Marlott Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 8, 1971

188 N.L.R.B. 452 (N.L.R.B. 1971)

452 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Marriott In-Flite Services, a Division of Marlott Cor-
poration and Teamsters Local Union No. 311, affil-
iated with International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America.
Case 5-RC--7343
February 8, 1971
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
BY MEMBERS FANNING, BROWN , AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer William I. Shooer.
The Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing are
free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the
meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the purposes
of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization named below claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning
the representation of certain employees of the Em-
ployer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Sec-
tion 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent the employees
of the Employer in a unit composed, with the usual
exclusions, of all employees at the Employer's Friend-
ship Airport operations near Baltimore, Maryland.
The Employer takes the position that the requested
unit is inappropriate and that the only appropriate
unit is one composed, with the usual exclusions, of all
such employees of the Employer at its Washington
National Airport and Dulles International Airport
operations in addition to those employed at Friend-
ship Airport. The parties otherwise agree to the com-
position of the unit.
In Hot Shoppes, Inc., 139 NLRB 1253, the Board
found that a unit virtually the same as the one request-
ed in the instant proceeding was appropriate.' No
bargaining representative was selected. Therefore, al-
lowing for changed circumstances, we need only
briefly summarize the Employer's operations. The
Employer corporation is primarily engaged in provid-
ing restaurant, hotel, and airline catering services
throughout the United States and parts of Europe.
In-Flite Services is an unincorporated division of the
Employer engaged in the business of providing cater-
ing services to airlines. Within the division are several
administrative districts, including the Washington-
1 Also, in Hot Shoppes, Inc, 130 NLRB 138, the Board found appropriate,
and directed an election in, a unit limited to the employer 's employees at
Washington National Airport There too an election was directed, but no
bargaining representative was selected
Baltimore district (district 1 involved herein) which
consists of four food preparation shops or .kitchens
exclusively servicing airlines at the three area airports:
shops Nos. 24 and 25 are both located at Washington
National, and shops Nos. 59 and 60 are at Dulles
International and Friendship, respectively. Friend-
ship Airport in Maryland is located approximately 59
miles from Dulles International and 37 miles from
Washington National, both in Virginia.
The Employer has at present 225 employees at its
Friendship Airport facility, about 200 employees at
the Dulles shop, and some 260 employees at the
Washington National shops. Employees at each of the
four kitchens are supervised by a local shop manager
who possesses authority to hire and fire, recommend
and grant promotions and transfers within his shop,
and in other respects oversee the daily operations of
his shop. Each shop manager is directly responsible to
the district manager who retains final authority. Em-
ployee wages, hours, and terms and conditions of em-
ployment are generally uniform throughout the
Washington-Baltimore district and in some respects
differ from those prevailing in other In-Flite districts.
Seniority policies are the same throughout the
Employer's various divisions as are employee bene-
fits, such as vacations, holidays, sick leave, insurance,
and participation in the profit-sharing program.
There are both permanent and temporary transfers
of employees to and from the Friendship Airport
kitchen. Thus, in the year preceding the hearing, there
were only three permanent employee transfers either
to or from shop No. 60. With regard to temporary
employee transfers, the Employer cited 235 such in-
stances over the 8-month period immediately preced-
ing the hearing. In the typical situation the employee
would report for work at his regular shop, punch his
timeclock, from there be dispatched to another shop,
and at the end of the day be transported back to his
usual working station where he is clocked out. Most
transfers were for several days. The record shows that
over 60 employees were transferred from the other
three shops to shop No. 60. Most of the employees
involved were utility personnel whose services were
required at the Friendship Airport facility because of
impending state health authority inspections. Also,
labor disputes involving airlines at other airports, es-
pecially at Washington National, caused the Employ-
er to transfer personnel to Friendship. Finally, a
portion of the transfers were merely of a routine na-
ture such as temporary replacements for vacationing
employees and changes caused because of seasonal
fluctuations in passenger traffic for the airlines serv-
iced. On the other hand, over the same period there
were only 10 employees temporarily transferred from
shop No. 60 to other shops in the district. In most
instances these employees were dispatched to Dulles
188 NLRB NO. 72
MARRIOTT IN-FLITE SERVICES.
International to observe and familiarize themselves
with a catering operation which was to be transferred
to Friendship Airport. Thus, their transfers were more
related to their own shop than of the shop to which
they were detailed. On another occasion employees
were temporarily transferred from Friendship to
Dulles to instruct employees on the operation of a
new account the Employer had recently received.
The Employer relies chiefly upon Marriott In-Flite
Services, 168 NLRB 365, and Hot Shoppes, Inc., 130
NLRB 144, involving the Employer's New York and
Chicago operations. In the first case, the Board on
review decided that three In-Flite kitchens servicing
airlines at Kennedy Airport in New York constituted
an appropriate unit and overturned the Regional
Director's finding that one of the catering shops was
by itself appropriate. In so deciding the Board was
particularly mindful of the close geographic proximity
of the three In-Flite kitchens, which were all located
within 2 miles of one another. Moreover, the Employ-
er was in the process of constructing a single building
to house its three Kennedy Airport kitchens. The in-
stant proceeding presents an entirely different situ-
ation for Friendship Airport is, as already found, well
over 35 miles from the nearest In-Flite shop, at Wash-
ington National, and some 59 miles distant from
Dulles International. In the second case, concerning
the Employer's catering facilities at Midway and
O'Hare airports in Chicago, the Board found that the
Petitioner's unit request, limited to employees at
O'Hare, was based upon the extent of organization as
evidenced by the fact that on two previous occasions
the petitioner had sought employees in a unit compris-
ing both airports. We are satisfied that on the facts
before us in this case the appropriateness of the re-
quested unit is supported by factors unrelated to ex-
tent of organization. Moreover, contrary to the
Chicago case, the Petitioner here has once before, in
April 1969,2 requested the same unit of employees at
2 Case 5-RC-6773 was not published in Board volumes
453
Friendship Airport and the Employer entered into the
Stipulation for Certification Upon Consent Election
agreeing that a unit confined to Friendship Airport
was appropriate.
Finally, we return to one earlier decision in Hot
Shoppes, Inc., 139 NLRB 1253, where we found a unit
limited to Friendship Airport to be appropriate. We
have carefully reviewed this case in light of that deci-
sion and conclude that the unit requested is appropri-
ate. In our opinion the incidence of temporary
transfers, especially from other kitchens to the
Friendship kitchen, does not overcome the clear ge-
ographic separateness of these shops, the degree of
automony which local shop managers exercise, and
the other grounds set forth in our earlier decisions.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees
of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for col-
lective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b)
of the Act:
All employees employed by the Employer at its
Friendship Airport operations including food
and equipment handlers and helpers, dishroom
attendants, station attendants, dispatchers,
cooks, utility personnel, and mechanics but ex-
cluding office clerical employees, guards, and su-
pervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election 3 omitted from publica-
tion.]
J In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to be
informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote , all parties
to the election should have access to a list of voters and their addresses which
may be used to communicate with them . Excelsior Underwear Inc, 156
NLRB 1236, N L R B v. Wyman-Gordon Co, 394 U. S 759. Accordingly, it
is hereby directed than an election eligibility list, containing the names and
addresses of all the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the
Regional Director for Region 5 within 7 days of the date of this Decision and
Director of Election The Regional Director shall make the list available to
all parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted
by the Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances . Failure to
comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election
whenever proper objections are filed.