Tuskegee Institute

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 19, 1974

209 N.L.R.B. 773 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE 773
Tuskegee Institute and Laborers' International Union
of North America , Local 246, AFL-CIO, Petition-
er. Case 15-RC-5188
March 19, 1974
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY MEMBERS FANNING, JENKINS, AND
KENNEDY
On August 22, 1973, the Regional Director for
Region 15 issued a Decision and Direction of
Election in the above-entitled proceeding in which he
found appropriate a unit of the Employer 's service
and maintenance employees .' The Regional Director
excluded , among others , employees in the campus
laundry, stationary engineers and stationary firemen
in the campus powerplant , mailroom , snackbar, and
bookstore employees , and the janitor crew leaders.
Thereafter , in accordance with Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions , Series 8 , as amended , the Petitioner filed a
timely request for review of the Regional Director's
Decision contending, inter alia, that in excluding the
above employees from the appropriate unit, the
Regional Director made erroneous factfindings and
departed from established Board precedent.
On November 28, 1973 , the National Labor
Relations Board by telegraphic order granted the
request for review as to the issues raised by the
exclusion of the employees in the powerplant,
mailroom, snackbar, and bookstore , denied review as
to the other excluded employee groups, and stayed
the election pending decision on review . Thereafter,
the Employer filed a brief on review.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the entire record in this
case with respect to the issues under review , together
with the briefs of the parties, and makes the
following findings:
The Employer is a private nonprofit institution
incorporated under the laws of the State of Alabama,
where it operates facilities for higher education, and
r The unit found appropriate was "All service and maintenance
employees of Tuskegee Institute at its Tuskegee, Alabama , facilities,
excluding all teachers, student employees, office clerical employees,
agricultural employees, professional employees, guards and supervisors as
defined in the Act."
2 The parties agreed that the hospital is exempt from the Board's
jurisdiction under the provisions of Sec. 2(2) of the Act. See Loyola
University Medical Center, 194 NLRB 234.
s In addition to the mailroom , snackbar, and bookstore employees, the
Auxiliary Enterprises Division includes approximately 125 employees in the
central transportation , food service, and housekeeping departments who
were included in the unit by the Regional Director . Two employees at the
Institute Press were excluded from the unit as technical employees and
has an enrollment of approximately 3,000 students. It
also operates an off-campus nonprofit hospital with a
capacity of 150 beds.2
The unit sought by the Petitioner is a campuswide
unit of approximately 300 service and maintenance
employees at the Employer's Tuskegee, Alabama,
campus. These employees are organized administra-
tively into the Auxiliary Enterprises Division and the
Physical Plant Department, each of which is under
separate immediate direction. The mailroom, snack-
bar, and bookstore employees are part of the
Auxiliary Enterprises Division3 and the powerplant
employees are part of the Physical Plant Depart-
ment.4
The powerplant provides essential round-the-clock
heating, cooling, and hot water for the hospital and
10 to 15 campus buildings. Most of the remaining
135-140 campus buildings have independent heating
and cooling systems which are operated and main-
tained by other employees in the Physical Plant
Department included in the unit.
The powerplant complement involved herein in-
cludes six stationary engineers, four stationary
firemen, and one general helper. The stationary
engineers' main function is to tend the boilers. The
stationary firemen who work with them are chiefly
responsible for turning on and off steam lines in
some of the older campus buildings. The stationary
engineers and stationary firemen receive some on-
the-job technical training, the nature of which was
not disclosed in the record. The stationary engineers
and stationary firemen are paid monthly at rates
60-90 percent and 30 percent higher, respectively,
than other physical plant department employees and
they participate in a retirement program which is
available only to monthly paid employees.5 The
general helper receives no special training and
performs the work of a steamfitter, helping to
prepare steam lines between buildings.
All employees in the Physical Plant Department
wear the same uniform and all divisions in the
Department are separately supervised. There is no
interchange between powerplant employees and
other physical plant department employees and
contact between them is limited to instances when
repairs are made in the powerplant.
approximately 24 employees at the campus laundry were excluded because
they spend more than 50 percent of their working time servicing the
Employer's nonprofit hospital.
4 There are approximately 120 employees in the Physical Plant
Department who work in systems maintenance, building maintenance,
custodial maintenance , landscaping, groundskeeping , and the powerplant
Except for certain employees in the powerplant hereinafter discussed, all of
these employees were included by the Regional Director in the appropriate
unit.
5 Except as otherwise indicated hereinafter, all employees in the
Auxiliary Enterprises Division and the Physical Plant Department work 40
hours a week and are paid biweekly.
209 NLRB No. 113
774 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
With respect to the powerplant, the Regional
Director was faced with the threshhold question of
whether its employees could be included in the unit
because it rendered services to the Employer's
hospital over which the Board has no jurisdiction.
The Regional Director concluded, and we agree, that
the record is insufficient to make this determination
on the basis of the standard enunciated in Duke
University, 194 NLRB 236, and therefore any
otherwise eligible employee in the powerplant would
be permitted to vote subject to challenge."
However, apart from the above issue, the Regional
Director excluded stationary engineers and stationary
firemen from the unit on the grounds that they
were technical employees who lacked a community
of interest with other employees in the unit. We
disagree.
The record establishes that the stationary engineers
and the stationary firemen perform the same work
under basically the same conditions as other Physical
Plant Department employees who operate the small-
er power units in various campus buildings. There is
no showing concerning the specific nature of the
stationary engineers' and the stationary firemen's on-
the-job training, nor that their skills and functions
are more specialized or complex than those of other
employees included in the unit. Although the
powerplant employees are separately supervised, as
are all of the other employees in the Physical Plant
Department, they wear the same uniforms; are
engaged in functions related to the internal environ-
mental conditions of campus buildings, as are other
included employees; and are subject to the same
ultimate supervision as other employees in the
Physical Plant Department. Under such circum-
stances, we are unable to find, as did the Regional
Director, that the different pay periods, the lack of
interchange, and minimal contact between the
powerplant employees and the other physical plant
department employees require the former's exclusion
from the service and maintenance unit. On the
contrary, we find on the record as a whole that the
stationary engineers and the stationary firemen have
a substantial community of interest with the unit
employees and we would include them in the unit
herein found appropriate.? However, as noted earlier,
we shall allow the stationary engineers, stationary
firemen, and other powerplant employees to vote
subject to challenge.
The mail service department is responsible for the
delivery and processing of campus mail. The two
6 Member Fanning would assert jurisdiction over hospitals operated by
universities over which the Board has asserted jurisdiction for the reasons
set forth in his dissent in Duke University, supra at 239 Accordingly, he
would include powerplant employees in the unit without regard to the
extent their work is related to the hospital
T Cf Sheffield Corporation , 134 NLRB 1101.
mailroom employees are paid monthly and work a
37-1/2-hour week. One of them, Sallie Carney, was
trained by the local United States postmaster and
acts as the supervisor.
The snackbar, located in the student union build-
ing, sells prepackaged snack items . The three
salesclerks in the snackbar operate cash registers.
One of the clerks, Jessie Wright, schedules and
directs the work of the other two employees.
The employees in the campus bookstore are an
accounting clerk, four salesclerks, and a stock clerk.8
The accounting clerk prepares book orders and daily
cash reports and handles office correspondence and
filing. The salesclerks order and sell merchandise and
are responsible for seeing that the stock clerk
properly stocks the shelves. The accounting clerk and
the salesclerk work 40 hours per week and are paid
monthly. The stock clerk works 37-1/2 hours per
week and is paid biweekly.
The Regional Director found that the mailroom,
snackbar, and bookstore employees were "in the
nature of office clericals" and excluded them from
the service and maintenance unit.9 We disagree.
The record shows that the mailroom, snackbar, and
bookstore employees perform a service function as
do other employees in the Auxiliary Enterprises
Division. They are part of the same centralized
administration and are subject to the same ultimate
supervision as the other employees in the Auxiliary
Enterprises Division, which includes food service
employees who were included in the unit by
stipulation. Although each department in the Auxil-
iary Enterprises Division is separately supervised and
located, each is related to the others to the extent that
all of the employees sought perform various service
functions necessary to the overall operation of the
institution. While there is little contact and inter-
change among the mailroom, snackbar, and book-
store employees, there is no indication in the record
of any greater instance of interchange among other
departments in the Auxiliary Enterprises Division
included in the unit. In view of the foregoing and the
record as a whole, we find that the mailroom,
snackbar, and bookstore employees, respectively, do
not possess a sufficient separate community of
interest as to require their exclusion from the service
and maintenance unit. Therefore, we shall include
them in the bargaining unit herein found appropri-
ate.10 However, inasmuch as the record evidence is
not clearly determinative as to whether Sallie Carney
6 The bookstore supervisor was stipulated out of the unit by the parties.
9 In view of his conclusion , the Regional Director did not rule on the
supervisory status of Sallie Carney or Jessie Wright.
10 Cornell University, 202 NLRB 290 ; President and Trustees of Bowdoin
College, 190 NLRB 193; California Institute of Technology, 192 NLRB 582;
George Washington University, 191 NLRB 151.
TUSKEGEE
and Jessie Wright possess supervisory status, we shall
allow them to vote subject to challenge.
In view of the foregoing, we conclude that the
following unit is appropriate for the purposes of
collective bargaining within the meaning of Section
9(b) of the Act:
All service and maintenance employees of Tuske-
gee Institute at its Tuskegee, Alabama, facilities,
excluding all teachers, student employees, office
ii As the unit found appropriate herein is broader than the umt sought
by the Petitioner , the Direction of Election is conditioned upon the
Petitioner 's demonstrating , within 10 days from the date hereof , that it has
an adequate showing of interest in the broader unit found appropriate. In
the event the Petitioner does not wish to participate in an election in the unit
found appropriate, we shall permit it to withdraw its petition upon notice to
the Regional Director within 10 days from the date of this decision A
corrected election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all
INSTITUTE 775
clerical employees, agricultural employees, pro-
fessional employees, guards and supervisors as
defined in the Act.
Accordingly, we shall remand the case to the
Regional Director for the purpose of conducting an
election pursuant to his Decision and Direction of
Election, as modified herein, except that the payroll
period for determining eligibility shall be that
immediately preceding the date of issuance."
the eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director
for Region 15 within 7 days after the date of this Decision on Review. 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. Excelsior Underwear Inc., 156 NLRB 1236; N.LR.B v.
Wyman-Gordon Co., 394 U.S. 759.