Stanford Park Hotel

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 29, 1988

287 N.L.R.B. 1291 (N.L.R.B. 1988)

STANFORD PARK HOTEL 1291
Western .Lodging Corp ., d/b/a Stanford Park Hotel
and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employ-
ees Local 340, Hotel Employees and Restaurant
Employees International Union , AFL-CIO.
Case 20-RC-16124
29 February 1988
DECISION ON REVIEW AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN STEPHENS AND MEMBERS
BABSON AND CRACRAFT
On 6 April 1987 the Regional Director for
Region 20 issued a Decision and Direction of Elec-
tion in which he found that the petitioned-for unit
of the Employer's housekeeping and maintenance
department employees was not an appropriate unit
for collective bargaining, and that the only appro-
priate unit for collective bargaining was an overall
unit of hotel employees, excluding accounting
clerks, sales/catering employees, confidential em-
ployees, guards, and supervisors.
In accordance with Section 102 67 of the Board's
Rules and Regulations, the Petitioner filed a timely
request for review of the Regional Director's deci-
sion , contending that the Board's decision in Omni
International Hotel of Detroit, 283 NLRB 473
(1987), "raises a substantial question of law and
policy regarding the issue of unit appropriateness
" In response, the Employer filed a statement
in opposition to the Petitioner's request for review.
By unpublished Order dated 29 May 1987, the
Board (former Chairman Dotson dissenting) grant-
ed the Petitioner's request for review.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegat-
ed its authority in this proceeding to a three-
member panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in
this case with respect to the issue under review,
and concludes that the Regional Director erred.
Although an overall unit of the Employer's em-
ployees would also be an appropriate unit for bar-
gaining, contrary to the Regional Director's analy-
sis, recent Board precedent does not mandate a
finding that such a unit is the only appropriate bar-
gaining unit in the hotel/motel industry. Indeed,
the very cases cited by the Regional Director
affirm the Board's commitment to a case-by-case
approach to resolving unit determination issues in
this industry, based on the traditional community-
of-interest criteria used in other industries. See,
e.g., Westin Hotel, 277 NLRB 1506, 1507-1508
(1986); Atlanta Hilton & Towers, 273 NLRB 87, 90
(1984), modified on other grounds 275 NLRB 1413
(1985). See also Omni International Hotel of Detroit,
supra at 475, and cases cited therein. Application of
these traditional criteria to the instant case reveals
that the petitioned-for unit of housekeeping and
maintenance employees is an appropriate unit.
The Employer, a California corporation, oper-
ates a four-story hotel in Menlo Park, California,
that includes a restaurant, a lounge, guest rooms,
and banquet or conference facilities. The Employer
employs approximately 129 persons, including serv-
ice employees in the following classifications:
housekeepers, housemen, maintenance employees,
front desk employees, bellmen, PBX operators, re-
servationists, and food service employees.
The vice president and general manager is re-
sponsible for the overall supervision of the hotel.
The executive housekeeper supervises the house-
keeping department, which is comprised of 3 main-
tenance employees and 28 housekeepers and house-
men. The maintenance employees are responsible
for the general mechanical upkeep of the hotel. In
addition, they perform general routine maintenance
on a daily basis (e.g., checking pool chlorination
level). Maintenance employees receive their assign-
ments via work orders posted on the bulletin board
outside the housekeeping office or directly from
the executive housekeeper or housekeeping super-
visor. The housekeeping employees are responsible
for cleaning all areas of the hotel and for the laun-
dry. Both housekeeping and maintenance employ-
ees work throughout the hotel and, therefore,
come into contact with other employees.
There is minimal evidence of either housekeep-
ing or maintenance employees performing the func-
tions of employees in other classifications. For ex-
ample, a houseman may be called on to assist a
guest with luggage approximately once per month,
and housekeepers and bellmen share responsibility
for maintaining the cleanliness of the lobby. Simi-
larly, although it is not uncommon for employees-
in other classifications to perform housekeeping
and maintenance functions, this typically occurs
when the housekeepers and maintenance employees
are off duty and the hotel is particularly busy, and
does not appear to occur on a frequent basis. For
example, approximately once per week, a front
desk employee may be asked to clean a guest room
following a late checkout when housekeeping em-
ployees are off duty.
Specific evidence of permanent transfers since
June 1986 among any of the classifications in the
overall unit is minimal at best. One of these trans-
fers involved a busboy who was "promoted" to a
houseman position; another involved a bellman
who was "promoted" to a sales position. There is
no evidence of other permanent transfers in the
record, although the general manager testified that
the Employer's unwritten policy is to encourage
287 NLRB No. 137
1292 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
such transfers and that it posts job announcements
by the timeclock.
With respect to hiring practices, the general
manager testified that a number of department
heads, specifically including the executive house-
keeper, possess the authority, to hire employees,
though later he further stated that all potential em-
ployees "are to be seen" by him prior to being
hired, In addition, the general manager stated that
if a job posting requires that the applicant have
certain qualifications, "the department head doing
the hiring" determines whether the applicant pos-
sesses the requisite qualifications.
Finally, all the enumerated service employees re-
ceive hourly wages. In addition, several classifica-
tions, including bellmen, housekeepers, and most
food service employees, receive tips. All service
employees receive the same fringe benefits, are sub-
ject to the same personnel policies, and enter and
leave the hotel through the employee entrance lo-
cated adjacent to the housekeeping office.
Based on the foregoing, including, inter alia, the
common supervision of the housekeeping and main-
tenance employees, the minimal amount of perma-
nent transfers into or out of these two classifica-
tions, and the seemingly infrequent nature of tem-
porary interchange with employees in other depart-
ments, we find that there is a sufficient community
of interest between the housekeeping and mainte-
nance employees to warrant a finding that the peti-
tioned-for unit is an appropriate unit for bargain-
ing.
In so concluding, we note that the fact that all
hotel employees receive the same fringe benefits
and are subject to the same personnel policies does
not compel a contrary finding. As stated in Omni,
283 NLRB at 476 such similarities "fail to establish
that the requested unit is not an appropriate unit
for bargaining-though such facts undoubtedly
would show that an overall unit, if sought, also
would be an appropriate unit."
In Ramada Inn West, 225 NLRB 1279, 1280
(1976), the Board observed that "[T]here is not
such a high degree of integration of functions and
mutuality of interest between the requested house-
keeping and maintenance department employees
and the other motel employees as to require their
combination in a single unit ." There, the Board
found that the petitioned-for unit of housekeeping
and maintenance employees was appropriate,
noting in particular the requested employees' sepa-
rate supervision, lack of interchange with other
employees on a regular basis, and "performance of
distinctive manual functions in furtherance of the
objectives of their respective departments." Id. See
also Holiday Inn-Troy, 238 NLRB 1369 (1978),
finding a unit of housekeeping employees and the
maintenance employee to be an appropriate unit;
Ramada Inns, 221 NLRB 689 (1975), finding a unit
of housekeeping and laundry employees, mainten-
ancemen , and bellmen to be an appropriate unit.'
Similarly, in the instant case, temporary inter-
change among the different service classifications
does not appear to occur on a frequent basis, and
there is only minimal record evidence concerning
permanent transfers from one service classification
to another. Additionally, the housekeeping and
maintenance employees are united in a single de-
partment which enjoys distinct supervision from
that of other service employees and perform "dis-
tinctive manual functions in furtherance of the ob-
jectives of their respective" divisions. Ramada Inn
West, 225 NLRB at 1280.
Accordingly, we conclude that the petitioned-for
unit is an appropriate unit for bargaining and shall
direct an election among the following employees:
All full-time and regular part-time housekeep-
ers, housemen, and maintenance employees
employed by the Employer at its Menlo Park,
California, facility but excluding bellmen,
room service employees, banquet servers, bar-
tenders, cocktail waitresses, food servers, dish-
washer-stewards, cooks, buspersons, hosts and
hostesses, front desk employees, PBX opera-
tors and reservationists, accounting clerks,
sales/catering employees, confidential employ-
ees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the
Act.
[Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
' Cf Ramada Beverly Hills, 278 NLRB 691 (1986), in which, unlike the
instant case , there was a stroi.g , highly centralized administration, and a
high degree of functional integration and job overlap, Westin Hotel, 277
NLRB 1506 (1986), in which the Board , on remand from the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, relied on the existence of a
pattern of bargaining in the local area favoring overall hotel units, as well
as the willingness of an intervening labor organization to represent the
petitioned-for employees as part of an overall unit , Atlanta Hilton &
Towers, 273 NLRB 87 , 89 (1984), in which the Board noted , inter alia,
that within a 2-year period , there were approximately 27 permanent
transfers from the housekeeping department to other departments, and
Holiday Inn Alton, 270 NLRB 1405 (1984), in which the Board found that
other classifications "regularly and frequently " interchanged duties with
the petitioned -for housekeeping employees