Harrah's Illinois Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 24, 1995

319 N.L.R.B. 749 (N.L.R.B. 1995)

749
319 NLRB No. 101
HARRAH’S ILLINOIS CORP.
1 Prior to October or November of 1994, however, maintenance
employees had their own budget, and the other two classifications
within the department were grouped together administratively.
Harrah’s Illinois Corporation and Local 150, Inter-
national Union of Operating Engineers, AFL–
CIO, Petitioner. Case 13–RC–19062
November 24, 1995
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN GOULD AND MEMBERS COHEN
AND TRUESDALE
On February 17, 1995, the Acting Regional Director
for Region 13 issued a Decision and Direction of Elec-
tion finding a unit of all full-time and regular part-time
maintenance trade employees at the Employer’s Joliet,
Illinois riverboat complex to be an appropriate unit.
Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67(b) of the
Rules and Regulations of the National Labor Relations
Board, the Employer filed a timely request for review
of the Acting Regional Director’s decision. The Em-
ployer argued that the unit in which the election was
directed was inappropriate because it should also in-
clude other employees in the Employer’s environ-
mental service (EVS) and maintenance department.
By Order dated March 24, 1995, the Board granted
the Employer’s request for review. The Employer and
the Petitioner submitted briefs on review.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel.
The Board has considered the Acting Regional Di-
rector’s decision in light of the record and briefs, and
has decided to reverse the Acting Regional Director’s
finding that a unit limited to maintenance employees is
appropriate.
The Employer has operated a riverboat complex on
the Des Plaines River since May 1993. The complex
includes two riverboats. It also includes a pavilion,
which serves as the Employer’s base of operations and
includes food and beverage facilities, a lounge with a
stage, a gift shop, administrative offices, and ticketing
for boat cruises. The Employer also occupies two ad-
ministrative offices in Joliet: the E. B. Brown building,
which houses administrative functions and shops for
maintenance employees and heavy-duty cleaners; and
the Scott Street building, which is the principal admin-
istrative office.
The Employer’s operations consist of five depart-
ments: casino operations, marine operations, food and
beverage, surveillance, and EVS and maintenance em-
ployees. The EVS and maintenance department, under
the overall supervision of EVS and Maintenance Man-
ager Richard Simms, has approximately 115 employees
classified as maintenance, heavy-duty cleaners, and
cleaners. Within the maintenance department, mainte-
nance and heavy-duty cleaners are grouped together for
administrative and payroll purposes, and cleaners have
a separate budget and payroll department.1
The Petitioner seeks to represent the 16 workers
classified as maintenance employees, whose respon-
sibilities are to build, repair, and maintain the facility.
Their work has included building tables, toke (tip)
boxes, and toke carriers; changing light bulbs; repair-
ing and installing lighting fixtures; repairing door
latches; building and installing cabinets; cleaning gam-
ing tables; cleaning and balancing roulette wheels;
maintaining and troubleshooting the heating, air condi-
tioning, and ventilation systems; installing plumbing
and faucets; and painting the facility. Periodically,
maintenance employees work on special projects, such
as installing Christmas decorations and building of-
fices. Some of these employees possess special skills.
There are, for example, two skilled painters, an elec-
trician, a skilled and licensed plumber, a locksmith,
three employees skilled in carpentry and cabinet-
making, and an employee who has received training in
air and powerplant maintenance.
There are approximately 15 employees classified as
heavy-duty cleaners. Their cleaning tasks require the
use of power equipment, such as vacuums and carpet
cleaners, which is stored about 40 feet from the main-
tenance department. In addition, they repair small ma-
chines, mow lawns, set up decorations, move equip-
ment and supplies, and assist maintenance employees
by bringing them equipment and supplies. One heavy-
duty cleaner does upholstery work and drills cards and
dice for purposes of ensuring the Employer’s compli-
ance with applicable gaming laws.
Additionally, there are approximately 84 employees
classified as cleaners, who perform general house-
keeping functions. They polish, empty trash, and clean
the facility and equipment with the use of mops, dust-
ers, and cleaning products that are stored throughout
the facility.
Maintenance and heavy-duty employees interact fre-
quently on the job. Thus, on construction projects,
heavy-duty employees assist maintenance employees
by bringing supplies to them and cleaning up the site
after the project is completed. Although not a routine
occurrence, cleaning employees may sometimes per-
form jobs that are designated maintenance work, such
as hanging pictures, changing light bulbs, and replac-
ing switches. Similarly, many of the maintenance em-
ployees spend all or most of their time performing jobs
that do not utilize their skills on the job all or most
of the time. Thus, during the summer, maintenance
employees interact with heavy-duty employees by per-
forming landscaping work between 20 and 30 percent
of the time. Some work, such as drilling holes in play-
750 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
2 Similarly, the supervisors to whom heavy-duty and cleaning em-
ployees report also work only on one shift, while their respective
employees work all shifts. Thus, employees in these classifications
report to different supervisors on the shifts their immediate super-
visors do not work. Although, as found by the Acting Regional Di-
rector, maintenance employees on these shifts receive their assign-
ments through work orders, the record indicates that work orders for
maintenance employees originate not only from Maintenance Super-
visor Felowitz, but from other EVS and maintenance department su-
pervisors as well.
3 At least four employees have carpentry and cabinetry skills; one
painter has completed an apprenticeship program; another specializes
in painting and paperhanging; one employee has electrical skills; one
works as a locksmith; one is a licensed plumber with HVAC servic-
ing experience; and two perform exterior boat painting.
That the current maintenance employees may have some slightly
greater skills than their nonmaintenance counterparts might be a fac-
tor supporting a separate unit. It is but one factor to be considered,
however, and it is outweighed here by all other relevant factors. Cf.
Ore-Ida Foods, 313 NLRB 1016, 1019 fn. 3 (1995), enfd. 66 F.3d
328 (7th Cir. 1995), relied on by the Acting Regional Director, in
which a maintenance unit composed of skilled, though not craft, em-
ployees was found appropriate when those employees had their own
ing cards and dice, which was once a maintenance job,
is now performed by heavy-duty cleaning employees.
Furthermore, maintenance employees have used heavy-
duty equipment, such as power vacuums, when the sit-
uation has required it, and are expected to contribute
to the overall cleanliness of the premises by, for exam-
ple, emptying ashtrays that they see are overflowing—
work routinely performed by cleaning employees. Ad-
ditionally, all employees both within and outside the
EVS and maintenance department share common bene-
fits and labor relations policies, as well as common fa-
cilities, such as the lunchroom and parking lot.
The Employer contends that the only appropriate
unit consists of all employees in the department be-
cause they share a community of interest based on
common supervision, interchange, functional integra-
tion, and common labor relations policies. The Em-
ployer also argues that the maintenance employees do
not possess a sufficient level of skill or experience to
justify their being found a separate appropriate unit.
The Petitioner contends that the maintenance employ-
ees constitute a separate appropriate unit because of
the similarity of their skills, duties, and working condi-
tions and that the Employer’s EVS and maintenance
department is not so functionally integrated as to make
the petitioned-for unit inappropriate.
In concluding that a separate unit of maintenance
employees is appropriate, the Acting Regional Director
relied on his finding that maintenance employees have
separate skills and functions; he also relied on factors
of autonomy within the Employer’s organizational
structure and separate immediate supervision. He con-
cluded that a separate unit is justified on these factors,
notwithstanding some transfer and interchange between
classifications and common labor relations policies.
We do not agree.
Since American Cyanamid Co., 131 NLRB 909, 910
(1961), the Board has held that a separate unit of
maintenance employees may be appropriate when the
record establishes ‘‘that maintenance employees are
readily identifiable as a group whose similarity of
function and skills create a community of interest such
as would warrant separate representation.’’ Contrary to
the Acting Regional Director, we do not find that the
record here supports a finding that the maintenance
unit sought is composed of a distinct and homogeneous
group of employees with interests separate from others
in their department.
First, all employees in the EVS and maintenance de-
partment are grouped administratively in the same de-
partment of the Employer’s operations and have the
same overall supervision. Although, as the Acting Re-
gional Director notes, maintenance employees at one
time in the Employer’s brief history had a separate
budget and payroll department, that is no longer the
case, and since about October 1994, maintenance em-
ployees have been grouped with heavy-duty cleaners
for budgetary and payroll purposes.
Second, employees within the EVS and maintenance
department, including cleaners and heavy-duty clean-
ers, share not only the same overall supervision but
also some common immediate supervision. Thus, al-
though there is one supervisor, Terry Felowitz, to
whom maintenance employees specifically report, there
are four other supervisors within the department, three
assigned to cleaners and one to heavy-duty cleaners.
All five of these supervisors possess, and at least some
have exercised, authority to direct and discipline any
employee in the department as necessary. This author-
ity is significant in terms of common direct super-
vision within the department because there are week-
end days and weekday shifts in the 24-hour-per-day, 7-
day-per-week operation of the casino when mainte-
nance employees work and Felowitz is not present, and
therefore those maintenance employees are more fre-
quently under the watch of the other supervisors in the
department.2
A further factor weighing against the appropriate-
ness of a separate unit of maintenance employees is
the number of transfers among department classifica-
tions. The Employer recognizes a progression within
the department from cleaner to heavy-duty cleaner to
maintenance. Thus, over the relatively short period of
less than 2 years, seven cleaning employees have be-
come heavy-duty employees, and one of these moved
on to become a maintenance employee. Further, four
additional heavy-duty cleaners have become mainte-
nance employees, and one former part-time mainte-
nance employee later became a full-time heavy-duty
cleaner.
The petitioned-for maintenance employees are not
craft employees, and, although there is no dispute that
some of them are skilled,3 we find, as in Monsanto
751HARRAH’S ILLINOIS CORP.
separate department and separate supervision and limited contact and
interchange with the excluded production employees.
4 When the Employer commenced operations, it advertised for ap-
plicants with skills and experience in carpentry; electricity; heating,
venting, and air conditioning; and plumbing. The Employer no
longer seeks to fill maintenance worker vacancies with applicants
with these skills unless it is replacing one of its current skilled work-
ers. In fact, it now encourages and gives preference in hiring to its
own heavy-duty cleaning employees.
Co., 183 NLRB 415 (1970), that ‘‘the employees
sought are a diverse group ranging from unskilled
custodians to relatively skilled technicians.’’ Id. at 417
fn. 5. See also Greater Bakersfield Memorial Hospital,
226 NLRB 971, 973 (1976) (40 percent of the unit
sought had transferred into maintenance jobs). Further-
more, under the Employer’s current hiring policy,4
maintenance employees are not required to be licensed
or to have any special certification or schooling. See
id. Our finding in this regard is underscored by the fre-
quent job interaction between maintenance and heavy-
duty employees, and the fact that many of the mainte-
nance employees do not use their skills on the job all
or most of the time.
Accordingly, we conclude that the common super-
vision and relative fluidity of movement and job inter-
action of employees within the EVS and maintenance
department, together with other traditional community-
of-interest criteria, compel a conclusion that all em-
ployees in the maintenance employee classification
constitute the minimum appropriate unit. See Harrah’s
Club, 187 NLRB 810, 812 (1971). In that case, involv-
ing another of the Employer’s operations, the Board
rejected the appropriateness of a separate maintenance
unit in a gambling casino complex, finding instead that
the ‘‘minimum’’ appropriate unit must include employ-
ees engaged in cleaning and repair functions without
regard to the employer’s departmental classifications.
In that case, as here, those involved in cleaning func-
tions were required to work in conjunction with repair-
men in the performance of a variety of tasks. In such
circumstances, maintenance mechanics do not comprise
a homogenous grouping of employees warranting a
separate unit. Because the Petitioner is unwilling to
proceed to an election in an expanded unit, we shall
dismiss the petition.
ORDER
The petition is dismissed.