Allied Aviation Services Company of New Jersey - Decision Summary

Allied Aviation Services Company of New Jersey,Board Case No. 22-CA-127150 (reported at 362 NLRB No. 173) (D.C. Cir. decided April 18, 2017)

In a published opinion in this test-of-certification case, the Court enforced the Board’s bargaining order issued against this provider of fueling services for commercial aviation at Newark Liberty International Airport after a 44-member unit of its Fueling Supervisors/Dispatchers/Operations Supervisors, Maintenance Supervisors, and Tank Farm Supervisors voted in June 2012 to be represented by Local 553, International Brotherhood of Teamsters.In doing so, the Court upheld the Board’s determinations that the Employer is covered by the Act, rather than by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), and that the employees in question, despite their job titles and the Employer’s claims, were not supervisors excluded from coverage under Section 2(11).

The Court noted that the status of an employer as a RLA-covered rail carrier, common air carrier, or “company which is directly or indirectly owned or controlled by or under common control of any carrier,” 45 U.S.C. §§ 151 First, 181, is determined under the “function and control” test articulated by the National Mediation Board (NMB), which administers the RLA. Under that test, the Court held that the Board properly rejected the Employer’s jurisdictional claim of RLA-coverage based on the lack of record evidence of carrier control.Specifically, the Court upheld the Board’s findings that the Employer failed to present evidence that the carriers at Newark Airport hold out the unit members to the public as their own employees, exercise control over how the employer runs its operations, supervise the unit members to a degree sufficient to establish control, or exert meaningful control over personnel decisions.

Regarding the Employer’s assertion of supervisory status, the Court agreed with the Board that the Employer had failed to present evidence supporting its claims that the employees exercise disciplinary authority or responsibly direct other workers.On the issue of discipline, the Court stated that the Employer’s evidence “shows only that the unit members file ‘reportorial’ forms recounting employee misconduct, which are then taken into account by higher-ups who make the disciplinary decisions.”On the issue of responsible direction, the Court concluded that instead of “shouldering its burden” to prove the claim, the Employer “merely point[ed] to the paucity of evidence ofnonsupervision.”

The Court’s opinion ishere .