ford was a suc-
cessor employer and that Ford violated Section 8(a)(5) of the
Act by refusing to recognize Local 324 as the employees’ bar-
gaining representative. As discussed herein, I agree. Under
settled precedent, when Ford commenced normal operations of
the DTF maintenance work with what was—at the least—a
substantial and representative complement of employees in a
longstanding and still appropriate unit, a majority of whom had
worked for the predecessor, there could have been no lawful
result other than Ford agreeing to the IUOE Local 324’s de-
mand for recognition and bargaining.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
On May 3, 2017, IUOE Local 324 filed an unfair labor prac-
tice charge alleging violations of the Act by Ford, docketed by
Region 7 of the National Labor Relations Board (Board) as
Case 07–CA–198075. Based on an investigation into this
charge, on July 26, 2017, the Board’s General Counsel, by the
Regional Director for Region 7 of the Board, issued a com-
plaint and notice of hearing in this case. Ford filed an answer
denying all violations on August 8, 2017.
A trial in this matter was conducted on November 6–8, 2017,
in Detroit, Michigan. At the commencement of the hearing, the
International Union UAW and its Local 245 moved, without
objection, to intervene. That motion was granted. The UAW
and its Local were permitted to and did participate fully as par-
ties in the hearing. (Hereinafter the Intervenors are referred to
FORD CO. 3
collectively in the singular as the Intervenor.)2
Counsel for the General Counsel, for the Respondent, for the
Charging Party, and for the Intervenor filed posttrial briefs in
support of their positions on December 22, 2017.
On the entire record, I make the following findings, conclu-
sions of law, and recommendations.
JURISDICTION
At all material times, Ford has been a corporation with an of-
fice and facility in Allen Park, Michigan, and has been engaged
in the manufacture, nonretail sale, and distribution of automo-
biles and other automotive products. In conducting its opera-
tions during the calendar year ending December 31, 2016, Ford
sold and shipped from its Allen Park, Michigan facility goods
valued in excess of $50,000 directly to points outside the state
of Michigan. At all material times, Ford has been an employer
engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(2), (6),
and (7) of the Act. At all material times, IUOE Local 324 has
been a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of
the Act. Based on the foregoing, I find that this dispute affects
commerce and that the Board has jurisdiction of this case, pur-
suant to Section 10(a) of the Act.
UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES
The IUOE Local 324’s representation of the maintenance em-
ployees at the DTF
The Drivability Test Facility (DTF) is a stand-alone three-
level approximately 200,000 square-foot building located in
Allen Park, Michigan, and used to conduct wind tunnel tests on
vehicles. In 1999, Ford contracted with a company Sverdrup (a
subsidiary of Jacobs Engineering) to construct and operate the
DTF wind tunnels. The DTF opened for operation in about
2000, and was operated by Jacobs Engineering or one of its
subsidiaries. While built and operated by Jacobs Engineering,
Ford was always the primary customer for the DTF, and likely
the exclusive customer since 2010, using the facility to test its
vehicles.
From its opening in 2000 to April 24, 2017, when Ford as-
sumed control of the maintenance at the facility, a series of
employers (such as Siemens, and then EMCOR) performed the
maintenance for the DTF building, including, from approxi-
mately 2006 to 2017, a Jacobs subsidiary (first Jacobs Con-
structors, followed by Jacobs Industrial Services).
Throughout this time, the maintenance employees who
worked at the DTF were represented by a local union of the
International Union of Operating Engineers. While there was

2 During the first day of the hearing, the General Counsel moved to
amend para. 9 of the complaint to add general maintenance work to the
description of the alleged appropriate bargaining unit. The UAW and
Ford objected, but I granted the motion. The General Counsel repre-
sented that the change was an “administ[rative] error” and “that no
substantive allegations are changing.” I accept and agree with that
representation. I note that the amendment brought the description of
the alleged appropriate unit into substantial conformity with the prede-
cessor’s unit description by including general maintenance work in the
unit. (The full description of the unit alleged appropriate by the General
Counsel is set forth in the Conclusions of Law, and the Order, infra.)
That the historic unit remains appropriate in this successorship situation
is the central contention of the General Counsel’s theory of the case.
Neither the UAW nor Ford claim, nor reasonably could claim, that they
did not know this in advance of trial. Notwithstanding their objections,
neither the UAW nor Ford was prejudiced in any way by the amend-
ment. The unit issue was fully and appropriately litigated.
some variation during this 17-year period in the unit descrip-
tions set forth in the successive collective-bargaining agree-
ments, the units were all single-site units consisting of the ap-
propriate job classifications working at the facility’s street ad-
dress: 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen Park, Michigan.
Until 2009, the collective-bargaining representative of these
DTF skilled maintenance employees was Local 547. In 2009,
Local 547 merged into Local 324 and thereafter Local 324
became the collective-bargaining representative, entering into a
series of collective-bargaining agreements with the employer,
Jacobs Industrial Services, in 2010, 2013, and 2016. The final
collective-bargaining agreement between Jacobs and IUOE
Local 324 was intended effective from July 1, 2016 through
June 30, 2019. That contract stated (Article 1 Section 1) that:
The Company recognizes the Union as the sole and exclusive
bargaining agent for all Operating Engineers and Electricians,
employed by the Company at Jacobs Industrial Services, 8000
Enterprise Drive, Allen Park, Michigan 48101, in the opera-
tion, mechanical maintenance and repair of all refrigeration,
heating and air- conditioning machinery installed in the said
location and in the performance of general building mainte-
nance.3
The unit represented by IUOE Local 324 consisted of as
many as eight but most recently five employees. Just prior to
the assumption of operations by Ford on April 24, 2017, the
unit consisted of three plant operators and two electricians,
covering a 24-hour, three shift, five-day-a- week operation. A
fourth plant operator had been terminated for cause in late De-
cember 2016 and he was not replaced by Jacobs. The five
working through April 24, 2017, were Jesse Miller (lead plant
operator and maintenance), John Kurzawa (master electrician),
Jason Ricks (maintenance and plant operator), Kristian Peters
(maintenance and plant operator), and Carl Wynn (electrician).
Miller and Kurzawa worked the day shift. Peters and Ricks (in
the months just before April 24, 2017) worked midnight shift.
Wynn worked the afternoon shift.
These five employees composed the maintenance department
at DTF and performed preventative and other needed mainte-
nance work necessary for day-to-day operations. This included
maintaining the test equipment, the refrigeration plant, the cool-
ing tower, the electrical plant, the hvac, the dynamometers, and
general maintenance work that could range from drywall repair
to adjusting room temperatures, even painting and plumbing.
The electricians assisted the operators as needed, and vice-a-
versa. An immediate supervisor (Ron Sirhan), a maintenance
supervisor (Jason Maggard), and a scheduler/planner (Dave
Knott), each of whom worked for Jacobs Engineering, also
assisted in small ways with some bargaining unit work.
These unit employees were the sole maintenance employees
regularly assigned to the building. Skilled trades work outside
the stationary engineer or electrician work was often performed
by outside contractors brought in to do particular jobs. Accord-
ing to information request responses provided by Ford to the
UAW in the summer of 2016, Ford was paying more for out-

3 Article 1 of the 2016 Agreement also contained a section 2 which
stated:
General building maintenance includes: test operational support and
troubleshooting, preventive maintenance activities, and repairs of ex-
isting building components. Excluded work is: custodial mainte-
nance, grounds keeping, operations maintenance, safety compliance
inspections, and major construction.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD4
side contractors to perform maintenance work than it was for
Jacobs’ unit employees to perform maintenance work.4 With
the exception of excluded work (see fn. 3, supra) the unit em-
ployees worked on and were responsible for the entire building
and premises, including lighting in the parking lot. They did
not work at other locations.
Before April 24, 2017, the unit employees came to work
each weekday, covering three shifts. They parked in unas-
signed spaces in a parking lot on the north side of the building.
They took breaks in the break room or maintenance office at
the south end of the building in the main office. They ate lunch
in the break room or the maintenance office. They dressed in
the locker room and had assigned personal lockers just outside
the locker room. Sirhan managed the employees. Employees
reported payroll problems to Sirhan, and to Maggard if Sirhan
was not available. When they arrived at work they would re-
view any issues that were reported from the previous shift,
often having a “handoff” conversation with the employee for
whom they were taking over. On days there was usually a
walkthrough of the plant. When rounding, they would check
temperature and pressures, make sure all machinery was in
working order and perform preventative maintenance. Work
orders came through Scheduler/Planner Knott using the C-
works system. Additional work requests might come from
Knott or other Jacobs Engineering supervisors. Operators
might also receive requests for more general maintenance work,
such as a wind tunnel operator asking for adjustment of the
temperature in a room, or to attend to a door that needed to be
fixed, or to patch drywall or ceiling tile. Even before April 24,
2017, tools were provided by Ford to the employees.
On February 2, 2017, Jacobs informed Local 324 that Ford
had notified Jacobs that Jacobs’ maintenance service contract
would be ending. Jacobs’ letter to Local 324 indicated that Ron
Sirhan would begin communicating with employees about the
transition process, and that it was expected that Ford Land (the
Ford-owned entity that operates commercial real estate) would
speak to the employees and that “[t]hey will be told their jobs
are secure and would have first right of refusal to stay in their
current position and switch employers.” The letter also noted
that the “UAW will be coming on to shadow the craft to start
the process to classify their jobs.” One employee, electrician
John Kurzawa, testified that he was alerted by the Local 324
business agent over the weekend, and upon his return to work,
he spoke with Ford onsite DTF manager, Jim Hompstead, who
told Kurzawa and coworker Jesse Miller “what was going on”
and “that the UAW was taking over the contract.” Hompstead
indicated that “if we wanted to stay there we’d have positions.”
UAW Local 245
The UAW local “taking over the contract” was Local 245.
As the local’s chairman, Paul Vergari, testified, Local 245 is a
broad-based mostly skilled trades local union that “represents
everything that has to do with the research and development of
Ford products.” Essentially Local 245 represents the skilled
maintenance employees working in or servicing Ford’s product
development operations—which is an agglomeration of Ford-
owned corporate buildings and commercial buildings owned by

4 recognize that Ford’s responses to UAW information requests, of-
fered into evidence by the UAW, are hearsay, and not admissible for
the truth of the matters asserted therein. However, there is no dispute
that a significant amount of maintenance work at the DTF was per-
formed by outside contractors.
Ford’s subsidiary Ford Land and referred to as the Research
and Engineering (R&E) center. The R&E center is composed
of approximately 58 buildings spread throughout Dearborn,
Dearborn Heights, Melvindale, and Allen Park, Michigan.
Since 1982, the UAW Local 245’s representation has grown
from around 40 to 58 buildings that are considered by Ford to
be part of the Ford R&E center. When a new building was
built, Local 245 was granted recognition of the skilled trades
employees working in or assigned to the building. In the case
of commercial buildings managed by Ford Land that had Ford
and non-Ford tenants, Local 245 would provide the skilled
maintenance only when such buildings were 50 percent or more
occupied by Ford tenants.5
Historically, UAW Local 245’s representation included the
maintenance of Ford wind tunnels 1 and 2, built in the 1950s or
early 1960s. These wind tunnels closed in 2004 after the DTF
was built and Ford shifted its testing to the DTF wind tunnels,
which are referred to by Ford as wind tunnels 6, 7, and 8. The
UAW also maintains Ford wind tunnels 3, 4, and 5, which are
two to three miles away from the DTF. From 2000 to 2017, the
IUOE maintained the wind tunnels of DTF, while the UAW
maintained wind tunnels 3, 4, and 5.
Out of 800 Local 245 members, approximately 700 are in
skilled trades, with maintenance trades, such as carpenters,
millwrights, stationary steam engineers (SSEs), electricians,
plumbers, truck mechanics, and refrigeration maintenance and
installation employees accounting for approximately 526 of the
700.
Of the 58 buildings serviced by Local 245, approximately 28
have Local 245 members assigned to perform maintenance at
the building as their regular work assignment. These building-
assigned members compose approximately 55 percent of the
Local’s skilled maintenance members. The remainder are
“mobile” skilled maintenance employees who travel to different
buildings to perform work, sometimes traveling to multiple
locations in a day. When traveling to the various sites, these
mobile tradesmen will have interaction with a variety of cus-
tomers and building-assigned maintenance employees.
Assignments are made by Ford management and can change
to meet the maintenance and other demands of Ford throughout
these buildings. UAW Representative Vergari estimated that
some employees are reassigned four or five times a year, but
also estimated that on average there was a 20-25 percent chance
that an individual tradesmen would find himself reassigned
during a given year.
While employees cannot control their assignments, they can
use their seniority to change shifts, effectively allowing em-
ployees willing to change shifts to bump a lower seniority em-
ployee out of a current assignment throughout the R&E center
buildings.
Overtime opportunities are provided by management and
“equalized” across job classifications and across Ford divisions
within R&E. Employees can decline overtime but their over-
time opportunities can be anywhere in the range of buildings in
the R&E buildings represented by Local 245. Every weekend
there are Local members working overtime at facilities other
than their “home” or normally-assigned building during the

5 I note that there are numerous buildings—more than 30—within
the geographic 4-mile radius containing the R&E center facilities that
are Ford Land owned, but have their maintenance performed by other
local unions, including IUOE Local 324. This includes buildings where
Ford tests autonomous vehicles.
FORD CO. 5
week.
Interview and Hiring of Jacobs Maintenance Employees
by Ford
According to UAW Local 245 Representative Vergari, “Ford
management told me that the customer [i.e., Ford product de-
velopment] would feel more comfortable if they could hire
some of the Jacobs employees” to work at DTF in the mainte-
nance positions. Vergari’s position was that the UAW was fine
with that, as long as the agreements between UAW and Ford
for hiring skilled trades was followed. According to Vergari,
this entailed “check[ing] every single Ford facility in North
America represented by the UAW to see if there’s any dis-
placed or laid off skilled trades” employees. Vergari testified
that this process was followed, no current Local 245 members
were found, and the authorization to hire was granted near the
end of January 2017.6
The Jacobs/IUOE Local 324 employees were interviewed in
March by Ford officials, particularly Superintendent Eric Ger-
ling, and Tom Ferguson. A third unidentified Ford official was
present for at least some of the interviews. The interviews took
place on the second floor of a Ford building in Dearborn.
After the interviews, the employees were told they could—or
were instructed to, the testimony varies—go downstairs and
talk with UAW Local 245 Representative Paul Vergari in his
office. Either the Ford officials or Vergari, who is chairman of
Local 245’s Research/Engineering unit, informed the prospec-
tive employees that if they accepted a job with Ford at the DTF
it would be under Local 245 representation and with terms and
conditions set by the contract covering Local 245. This meant
a loss of pay for some (but not all) of the employees, and a loss
of their existing pension plan. They were told that their seniori-
ty would not transfer from the Jacobs employment and they
would start new in terms of seniority.
Vergari testified that he told them that “three times a year
you’re subject to a shift bump and it’s by seniority.” However,
the record is clear that the employees did not fully understand
the bumping and seniority rules—they knew that they lost their
seniority when they started with Ford, with whatever implica-
tions that might bring for their status. Moreover, I credit Peters
testimony that he was told by Vergari when they met after his
interview that the employees at DTF would have “1 year of site
security,” which Peters understood to mean that “we would not
be subject to being bumped out of that building for a year.”
This was also Miller’s understanding.
Electrician John Kurzawa, discussed the compensation with
Vergari, and as he was leaving said to Vergari that he “found it
kind of odd that two affiliated unions[,] that one would try and
do this to another one.” Vergari answered, “well, it’s not like
we’re trying to do work over at Best Buy or something like
that.”
About a week after the interviews, on or about March 17,
four of the five incumbent DTF maintenance employees re-
ceived conditional offers of employment from Ford—subject to
background/drug/physical tests. The offers stated the starting
wage rate and their job classification as a stationary steam en-
gineer (SSE), in the case of the employees formerly classified
as operating engineers, or as an electrician for the employees
already classified as an electrician under the IUOE. Kristian
Peters and Jesse Miller were hired as SSE’s. John Kurzawa

6 I note that no Ford official endorsed (or rebutted) Vergari’s view
of the contractually-required prerequisites to hiring.
and Carl Wynn were hired as electricians. The four accepted
employment and began work for Ford on April 24, 2017.
The IUOE’s Request for Recognition and Bargaining;
Ford’s Response
On April 13, 2017, Local 324 business agent, Jim Arini, sent
a letter to Ford Land representative, Cheryl Chadwick, request-
ing recognition and a meeting to negotiate terms and conditions
of employment. Arini’s letter stated:
International Union of Operating Engineers Local 324 repre-
sents a majority of employees employed by your company in
the following appropriate unit:
All employees employed at 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen
Park, Michigan in the Operation, mechanical maintenance
and repair of all refrigeration, heating, and air-conditioning
machinery installed in said location and in the performance of
general building maintenance which includes test operational
support and troubleshooting, preventative maintenance activi-
ties, and repairs of existing building components, but exclud-
ing custodial maintenance, grounds keeping, operations
maintenance, safety compliance, inspections and major con-
struction.
The Union requests that you recognize the Union as the col-
lective-bargaining representative for these employees and re-
quests a meeting with the appropriate representatives to nego-
tiate wages, benefits and working conditions for this group.
The Union’s request is based on your legal obligation to bar-
gain as a successor employer based on the United States Su-
preme Court ruling in NLRB v. Burns International Security
Services, Inc., 406 U.S. 272 (1972).
Please contact me as soon as possible to schedule a meeting.
Chadwick responded by letter dated April 24, denying
recognition to the IUOE, and stating that “[a]ll Ford Motor
Company hourly employees employed at the Allen Park loca-
tion are represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW).”
Ford Takes Over the Maintenance Support of DTF; UAW Local
245 Takes Over Representation
As noted, four former Jacobs DTF employees began working
at DTF for Ford, without hiatus, on April 24. They were joined
by two Ford employees, George Dusaj and Carl Smith, who
were transferred into DTF from other facilities and assigned to
DTF as SSEs. Thus, as of April 24, the Ford DTF-assigned
employee complement was composed of an electrician (Kurza-
wa) and an SSE (Miller) on day shift; an electrician (Wynn)
and SSE (Dusaj) on the evening shift; and two SSEs (Smith and
Peters) on midnight shift. This was the same staffing and job
distribution that existed under Jacobs until an evening shift
operating engineer was terminated for cause in late December
2016, after which time Jacobs operated without an SSE on the
evening shift.
Just after the transition, the new Ford employees attended an
orientation where they received copies of the Ford-UAW bar-
gaining agreement, learned about the overtime equalization
policy and how the shift preference could work to remove
someone from their current assignment.
Three of the four DTF maintenance employees who had
formerly worked for Jacobs and had been rehired by Ford testi-
fied at the hearing. Each testified credibly that, with the excep-
tion of loss of pay (for some of them), pension, and seniority,
there was no change to their work. As Peters testified, after the
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD6
transition it was “the same work.” Miller agreed that “Noth-
ing’s changed,” and testified that “[w]orking conditions as far
as that are the same; I mean it’s identical to what it was.” Kur-
zawa testified that “my electrical work is all the same,”
“[n]othing’s changed.”
After April 24, the rehired employees reported to work in the
same facility, assigned to the same department—
maintenance—worked the same shifts, parked their cars in the
same lot next to the facility, used the same locker rooms, lock-
ers and break areas. They used the same tools, and performed
the same work in the same manner. They continued to pick up
their work orders from the same folders prepared in the same
way by the scheduler/planner Dave Knott, who continued in his
role. Their immediate supervisor continued to be Ron Sirhan,
until Sirhan left for another Jacobs facility in August, at which
time the employees reported to Jason Maggard, who continued
as maintenance supervisor both before and after the transition
and eventually assumed Sirhan’s duties when Sirhan left. The
work orders were generated from the same work order sys-
tem—C-works—that had been used under Jacobs.7 The rehired
employees continued to perform walkthroughs to monitor
equipment and remained responsible for all areas of the three-
story building. They continued to work on maintaining and
repairing the building’s equipment, and they continued assist-
ing each other as they had before the transition.8
The continuity between the predecessor’s work process and
the current work process was openly discussed and encouraged
by Ford officials. Ford’s Site Superintendent Eric Gerling told
SSE Miller and Electrician Kurzawa that their duties would
remain the same after transition to Ford as they had before the
transition. Miller described talking to Gerling in his office, in
late spring or early summer 2017, “right after we hired in.” In
that discussion Miller and Kurzawa expressed concern about
how they would perform work—they knew that “the UAW’s
got a little bit different work rules than we did,” and “[w]e
didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes or anything like that.”
However, Gerling, seconded by Sirhan, told them “It’s business
as usual; just do your job just like you always have.” In fact,
Gerling told Miller that “they wanted other UAW members to
start working more like we worked.”
Kurzawa recalled that he and Miller were meeting with Ger-
ling because of concerns they had that one of the new trans-
ferred UAW members might file a grievance against them—
“we just didn’t want to create a big mess . . . as far as work, you
know, guidelines and stuff like that.” Kurzawa testified that he
and Miller were told, “we were to do things business as usual,
that they wanted things to operate more like us over at the R&E
center and they don’t want us operating like the R&E center.”
Kurzawa added, “I was told continue on working the way I was
prior to.”
Peters, when instructed, on or about June 22, to use a Jacobs
engineering employee as his spotter, expressed concern that at
orientation, a UAW representative had told employees that “I

7 There was testimony that the DTF will be transitioning to a Ford
work order system but that had not happened as of the hearing.
8 Kurzawa, who is an electrician, testified that since the transition he
no longer covers weekend overtime shifts for the engineers, and thus,
spends less of his overall time watching the boiler or performing other
engineer work. Under Jacobs, Kurzawa often covered 12-hour over-
time weekend shifts for the engineers. After the transition this was not
required. On his regular shift, Kurzawa continues to assist coworker
Miller with engineering duties when Miller requires assistance.
(as an SSE) should not even spot for an electrician. If we need-
ed support, he told us that we should call our UAW leads and
they would arrange support.” (Original emphasis.) Sirhan,
however, responded with the following:
Regardless of what you were told by other UAW members,
DTF is operating off of what I was told and the signed
"Launch Agreement" between Ford and the UAW. We are
conducting business as usual (for the first year). This is a job
task that you have performed in the past and are more than
qualified to do. Dave [Knott] is the Planner /Scheduler and is
issuing the work orders per this plan.
In other instances, and as an ongoing matter since the transi-
tion, Peters described instances where he was instructed by
Sirhan to continue to use Jacobs “specs” on power controls and
lockout when they could not comply with the Ford spec—“we
were told to operate under our existing policy.”
Miller testified that the UAW had different work rules than
the IUOE and that following the UAW rules would restrict him
from doing some of the “non-core” work—such as plumbing
and painting—that he was used to doing. Miller testified that
UAW Committeemen Kirk Brayman and Jeff Shotwell told
him that during the launch year there would be flexibility in
following UAW Local 245 work rules but that after the year
there would not be.
In practice, employees understood that there was “a fence”
around DTF for a one-year period. Employees’ understanding
of this phrase was vague, but Kurzawa understood that to be
what Gerling meant when he talked about it being “business as
usual” for a transition period at DTF. Kurzawa understood that
the fence would permit the DTF employees to stay at DTF for
the year without risk of being bumped out of their shift by out-
side UAW Local 245 Ford employees.9
It is important to note that the emphasis on keeping working
conditions the same as before the transition that prevailed at the
DTF was not a fortuity or a whim of the DTF supervisors. Ford
negotiated with the UAW to ensure that the DTF’s work effi-
ciencies and cost competiveness matched that of the operation
under Jacobs. Ford conditioned recognizing the UAW as the
bargaining representative on the agreement that Ford would not
have to operate the DTF on the model and with the work rules
in effect at other Ford-UAW Local 245 facilities.
The UAW became aware of what it believed to be Ford’s
ownership of the DTF wind tunnel as far back as December
2014, when UAW officials noticed a Ford Land sign had been
mounted outside the DTF facility. As UAW Local 245 Repre-
sentative Vergari explained, the Local “developed a strategy,
we had to bring this into our unit.” The matter was raised by
the UAW in collective-bargaining negotiations with Ford that
began in June 2015. The UAW successfully obtained a letter of
understanding from Ford, dated October 22, 2015, that provid-
ed
During the course of 2015 Local Negotiations, the parties dis-
cussed issues concerning skilled work assignments at the
Drivability Test Facility. The Local Union expressed its de-
sire to have UAW Local 245 Skilled Trades perform mainte-

9 Neither Gerling, Sirhan, Brayman, Shotwell, nor Knott testified.
All of the employees’ testimony about being told that they were to
operate in the same manner as before the transition, that it is “business
as usual,” that there would be flexibility regarding UAW rules, and all
such related testimony, was unrebutted and is credited.
-
FORD CO. 7
nance work at the facility. The Company emphasized, that in
order to utilize UAW Skilled Trades employees at this facility,
it must be cost competitive and efficient in relation to the cur-
rent service contract. Taking into consideration the concerns
of both parties, it is agreed that within ninety (90) days after
ratification of the Local Agreement, the parties will meet, dis-
cuss and agree to the necessary actions to perform skilled
trades work at this facility that is as efficient and cost com-
petitive as the current operating model. (Emphasis added.)
On April 24, 2017, the day that Ford began maintenance op-
erations, Ford and Local 245 entered into a “Launch Agree-
ment” that would last one year, unless terminated earlier by
Ford.
The Launch Agreement recited the parties’ commitment to
working together to identify and implement efficient work
practices and, summarizing the October 22, 2015 Letter of Un-
derstanding, emphasized that “UAW Local 245 Skilled Trades
employees must be cost competitive and efficient in relation to
the current service contract.” (Emphasis added.) The Launch
Agreement letter provided for “innovative approaches” in
“transitioning skilled trade work from the DTF current service
contract to UAW Local 245,” including a one-year “Launch
Agreement” that included “[i]mplementation of a ‘Skilled
Trade Coordinator,” “[d]etailed tracking of metrics and perfor-
mance at DTF to measure and ensure that the new operating
model continues to deliver services that are as cost-competitive
and efficient as the current operating model,” (emphasis added)
joint weekly and quarterly business reviews aimed “toward
ensuring competiveness and efficiency of the operations,” and
the,
[c]reation of a DTF-specific ‘Versatility Matrix’ to identify
specific equipment and tasks that require training for skills not
already possessed by the UAW Local 245. . . . This will en-
sure that only qualified employees will be assigned to perform
work at DTF, including the assignment of overtime work.
The exercising shift preference during the one-year launch
will also be dependent on the Versatility Matrix.”
The launch letter provided that the Launch Agreement would
include provision providing for retention of the Jacobs supervi-
sors:
Purchased service salaried staff will continue to perform their
current work and provide direction to the UAW Skilled Trade
employees.
The letter provided that, “it is imperative that all employees
assigned to this facility work together in order to maintain cost
competiveness and gain efficiencies in the spirit of continuous
improvement.”
The Launch Agreement further provided that it could be ter-
minated on 90 days-notice by Ford “[i]n the event that the
terms of this agreement are not met, as it relates to maintaining
or improving the cost competitiveness and efficiency as estab-
lished under the current operating model.” (emphasis added).
Since the transition there are weekly meetings to discuss op-
erational issues. Miller acts as a project coordinator and attends
weekly meetings, along with Kurzawa and management. At
these meetings the transition to Ford is discussed. These meet-
ings are attended by Sirhan (and later Maggard), Knott, Gerling
and other Ford officials and UAW representatives. At the
meeting there is discussion of compliance with the terms of the
Launch Agreement and issues such as bringing the DTF up to
Ford safety standards.
Throughout the period after the transition, no additional or
new skilled trades employees have been regularly assigned to
work at the DTF. The six DTF employees perform their daily
assigned work only at the DTF and have not performed regular
hourly work outside of the DTF.10 The use of outside contrac-
tors coming in to DTF to perform work has continued. Howev-
er, now some of the work that in the past would have been done
by third-party contractors, has been performed by UAW Local
245 skilled trades Ford employees brought in to complete spe-
cific assignments at the DTF.
Ford Land Maintenance and Operations Manager Joe Vicari
testified at the hearing that in December 2017—a few weeks
after the November 2017 hearing—Ford planned to move to a
7-day operating schedule for skilled trade maintenance support
at the DTF and planned to employ 10 employees there by the
end of 2017. Vicari and Vergari testified that this anticipation
of ultimately ending up with ten DTF skilled maintenance em-
ployees working at the DTF—instead of the six Ford began
with—was determined prior to the transition. Vicari testified
that he derived the figure based on his observation of the DTF
in 2016 and he put it in the 2017 operating budget that he began
preparing in September 2016. The budget called for ten em-
ployees including millwrights and plumbers in addition to the
steam engineers and electricians. However, as Vergari testi-
fied, as of November 2017, it still had not been determined
whether there was enough work to permanently station a mill-
wright or plumber at the DTF. Vicari also testified at the hear-
ing that “the strategy right now is to have the six skilled trades
that are assigned there. They’re to maintain operations and
train the required work force.” Vergari testified that Ford did
not begin at DTF with ten employees because the efforts “cen-
tered around getting a critical mass of people trained.” Be-
tween the need for training, and the extensive overtime being
worked around the R&E center, Vergari testified that “to staff it
[DTF] at 10 heads would be difficult to do,” although he, like
Vicari, anticipated—in testimony given in November 2017—
that it would occur by the end of the year.
Vergari asserted, under leading questioning (Tr. 398) that the
“majority” of work that was formerly contracted out by Jacobs
is now being performed “[b]y mobile members,” but I do not
credit that assertion, which is unsupported by any documenta-
tion or by the weight of the record evidence as a whole—
particularly for the early months after the transition. The record
shows two emergency safety issues—a fire hydrant water main
break, and a door that fell—for which outside Local 245 mem-
bers were brought in. In mid-October, two Local 245 employ-
ees from outside the DTF began work on a combustion safety
survey put into effect as a result of a past explosion at Ford’s
Rouge plant. By all evidence, this work has been episodic,
though not set out in detail in the record. Vergari testified that
in total there has been “at least a dozen” outside employees
brought in for “some period of time” but less than full-time
since the transition. Ford Land’s Maintenance and Operations
Manager Vicari testified but provided no evidence of any sub-
stance or detail showing extensive use of outside Local 245

10 One employee, George Dusaj, who transferred into DTW upon the
transition, testified that he has worked overtime “probably like two or
three times” in other buildings since the transition. The others have not.
However, the DTF employees are working significant overtime at the
DTF.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD8
tradesmen at the DTF at any time since the transfer.11
Beginning in August, and at various times thereafter, a total
of approximately 13 SSE’s and no more than 9 electricians who
were members of Local 245 working in other locations for Ford
were sent to the DTF for “training” or “system familiarity.”
The DTF employees would show the visiting employee the
machines and familiarize them with the building and its opera-
tion. Visiting employees engaged in this training for, generally,
three to five days, although some for longer, and then returned
to their regular assignment outside of the DTF.
Once “trained” these outside Local 245 members were eligi-
ble for overtime assignments at the DTF. The record shows
one “outside” Local 245 employee, James Muhammad, worked
an eight-hour overtime shift on October 22. He was the only
employee from outside the DTF that had worked a DTF over-
time shift that DTF Local 245 SSE George Dusaj was able to
identify. Another, Gerald Maynard worked one hour at the
DTF in late July or early August, but it was not overtime, but
more of an emergency issue, after the DTF lost power to a cir-
cuit and Maynard came over to find the panel and reset the
breaker. There is no other first-hand evidence of outside Local
245 employees working overtime at the DTF. Rather, the evi-
dence is that the six DTF employees were working most of the
overtime available at DTF. As Vergari explained, “the six
people that are working over at DTF have been working in
what we would consider traditionally a large amount of over-
time.” Vicari testified that “excessive” overtime was being
worked at the DTF, but did not suggest (and no evidence sup-
ports an inference) that it was being done by “outside” Local
245 employees coming in for overtime. Rather, the evidence is
that “discussions centered around getting a critical mass of
people trained” to work at the DTF. As discussed, this process
began in August 2017 and no more than 23 tradesmen out of
526 Local 245 skilled maintenance members had been trained
by the time of the hearing. Vicari’s testimony at the hearing
was that until sufficient Local 245 members are trained, the
“six skilled trades that are assigned there [to the DTF]” are “to
maintain operations and train the required work force.”
Analysis
The complaint alleges that Ford’s failure and refusal to rec-
ognize and bargain with the IUOE Local 324 violates Section
8(a)(5) of the Act, and, derivatively, Section 8(a)(1).12 The
complaint further alleges that Ford’s recognition of the UAW
and application of the UAW-Ford agreement to the DTF skilled
maintenance unit violated Section 8(a)(5), and, derivatively,
Section 8(a)(1) of the Act.

11 Vicari testified that even before the hiring of the Jacobs employees
on April 24, he (and Ford) anticipated that the workload at the DTF
could support 10 full-time maintenance employees, if outside contrac-
tors were reduced and if the salaried support staff were less “hands on.”
Vicari testified that Local 245’s “mobile work force” had been sent into
the DTF “many times” since April 24. However, when asked by Ford
counsel whether the mobile work force was how the work of the pro-
jected 10 employees was covered, Vicari demurred, answering that
The strategy right now is to have the six skilled trades that are as-
signed there. They’re to maintain operations and train the required
work force. We need to get a work force trained so we can increase
the number.
12 An employer’s violation of Sec. 8(a)(5) of the Act is also a deriva-
tive violation of Sec. 8(a)(1) of the Act. ABF Freight System, 325
NLRB 546 fn. 3 (1998); Tennessee Coach Co., 115 NLRB 677, 679
(1956), enfd. 237 F.2d 907 (6th Cir. 1956).
I. THE ALLEGED VIOLATION AGAINST FORD FOR FAILING AND
REFUSING TO RECOGNIZE AND BARGAIN WITH IUOE LOCAL 324
The General Counsel contends that Ford is a successor em-
ployer to Jacobs with an obligation, since April 24, 2017, when
it assumed the DTF maintenance operations, to recognize and
bargain with the IUOE Local 324 as the DTF skilled mainte-
nance employees’ collective-bargaining representative. Ford
and the UAW reject these claims with an assortment of argu-
ments, including that Ford is not a successor employer, that the
historic DTF maintenance unit is not appropriate, that Ford has
yet to hire a full or representative complement of DTF employ-
ees, and finally, that Ford and the UAW have chosen a new
union for the DTF maintenance employees—the UAW—and
that their choice is “lawfully guaranteed to the UAW under the
Ford-UAW collective-bargaining agreements.” (I. Br. at 28.)
A successor employer and its duty to bargain
“[F]rom the earliest days of the Act, the Board has sought to
foster industrial peace and stability in collective-bargaining
relationships, as well as employee free choice, by presuming
that an incumbent union retains its majority status.” Levitz
Furniture Co. of the Pacific, 333 NLRB 717, 720 (2001). In
furtherance of these policies, the Board’s successorship doc-
trine extends this presumption of majority support for an in-
cumbent union to the sale situation. The Board’s successorship
doctrine is “founded on the premise that, where a bargaining
representative has been selected by employees, a continuing
obligation to deal with that representative is not subject to de-
feasance solely on grounds that ownership of the employing
entity has changed.” Hudson River Aggregates, Inc., 246
NLRB 192, 197 (1979), enfd. 639 F.2d 865 (2d Cir. 1981),
citing NLRB v. Burns Security Services, 406 U.S. 272, 279
(1972). In Fall River Dyeing Corp. v. NLRB, 482 U.S. 27
(1987), the Supreme Court agreed with the Board that a union's
presumption of majority support
continues despite the change in employers. And the new em-
ployer has an obligation to bargain with that union so long as
the new employer is in fact a successor of the old employer
and the majority of its employees were employed by its pre-
decessor.
482 U.S. at 41; NLRB v. Burns Security Services, 406 U.S. 272
(1972).
In Fall River Dyeing, the Supreme Court recognized that the
rationale for the presumption of an incumbent union's majority
support is “particularly pertinent in the successorship situa-
tion”:
During a transition between employers, a union is in a peculi-
arly vulnerable position. It has no formal and established bar-
gaining relationship with the new employer, is uncertain
about the new employer's plans, and cannot be sure if or when
the new employer must bargain with it. While being con-
cerned with the future of its members with the new employer,
the union also must protect whatever rights still exist for its
members under the collective-bargaining agreement with the
predecessor employer. Accordingly, during this unsettling
transition period, the union needs the presumptions of majori-
ty status to which it is entitled to safeguard its members' rights
and to develop a relationship with the successor.
The position of the employees also supports the application of
the presumptions in the successorship situation. If the em-
FORD CO. 9
ployees find themselves in a new enterprise that substantially
resembles the old, but without their chosen bargaining repre-
sentative, they may well feel that their choice of a union is
subject to the vagaries of an enterprise's transformation. This
feeling is not conducive to industrial peace. In addition, after
being hired by a new company following a layoff from the
old, employees initially will be concerned primarily with
maintaining their new jobs. In fact, they might be inclined to
shun support for their former union, especially if they believe
that such support will jeopardize their jobs with the successor
or if they are inclined to blame the union for their layoff and
problems associated with it. Without the presumptions of ma-
jority support and with the wide variety of corporate trans-
formations possible, an employer could use a successor enter-
prise as a way of getting rid of a labor contract and of exploit-
ing the employees' hesitant attitude towards the union to elim-
inate its continuing presence.
Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 41 (footnote omitted).
In addition to recognizing the importance of the presumption
of a union's majority support for the union and the employees
during this transition period, the Supreme Court also stressed
that the Act's successorship doctrine “safeguard[s] the rightful
prerogative of owners independently to rearrange their busi-
nesses.” Fall River Dyeing, supra at 40 (internal quotations
omitted). Referencing its seminal successorship decision in
NLRB v. Burns, supra, the Court in Fall River Dyeing noted
that “the successor is under no obligation to hire the employees
of its predecessor, subject, of course, to the restriction that it
not discriminate against union employees in hiring.” The result
is that
to a substantial extent the applicability of Burns rests in the
hands of the successor. If the new employer makes a con-
scious decision to maintain generally the same business and to
hire a majority of its employees from the predecessor, then the
bargaining obligation of § 8(a)(5) is activated. This makes
sense when one considers that the employer intends to take
advantage of the trained work force of its predecessor.
Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 40–41 (court's emphasis; foot-
note and citations omitted).
Accordingly, in this case, Ford’s obligation to recognize and
bargain with IUOE Local 324 turns on whether a majority of its
employees in an appropriate bargaining unit were employed by
the predecessor, and if there exists substantial continuity be-
tween the enterprises. Specialty Hospital of Washington-
Hadley, LLC, 357 NLRB 814, 815 (2011); Van Lear Equip-
ment, 336 NLRB 1059, 1063 (2001).
Substantial Continuity
With regard to substantial continuity, “the focus is on wheth-
er there is a ‘substantial continuity’ between the enterprises.”
Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 43. This approach, which is
primarily factual in nature, is based upon the totality of the
circumstances of a given situation and requires that the Board
focus on whether the new company has taken over substantial
assets of the predecessor and “‘continued, without interruption
or substantial change, the predecessor’s business operations.’”
Id., quoting Golden State Bottling Co. v. NLRB, 414 U.S. 168,
184 (1973):
Under this approach, the Board examines a number of factors:
whether the business of both employers is essentially the
same; whether the employees of the new company are doing
the same jobs in the same working conditions under the same
supervisors; and whether the new entity has the same produc-
tion process, produces the same products, and basically has
the same body of customers.
Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 43.
In considering substantial continuity, “[t]he employing en-
terprises are not the overall companies involved, but the . . .
facilities whose employees were taken over by Respondent.”
Southern Power Co., 353 NLRB 1085 (2009), adopted, 356
NLRB 201 (2010), enfd. 664 F.3d 946 (D.C. Cir. 2012). “Con-
tinuity of the employing industry requires consideration of the
work done.” Saks Fifth Avenue, 247 NLRB 1047, 1050–1051
(1980). Importantly, the question of the substantial continuity
of the enterprises is to be analyzed primarily from the “employ-
ees’ perspective.” Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 43. In its
analysis, the Board is mindful of whether “those employees
who have been retained will understandably view their job
situations as essentially unaltered.” Id. (internal quotation
omitted); Vermont Foundry Co., 292 NLRB 1003, 1008 (1989);
Derby Refining Co., 292 NLRB 1015 (1989), enfd. 915 F.2d
1448 (10th Cir. 1990). “The key test in determining whether a
change in the employing industry has occurred is whether it
may reasonably be assumed that, as a result of transitional
changes, the employees' desires concerning unionization have
likely changed”), enfd. in relevant part, 634 F.2d 681 (2d Cir.
1980); Jeffries Lithograph Co., 265 NLRB 1499, 1504 (1982),
enfd. 752 F.2d 459 (9th Cir. 1985).
Here, the continuity between Ford’s DTF maintenance sup-
port and Jacobs’ maintenance support at DTF is more than
substantial. Clearly, with regard to maintenance at the DTF, on
April 24, 2017, Ford assumed and “‘continued, without inter-
ruption or substantial change, the predecessor’s business opera-
tions’” (Fall River Dyeing, supra, quoting Golden State Bot-
tling Co., supra) providing the skilled and general maintenance
to the DTF facility.
Three of the four former Jacobs employees who were rehired
by Ford testified, and they each testified credibly that nothing
of significance had changed in their work once they transi-
tioned to become Ford employees. Without any hiatus, they
went from Jacobs to Ford and continued reporting to the same
facility, performing the same work, with the same duties, using
the same tools, in the same location, relying on the same work
systems. Their immediate supervision remained the same—
indeed, the front-line supervision remained the Jacobs Engi-
neering supervisors—a circumstance specifically negotiated for
by Ford and the UAW in the Launch Agreement (“Purchased
service salaried staff will continue to perform their current
work and provide direction to the UAW Skilled Trade employ-
ees”). The customer remained the same and the employer per-
forming the wind testing remained the same. As of the time of
the hearing in this case—more than six months after the com-
mencement of normal operations under Ford—not a single
additional employee had bumped in, been transferred in, or
otherwise regularly assigned as an ongoing DTF skilled
maintenance employee.
Notably—and it imbues the arguments of Ford and UAW
with a measure of audacity—the continuance of the Jacobs-era
working conditions was part of the negotiated “launch agree-
ment” between Ford and the UAW. It was a demand by Ford
acceded to by the UAW. As the employees had it explained to
them—Ford was putting a “fence” around the DTF for purposes
of working conditions, with the result that Ford supervisors
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD10
were instructing their DTF maintenance employees that it was
going to be “business as usual” for now, and for up to a year—
and perhaps longer. In other words, Ford consciously and pur-
posely chose to maintain “business as usual” at the DTF thus
prohibiting the integration of the DTF into the wider
R&E/UAW system.
In terms of real changes for employees at the DTF—not fu-
ture changes hoped for or anticipated by the UAW—the argu-
ments of Ford and the UAW against successorship rely on the
overstating of modest or immaterial changes in the worklife of
employees or in the production processes. Thus, while with
Ford the employees endured wage, pension, and seniority
changes, the right to set initial terms and conditions of em-
ployment is one that the Supreme Court has protected for suc-
cessors—but doing so does not undermine a finding of succes-
sorship. Burns, supra at 282-285 & 280 fn. 4. The UAW de-
nominates as “dramatic” the fact since the transition some—
estimated by Vergari to be approximately 12—outside Local
245 tradesmen have worked on an unspecified portion of the
work that Jacobs had typically brought in outside contractors to
perform. But not only is the amount of the work performed in
this manner unspecified in the record, from the perspective of
the assigned DTF employees it is not different than outside
contractors coming into the DTF to perform projects. Ford may
find it easier and more efficient to use non-DTF assigned em-
ployees for projects in DTF but it does not alter the working
life of the DTF-assigned employees, or provide them with in-
terchange that comes even close to altering their worklife in a
manner that is reasonably likely to change their views on union
representation, much less merge their identify with Local 245
tradespersons from outside the DTF.
Similarly, while the electrician Kurzawa agreed that under
Ford he focuses more exclusively on his electrical work and no
longer needs to cover operating engineer shifts, the evidence is
that this is because he is no longer covering weekend overtime
shifts for engineers. Jacobs had terminated the evening shift
operating engineer for cause in late 2016 leaving the comple-
ment of engineers reduced by one. Ford remedied this by hir-
ing an additional SSE and thus, returning staffing to the normal
complement, with an SSE on duty in the evening shift. Rea-
sonably, this also meant less need for Kurzawa to cover engi-
neer work on weekends. However, since Ford took over, eve-
ryone at the DTF is performing additional overtime. The de-
mand for overtime is high and this provides work directly in the
employees’ skills. None of this is change that undermines a
finding of successorship. Indeed, the continued community-of-
interest of the six maintenance employees assigned to the DTF
is readily and obviously distinguishable from any separate
community of interest shared by mobile Local 245 tradesman
who travel throughout the R&E center’s 58 buildings and only
occasionally come into the DTF to perform specific assign-
ments.
Many of the anti-successorship arguments advanced by Ford
and the UAW involve claims that the DTF unit is no longer
appropriate and that the only appropriate unit is one composed
of all 58 buildings composing the R&E Center including the
DTF. These arguments do not add up to much, and some cut
against the UAW/Ford position.
This is particularly true given the legal backdrop for these
arguments. The DTF unit has years of bargaining history. The
Board's longstanding policy is that a “mere change in owner-
ship should not uproot bargaining units that have enjoyed a
history of collective bargaining unless the units no longer con-
form reasonably well to other standards of appropriateness.”
Cadillac Asphalt Paving Co., 349 NLRB 6, 9 (2007). A party
challenging a historical unit bears the burden of showing that
the unit is no longer appropriate. Id. The evidentiary burden for
such a showing is heavy. Id. Indeed, where there is a history
of meaningful bargaining, “this fact alone suggests the appro-
priateness of a separate bargaining unit” and “compelling cir-
cumstances are required to overcome the significance of bar-
gaining history.” Children's Hospital of San Francisco, 312
NLRB 920, 929 (1993) (internal quotations omitted), enfd. 87
F.3d 304 (9th Cir. 1996). Longstanding Board precedent re-
quires that “[u]nits with extensive bargaining history remain
intact unless repugnant to Board policy or interfere with the
rights guaranteed by the Act.” SFX Target Center Area Man-
agement, LLC, 342 NLRB 725, 734 (2004), quoting P.J. Dick
Contracting, 290 NLRB 150, 151 (1988) (footnote omitted);
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 153 NLRB 1549, 1550
(1965) (“the Board has long held that it will not disturb an es-
tablished bargaining relationship unless required to do so by the
dictates of the Act or other compelling circumstances”).13
Moreover, the UAW and Ford’s position that the DTF unit is
inappropriate--and that the only appropriate unit is a unit cover-
ing 58 buildings from Dearborn Heights to Melvindale, to Al-
len Park–also faces the Board's “long recognized [ ] presump-
tion that a single plant or store unit is appropriate for purposes
of collective bargaining unless it has been so effectively
merged into a comprehensive unit, or is so functionally inte-
grated, that it has lost its separate identify.” Dean Transporta-
tion, Inc., 350 NLRB 48, 58 (2007), enfd. 551 F.3d 1055 (D.C.
Cir. 2009). “The party opposing the single-facility unit has the
heavy burden of rebutting its presumptive appropriateness.”
Trane, 339 NLRB 866, 867 (2003).
There is little to nothing that has changed—as of the date of
the hearing, much less at the time Ford began normal mainte-
nance operations at DTF in April 2017—that would overcome
the weight attached to the fact that this essentially unchanged
unit has a long history of collective-bargaining as a standalone
unit.
Thus, the UAW stresses that Ford’s labor relations involves
hiring and firing by centralized managers who supervise em-
ployees beyond the DTF, involve themselves in the grievance
procedure, and make all staffing and personnel decisions. But
the fact remains that the onsite supervisory authority that the
DTF employees routinely deal with—and who, by Ford’s
agreement they are to look to for assistance and direction—is
virtually unchanged.
Similarly, the UAW argues that the DTF is “geographically
proximate” to the other R&E facilities—by which it means that
the DTF is near two or three of the 58 buildings in the UAW’s
argued-for unit that otherwise are within a four-mile radius
stretching across multiple suburban Detroit communities within
which the various R&E buildings are located. The proximity
pales—indeed, it illustrates the inappropriateness of relying on
it—compared to the case the UAW relies upon, Jerry’s Chevro-
let, 344 NLRB 689, 691 (2005), where a “salient” factor in
rebutting the single-site presumption was the contiguousness of

13 I note that the UAW’s contention (I. Br. at 57) that the two Ford
employees who transferred into the DTF bargaining unit “have their
own bargaining history as part of Local 245” (original emphasis) mis-
conceives the relevant inquiry.
FORD CO. 11
three of the four sites at issue—with “no fences or barriers”
separating them, with the fourth site directly across the road.
That kind of proximity helps rebut a single site presumption, at
least in the context of an initial representation unit determina-
tion. But a proposed multi-facility unit with most locations
down the highway in neighboring cities is ineffective to rebut
the single-site presumption, especially here, given the weight is
to be accorded the historically-recognized unit.
The UAW also argues that Local 245 engineers and electri-
cians working throughout the R&E center have the same li-
censes and skills as those working in the DTF. This may be,
but the record evidence is clear that Ford negotiated with the
UAW to prohibit outside UAW Local 245 members from even
filling in for overtime in the DTF unless and until they went
through “training” or “systems familiarity” at the DTF. This
training did not begin until early August and by the time of the
hearing in November, at most 23 members out of 526 had gone
through it. None have bumped into or been assigned to the
DTF. This was a choice that Ford made. Indeed, Ford and the
UAW agree that Ford has the discretion to assign whom it
wants to the DTF. Ford chose to hire Jacobs employees be-
cause, it told the UAW, it “would feel more comfortable” with
the former Jacobs employees. Ford negotiated to preclude
outside Local 245 employees from bumping into the DTF un-
less they received training. What this shows is that DTF re-
mained a distinctive unit, set apart by work skills and ability.
This remained the case as of the time of the hearing.
Ford and the UAW also argue that the bargaining unit pro-
posed by the General Counsel is “fictitious” and “gerryman-
dered” because additional trades beyond electricians and steam
engineers will periodically be relied upon—either through use
of outside contractors or outside Local 245 workers, or salaried
employees—to perform work in the DTF. This argument miss-
es the point. The historic bargaining unit that the IUOE seeks
to continue to represent always relied upon outside workers and
salaried employees to complete work at the facility. This did
not invalidate the appropriateness of the unit under Jacobs and
it does not invalidate the continued appropriateness of the unit.
The key point is that Ford chose to replicate and continue this
arrangement when it assumed control of the DTF maintenance
operations—since its inception only six employees have been
assigned to regularly work at the DTF. Salaried employees for
Jacobs continued to assist (as expressly provided for by Ford
and the UAW in the launch agreement) and Ford continues to
use—to a vaguely documented degree—outside employees
(contractors and now Ford Local 245 workers) to complete
specific tasks within the DTF. None of this undermines the
appropriateness of the historic DTF bargaining unit. To the
contrary, the similarity of the continued use of salaried and
outside labor only underscores the continued appropriateness of
the unit from the perspective of the employees.
Finally, in terms of the continued appropriateness of the DTF
unit, the UAW (I. Br. at 39–40) seizes on the difference in
wording between the unit recognition requested in the IUOE
Local 324 recognition demand letter, and the General Counsel’s
alleged unit description, to assert that the IUOE’s demand in-
cludes outside mobile employees sent in to the DTF sporadical-
ly to perform maintenance, while the General Counsel “gerry-
mand[ered]” unit “artificially restricts[s] the size of the unit
only to the six employees regularly staffed at the DTF.” The
UAW also suggests that the General Counsel’s asserted unit is
inappropriate to the extent it is different from that contained in
the IUOE’s recognition demand.
This is all make-weight. The General Counsel is reasserting
the historically-recognized bargaining unit. To the extent the
IUOE sought to expand the bargaining unit to cover historical-
ly-represented UAW work—and, in truth, that is not a reasona-
ble construction of the IUOE’s recognition demand—the IUOE
would run into the same set of difficulties encountered by the
UAW in trying to upset the continued appropriateness of the
historic unit. In any event, the suggestion that the IUOE’s de-
mand was deficient or that the General Counsel is restricted
from seeking a unit that varies from the union’s demand is ex-
actly wrong. As the Board has explained:
Without regard to what the Respondent argues the demand
meant, or what unit the Union intended to describe, it is set-
tled Board precedent that in a successorship situation the un-
ion's bargaining demand need not be made with precision. It
is the obligation of the Respondent to respond to the Union's
demand and seek clarification. A vague, ambiguous, or erro-
neous unit description in the bargaining demand does not re-
lieve the Respondent of its duty to bargain.

As the Supreme Court has recognized, the rationale for ex-
tending the union's presumption of majority support to the
successorship situation “is particularly pertinent” because
[d]uring a transition between employers, a union is in a pecu-
liarly vulnerable position. It has no formal and established
bargaining relationship with the new employer, is uncertain
about the new employer's plans, and cannot be sure if or when
the new employer must bargain with it. . . . Accordingly, dur-
ing this unsettling transition period, the union needs the pre-
sumptions of majority status to which it is entitled to safe-
guard its members’ rights and to develop a relationship with
the successor.
Fall River Dyeing, supra at 39.
In light of this, the Board has rejected any suggestion, such as
that of the Respondent here, that would make the union's bar-
gaining rights—and the successor's legal obligation to bar-
gain—turn on whether the union understood the precise con-
tours of the successor's new operation or the wording to use in
demanding bargaining.
A.J. Myers, and Sons, Inc., 362 NLRB No. 51, slip op. at 12
(2015) (and cases cited therein).
It is the job of the General Counsel to allege an appropriate
unit for recognition in a successorship case. It is no defense—
for the employer or a rival union—to argue that the charging
party union’s bargaining demand, made in real-time without the
benefit of the General Counsel’s investigatory powers, was
inaccurate.14

14 The UAW cites R&M Electric Supply Co., 200 NLRB 603 (1972)
for the proposition that a demand for recognition in a unit in which the
union does not have a majority “cannot be based upon an ex post facto
finding of majority in an appropriate unit for which bargaining had not
been requested.” However, this ruling of the ALJ in R&M Electric was
not reached by the Board and therefore is of no precedential value. Just
as significantly, the case is totally inapposite, as it considers a union’s
demand for initial recognition and bargaining based on a card majority,
which the Board has recognized to be a “wholly different context” from
the successorship situation on exactly the grounds that a bargaining
demand in a successorship situation does not require the accuracy or
precision of that required in the initial representation context. A.J.
Myers, supra, citing and quoting Hydrolines, Inc., 305 NLRB 416, 420
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD12
In sum, in terms of the operations of the DTF at the time that
Ford commenced operations on April 24, through the date of
the hearing in November, there is no serious case to be made
that there is not substantial continuity between the DTF
maintenance operation under Jacobs and under Ford. The DTF
unit remains an appropriate one, as it has been for many years.
The real thrust of Ford and the UAW’s argument is not the
present inappropriateness of the DTF unit, but their claim that
they have a plan to integrate the DTF with the larger R&E op-
erations. Ford and the UAW suggest that once this occurs, the
DTF will lose any distinctiveness and will be inappropriate as a
stand-alone bargaining unit, and that at that point only the
UAW R&E-wide unit will be appropriate at that time.
This argument is meritless. First, it is speculative and self-
serving. As is obvious from the October 22, 2015 letter agree-
ment between Ford and the UAW, and from the terms of the
Launch Agreement, there is no concrete plan to merge the DTF
into a wider unit. That may be desired by the UAW, but Ford
has not agreed to it. Six months into normal operations—as of
November 2017—the same six DTF employees remain the only
ones assigned to work there. This is despite the fact that Ford
asserts that it has discretion to assign whom it wants to work at
the DTF. There has been no bumping, the training of up to 23
outside Local 245 trades employees at DTF has not resulted in
any personnel changes, and operations continue as described
above.
Moreover, Ford and the UAW miscomprehend the essence
of successorship with their argument that the substantial conti-
nuity of the enterprises is undermined by the claims that em-
ployees eventually could be bumped from the DTF or that DTF
staffing might ultimately be increased to ten.
The point of the successorship doctrine is that employees’
representational rights do not get put on hold—much less sub-
stituted with a union of Ford’s choice—while Ford spends
months (six and counting as of the time of the hearing) training
additional employees and deciding whether and how it wants to
modify the launch understandings. The argument is particular-
ly a non-starter here, in a case where Ford bargained with the
UAW to ensure that DTF operations would be “business as
usual.” This is exactly the opposite of what Ford and the UAW
must show if they are to overcome the single-facility and the
historic unit presumptions and show that the historic DTF
stand-alone unit has lost its separate identify under Ford. In-
deed, it is a textbook example of the essence of successorship: a
“conscious decision to maintain generally the same business
and hire a majority of its employees from the predecessor” in
order “to take advantage of the trained work force of its prede-
cessor.” Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 41.
Ford and the UAW also argue that application of accretion
principles justify Ford’s recognition of the UAW as the repre-
sentative of the DTF maintenance employees. However, the
Board finds accretion “only where the employees sought to be
added to an existing bargaining unit have little or no separate
identity and share an overwhelming community of interest with
the preexisting unit to which they are accreted.” E. I. Du Pont,
Inc., 341 NLRB 607, 608 (2004), quoting Ready Mix USA, Inc.,

(1991); Specialty Hospital, 357 NLRB at 830–831 (in successorship
situation, a union has “leeway as to the specificity of its bargaining
demand pertaining to the bargaining unit to a successor because of the
vagaries inherent in the change of the operation as to [the] ultimate unit
where [a] bargaining obligation inures to the union”).
340 NLRB 946, 954 (2003). Thus, in this case, the successor-
ship analysis finding that the historic DTF unit remains appro-
priate, leaves no room for a viable claim that the DTF unit has
been accreted into a larger R&E Center unit.15
Finally, I note the UAW’s extensively argued (I. Br. 28–37)
contention that its right to represent the DTF maintenance em-
ployees is “lawfully guaranteed” based on its labor agreement
with Ford. The nub of the UAW’s argument is its claim that it
agreed with Ford that it would get to represent any new facili-
ties Ford added to or near the R&E Center and that that re-
solves this case, without regard to accretion, appropriate units,
or anything else. Quite apart from the fact that, with regard to
the DTF, neither Ford nor the UAW acted as if the UAW’s
rights were so settled, and quite apart from the fact that the
UAW-Ford labor agreement does not purport to automatically
include newly acquired units in the bargaining unit,16 this as-
serted advance agreement to impose the UAW on the employ-
ees of newly acquired facilities warrants no deference here. It
is an argument without basis in federal labor law. It jettisons
the Act’s interest in employee free choice, an interest that has
been carefully placed in the balance in the development of the
Board’s successorship and accretion doctrines.
In support of its claim, the UAW cites cases such as Tarmac
America, Inc., 342 NLRB 1049 (2004), and Gourmet Award
Foods, 336 NLRB 872 (2001), where the particular work—not
just the same skills set or type of work—was already part of the
historical bargaining unit. Thus, in Tarmac America, supra, the
employer permanently assigned a fork-lift operator to work at a
facility already part of the recognized bargaining unit, in a unit
that already covered all fork-lift operators. In that circum-
stance, the Board held that the new fork-lift operator’s position
was included in the existing bargaining unit. In Gourmet
Award Foods, supra, the Board found that temporary employ-
ees working in the employer’s union-represented facility were
included in the established and recognized unit described in the
contract. Gourmet Award and Tarmac America are not cases
where, as here, a union rests its claim to represent a new group
of employees on the claim that newly acquired facilities auto-
matically are added to the bargaining unit.
Moreover, and obviously, the DTF maintenance work at is-
sue was historically performed by IUOE employees working in
a DTF-only unit. Thus, the UAW’s reliance on cases such as In
re Premcor, 333 NLRB 1365 (2001), and The Sun, 329 NLRB
854 (1999), is fundamentally misplaced. Those cases involve
situations where work that has historically been part of a unit
was transferred and removed from the unit and assigned to a
newly created job classification (and in In re Premcor to a new
location). In such instances, the Board rejects the view that it is
necessary to find that the transferred/removed work is an accre-
tion to the unit. Rather, the transferred/removed work, even if

15 I note that an accretion claim must be determined on the facts that
existed on the date of the recognition of the union, in this case, as of
April 24, 2017. American Medical Response, Inc., 335 NLRB 1176,
1178 (2001).
16 The labor agreement provides (I. Exh. 15(a), article 1) that the Un-
ion is the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of
the units of employees at each at each Company location which were
actually covered by the last preceding Agreement between the parties
as of the expiration date thereof, except for such changes as may be
required as a result of pending actions before the NLRB . . .
Thus, both the fact of the DTF’s non-inclusion in the established
bargaining unit and the primacy of any NLRB determination are plain.
FORD CO. 13
placed in a newly created classification, remains part of the
historic bargaining unit work. These cases add exactly nothing
to the UAW’s case here. The Ford DTF maintenance employ-
ees are not performing work that was transferred or removed
from the preexisting UAW-represented bargaining unit. The
UAW’s suggestion that a newly hired Ford employee in a new-
ly acquired location, who performs the same type of work as a
UAW-represented employee, necessarily becomes a member of
the preexisting UAW-represented bargaining unit, without even
the need to satisfy an accretion analysis, is an argument invent-
ed out of whole cloth.
In short, based on settled Board precedent, the record over-
whelmingly supports the conclusion that Ford is a successor to
Jacobs and that the long-recognized stand-alone DTF mainte-
nance unit remains an appropriate unit for bargaining.
Ford’s Duty to Bargain: The Majority of Ford’s DTF Employ-
ees were from the Jacobs’ Maintenance Employee
Bargaining Unit
Having found that Ford was a successor to Jacobs, I must
consider if and when Ford’s bargaining obligation to the IUEO
Local 324 attached.
The successor's bargaining obligation chiefly turns on
whether the predecessor's employees form a majority of its
work force. Vermont Foundry, 292 NLRB 1003, 1009 (1989).
“As a general rule, the relevant measuring day to determine if
the Company employed a majority of union members is the
initial date it began operating.” Id. That was the case in Burns,
where the successor began operating the day after the predeces-
sor ceased operations with a majority of its employees drawn
from the predecessor's work force. Burns, supra.
In Fall River Dyeing, supra, the Supreme Court considered a
case of a successor that took over a facility and began opera-
tions after several months hiatus in operations. The new em-
ployer started up operations and hired employees gradually
over time. Explicitly contrasting the situation to that in Burns,
the Court in Fall River Dyeing pointed out that
[i]n other situations, as in the present case, there is a start-up
period by the new employer while it gradually builds its oper-
ations and hires employees. In these situations, the Board,
with the approval of the Courts of Appeals, has adopted the
“substantial and representative complement” rule for fixing
the moment when the determination as to the composition of
the successor's work force is to be made. If, at this particular
moment, a majority of the successor's employees had been
employed by its predecessor, then the successor has an obliga-
tion to bargain with the union that represented these employ-
ees.
482 U.S. at 47 (footnotes omitted).
In the context of a start-up, the Supreme Court in Fall River
approved as reasonable the Board's substantial and representa-
tive complement rule, which evaluates the successor's bargain-
ing obligation at the time that a substantial and representative
complement of employees is hired. As the Supreme Court
explained,
“[the substantial and representative complement] rule repre-
sents an effort to balance the objective of insuring maximum
employee participation in the selection of a bargaining agent
against the goal of permitting employees to be represented as
quickly as possible. . . . The latter interest is especially
heightened in a situation where many of the successor's em-
ployees, who were formerly represented by a union, find
themselves after the employer transition in essentially the
same enterprise, but without their bargaining representative.”
Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 48–49 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
In Fall River the Supreme Court explicitly rejected the em-
ployer’s contention that the bargaining obligation cannot be
assessed until an employer has hired its full complement of
employees. The Court concluded that the “full complement”
argument “must fail.” Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 50.
Here, Ford commenced normal operations of the DTF
maintenance operations on April 24, 2017, with six employees
assigned to DTF, four of whom previously worked in the Ja-
cobs’ maintenance operation. This was the full complement
which Jacobs used—actually one more than Jacobs used since
letting an employee go for cause early in the year. Ford’s duty
to recognize and bargain with the IUOE Local 324 attached on
April 24. Ford violated the Act when it refused to recognize
and bargain with the IUOE on April 24.17
Ford and the UAW resist this conclusion on several grounds,
but none is compelling. First, they argue (R. Br. at 9-10; I. Br.
at 39), in what is simply a continued insistence on the inappro-
priateness of the DTF single-site unit, that the unit consists of
“all 526 skilled tradespersons” of Local 245 who could poten-
tially be assigned by Ford to the DTF, “or at least the 40-45%
of those tradespersons who are mobile and therefore most likely
to be ordered to respond to work orders at the DTF,” or “[a]t
the very least, the unit consists of 16 and 17 employees . . .
represent[ing] the six employees stationed at the DTF plus the
estimated combined 10.6 additional full-time employees worth
of maintenance work” that represent Ford’s calculation of the
amount of additional work that is necessary to fully account for
all the work done at DTF. (I. Br. at 39).
These sort of arguments miss the point, discussed above, that
the outside contractors did not constitute members of the histor-
ic DTF bargaining unit just as now the outside Local 245 mem-
bers who enter the DTF do not constitute members of the al-
leged and appropriate unit, and they do not undermine the con-
tinued appropriateness of the standalone unit composed of the
employees permanently assigned to work at the DTF.
Ford (Resp. Br. at 10) and the UAW (I. Br. at 50–51) also
contend that the six employees assigned by Ford to the DTF
maintenance unit on April 24, 2017, and at all times thereafter
until the close of the hearing, do not constitute a substantial and
representative complement, sufficient under Fall River Dyeing
to assess the composition of the work force.18

17 The Board treats IUOE’s April 13, 2017 bargaining demand as a
continuing demand for recognition and bargaining. See, Fall River
Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 52–53.
18 Although garbed as a claim that there is not yet a substantial and
representative complement, their argument rests on precisely the claim
the Fall River majority held “must fail”—the claim that the date for
measuring the composition of the employee complement should be
postponed until a full complement is hired. As the UAW puts it:
the full complement will consist of a majority (six out of ten) tradeper-
sons who have long been represented by the UAW Local 245. Under
these circumstances, the initial six employees should not be treated as
a representative complement when they plainly do not represent the
predictable majority view of the eventual full complement. [I. Br. at
51.]
Ford argues:
it is clear from the record that a substantial and representative com-
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD14
Ford and the UAW are in error, even assuming, for the mo-
ment, that it is true that Ford will soon have ten people assigned
to DTF maintenance.
Even assuming, arguendo, that the full complement of DTF
employees will be ten, the six employees who began normal
operations on April 24, 2017, clearly represent a substantial and
representative complement. The six employees began full
normal operations of the DTF maintenance and continued as
the work force for many months, through the close of the hear-
ing, working in the same classifications and performing the
same work that the full Jacobs complement of maintenance unit
employees had historically performed. The very point of the
substantial and representative complement rule is that awaiting
a full complement to measure a bargaining obligation “fails to
take into account the significant interest of employees in being
represented as soon as possible,” an interest that is “especially
heightened” in the successorship situation. Fall River Dyeing,
482 U.S. at 49–50.
Six of ten employees working the normal operations in even
half the ultimate classifications is a substantial and representa-
tive complement. “In general, the Board finds an existing com-
plement to be substantial and representative when approximate-
ly 30 percent of the eventual employee complement is em-
ployed in 50 percent of the job classifications.” Shares, Inc.,
343 NLRB 455, 455 fn. 2 (2004), enfd. 443 F.3d 939 (7th Cir.
2006); NLRB v. Asbury Graphite Mills, Inc., 832 F.2d 40, 43
(3rd Cir. 1987) (33% of “contemplated” total was a substantial
and representative complement), enforcing Asbury Graphite
Mills, Inc., 282 NLRB 448 (1986); Gerlach Meat Co., 192
NLRB 559 (1971) (35%). See also, General Cable Corp., 173
NLRB 251 (1968) (31%). Moreover, while Ford’s claim that it
ultimately intended to assign plumbers and millwrights to the
DTF maintenance is far too uncertain to rely upon—according
to Vergari as of November 2017, it had not been determined if
there was enough work to permanently station a millwright or a
plumber at the DTF—the April 24 complement of electricians
and steam engineers meets the 50 percent of full classification
threshold, even though, in fact, the Board does not necessarily
require even a majority of the anticipated job classifications be
filled in order to find a substantial and representative comple-
ment. Endicott Johnson, 172 NLRB 1676 (1968) (substantial
and representative complement with less than 50% of ultimate
classifications filled).
Finally, I note that the UAW contends (I. Br. at 43) that “on-
ly the barest possible majority” of Jacobs employees constitute
the proposed unit—four of six—and that this “informs” the
successorship analysis. It does, but in favor of successorship,
as it is more than the majority required under Burns for a find-
ing of successorship. The UAW laments that if Ford initially
had transferred in only one more Local 245 member and hired
one less Jacobs employee, former Jacobs employees would
compose a bare 50 percent of the unit. But the salient point is
that Ford voluntarily chose, for its own benefit, to hire a majori-
ty of the unit from the Jacobs’ employees. Ford said it felt
“more comfortable” that way. Thus, Ford chose the bargaining
obligation. Fall River Dyeing, 482 U.S. at 40–41 (“the succes-

plement of electricians and SSE's were not present as of the transition
from Ford to Jacobs. It is undisputed that but for the use of salaried
personnel and contractors, even an artificial single site DTF unit of
just SSE's and electricians would have constituted at least 10 station-
ary employees at DTF and there will be 10 such employees by the end
of 2017. [R. Br. at 10.]
sor is under no obligation to hire the employees of its predeces-
sor” and “[t]hus, to a substantial extent the applicability of
Burns rests in the hands of the successor. . . . This makes sense
when one considers that the employer intends to take advantage
of the trained work force of its predecessor”).
I find that there was—at a minimum—a substantial and rep-
resentative complement of DTF employees working on April
24, 2017. Ford’s refusal to recognize and bargain with the
IUOE Local 324 violated the Act as of that date.
II. THE ALLEGED 8(A)(5) VIOLATION AGAINST FORD FOR
RECOGNIZING THE UAW
In addition to alleging that Ford violated Section 8(a)(5) and
(1) of the Act by failing and refusing to recognize and bargain
with the IUOE Local 324 as the DTF maintenance employees’
collective-bargaining representative, the complaint also inde-
pendently alleges that Ford violated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) by
recognizing and entering into a collective-bargaining agreement
with the UAW and its Local 245 for the DTF maintenance em-
ployees.19
While I agree that Ford’s recognition and collective-
bargaining relationship with the UAW regarding the DTF em-
ployees was inappropriate, I am unaware of any precedent sup-
porting the conclusion that it is a violation of Section 8(a)(5)
for Ford to do so. Neither precedent nor argument for the claim
is offered, by either the General Counsel or the Charging Party.
Neither the Respondent nor the Intervenor address the issue.
The terms of the complaint make clear that the 8(a)(5) allega-
tion was not a typographical error.
More typically the actions here would be found to constitute
a violation of 8(a)(2) and an independent 8(a)(1) violation re-
gardless of the good faith of the employer. See, ILGWU v.
NLRB (Bernard-Altmann Texas Corp.), 366 U.S. 731 (1961).
Neither an 8(a)(2) nor an independent violation of 8(a)(1) is
mention in the complaint or in the parties’ briefs. (Similarly,
no contention is made that the UAW violated Section
8(b)(1)(A) by accepting recognition in the DTF maintenance
unit. Bernard-Altmann, supra.)
I dismiss the allegation that the recognition of the UAW and
application of the Ford-UAW was an 8(a)(5) violation. Given
the complaint, and the lack of allegation or argument on the
issue, I do not find that the recognition of the UAW was an
8(a)(2) or independent 8(a)(1) violation.20
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The Respondent Ford Motor Co. is an employer within

19 Par. 11 of the complaint alleges that:
About April 24, 2017, Respondent granted recognition to, and entered
into and since then has maintained and enforced a collective-
bargaining agreement with the [Intervenor] as the exclusive collective-
bargaining representative of the Unit.
Paragraph 15 of the complaint alleges that:
By the conduct described above in paragraph 11 . . . Respondent has
been failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith with
the exclusive collective- bargaining representative of its employees in
violation of Section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Act.
20 While I dismiss this allegation of the complaint, Ford’s recogni-
tion of the UAW as the representative of the DTF maintenance em-
ployees will not be able to continue. Ford violated the Act by failing to
recognize and bargain with the IUOE as the exclusive representative of
the DTF maintenance employees. Recognition of another union was
and will be inconsistent with Ford’s obligations under the Act, as well
as with its obligations under the order and remedy set forth below.
FORD CO. 15
the meaning of Section 2(2), (6), and (7) of the Act.
2. The Charging Party Local 324, International Union of
Operating Engineers (IUOE), AFL–CIO (Union) is a labor
organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
3. The following employees of the Respondent constitute a
unit appropriate for collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9(b) of the Act:
All full-time and regular part-time operating engineers and
electricians employed by the Respondent at the Drivability
Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen
Park, Michigan, engaged in the operation, mechanical
maintenance and repair of all refrigeration, heating and air-
conditioning machinery installed at the DTF, and in the per-
formance of general building maintenance.
4. Since on or about April 24, 2017, the Charging Party Un-
ion has been the exclusive collective-bargaining representative
of the Respondent’s employees in the above-described unit.
5. Since on or about April 24, 2017, the Respondent has vio-
lated Section 8(a)(5) and (1) of the Act by failing and refusing
to recognize and bargain collectively with the Charging Party
Union as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of
the Respondent’s employees in the above-described unit.
5. The unfair labor practices committed by the Respondent
affect commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of
the Act.
REMEDY
Having found that the Respondent has engaged in certain un-
fair labor practices, I find that it must be ordered to cease and
desist therefrom and to take certain affirmative action designed
to effectuate the policies of the Act.
Having found that the Respondent violated Section 8(a)(5)
and (1) of the act by failing and refusing to recognize and bar-
gain collectively with the Charging Party Union as the collec-
tive-bargaining representative of an appropriate bargaining unit
of employees, the Respondent shall recognize and, upon re-
quest, bargain with the Charging Party Union as the exclusive
representative of the designated unit of employees (described
above) and, if an understanding is reached, embody the under-
standing in a signed agreement.
The Respondent shall further be ordered to refrain from in
any like or related manner abridging any of the rights guaran-
teed to employees by Section 7 of the Act.
The Respondent shall post an appropriate informational no-
tice, as described in the attached appendix. This notice shall be
posted in the Respondent’s facility or wherever the notices to
employees are regularly posted for 60 days without anything
covering it up or defacing its contents. In addition to physical
posting of paper notices, notices shall be distributed electroni-
cally, such as by email, posting on an intranet or an internet
site, and/or other electronic means, if the Respondent customar-
ily communicates with its employees by such means. In the
event that, during the pendency of these proceedings, the Re-
spondent has gone out of business or closed the facility in-
volved in these proceedings, the Respondent shall duplicate and
mail, at its own expense, a copy of the notice to all current em-
ployees and former employees employed by the Respondent at
any time since April 24, 2017. When the notice is issued to the
Respondent, it shall sign it or otherwise notify Region 7 of the
Board what action it will take with respect to this decision.
On these findings of fact and conclusions of law and on the
entire record, I issue the following recommended21
ORDER
The Respondent, Ford Motor Company, Allen Park, Michi-
gan, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall
1. Cease and desist from
(a) Failing and refusing to recognize and bargain with Local
324, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), AFL–
CIO (Union) as the exclusive collective-bargaining representa-
tive of the employees in the following appropriate unit:
All full-time and regular part-time operating engineers and
electricians employed by the Respondent at the Drivability
Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen
Park, Michigan, engaged in the operation, mechanical
maintenance and repair of all refrigeration, heating and air-
conditioning machinery installed at the DTF, and in the per-
formance of general building maintenance.
(b) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining,
or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed
them by Section 7 of the Act.
2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effec-
tuate the policies of the Act.
(a) Recognize, and on request, bargain with the Union as the
exclusive collective-bargaining representative of the above-
described unit of employees concerning terms and conditions of
employment and, if an understanding is reached, embody the
understanding in a signed agreement.
(b) Within 14 days after service by the Region, post at its
DTF facility in Allen Park, Michigan, copies of the attached
notice marked “Appendix.” 22 Copies of the notice, on forms
provided by the Regional Director for Region 7, after being
signed by the Respondent's authorized representative, shall be
posted by the Respondent and maintained for 60 consecutive
days in conspicuous places, including all places where notices
to employees are customarily posted. In addition to physical
posting of paper notices, notices shall be distributed electroni-
cally, such as by email, posting on an intranet or an internet
site, and/or other electronic means, if the Respondent customar-
ily communicates with its employees by such means. Reasona-
ble steps shall be taken by the Respondent to ensure that the
notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other mate-
rial. In the event that, during the pendency of these proceed-
ings, the Respondent has gone out of business or closed the
facility involved in these proceedings, the Respondent shall
duplicate and mail, at its own expense, a copy of the notice to
all current employees and former employees employed by the
Respondent at any time since April 24, 2017.
(c) Within 21 days after service by the Region, file with the
Regional Director for Region 7 a sworn certification of a re-
sponsible official on a form provided by the Region attesting to
the steps that the Respondent has taken to comply.

21 If no exceptions are filed as provided by Sec. 102.46 of the
Board’s Rules and Regulations, the findings, conclusions, and recom-
mended Order shall, as provided in Sec. 102.48 of the Rules, be adopt-
ed by the Board and all objections to them shall be deemed waived for
all purposes.
22 If this Order is enforced by a judgment of a United States court of
appeals, the words in the notice reading "Posted by Order of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board" shall read "Posted Pursuant to a Judg-
ment of the United States Court of Appeals Enforcing an Order of the
National Labor Relations Board."
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD16
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the complaint is dismissed inso-
far as it alleges violations of the Act not specifically found.
Dated, Washington, D.C. February 8, 2018
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO EMPLOYEES
POSTED BY ORDER OF THE
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
An Agency of the United States Government
The National Labor Relations Board has found that we violated
Federal labor law and has ordered us to post and obey this no-
tice.
FEDERAL LAW GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO
Form, join, or assist a union
Choose representatives to bargain with us on your be-
half
Act together with other employees for your benefit and
protection
Choose not to engage in any of these protected activi-
ties.
WE WILL NOT fail and refuse to recognize and bargain with
Local 324, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE),
AFL–CIO, as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative
of our employees in the following appropriate unit:
All full -time and regular part-time operating engineers and
electricians employed by the Respondent at the Drivability
Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen
Park, Michigan, engaged in the operation, mechanical
maintenance and repair of all refrigeration, heating and air-
conditioning machinery installed at the DTF, and in the per-
formance of general building maintenance.
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner interfere with, re-
strain, or coerce you in the exercise of the rights listed above.
WE WILL recognize and, on request, bargain with Local 324,
International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), AFL–CIO,
as the exclusive collective-bargaining representative of our
employees in the following appropriate unit concerning terms
and conditions of employment and, if an understanding is
reached, embody the understanding in a signed agreement:
All full -time and regular part-time operating engineers and
electricians employed by the Respondent at the Drivability
Test Facility (DTF) located at 8000 Enterprise Drive, Allen
Park, Michigan, engaged in the operation, mechanical
maintenance and repair of all refrigeration, heating and air-
conditioning machinery installed at the DTF, and in the per-
formance of general building maintenance.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
Administrative Law Judge’s decision can be found at
www.nlrb.gov/case/07-CA-198075 by using the QR code below.
Alternatively, you can obtain a copy of the decision from the
Executive Secretary, National Labor Relations Board, 1015
Half Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20570, or by calling (202)
273–1940.