Reference no: EM132823325
May you please help with the questions.
Facts:
Employer is an industrial food service contractor supplying food service to 19 cafeterias at 10 United Aircraft Corporation locations. The employer considers these 19 cafeterias to be a single operating unit. The unit has district headquarters where its administration is centralized. All facets of the food service to these 19 cafeterias are identical.
The union sought to organize a collective bargaining unit composed of three of these 19 cafeterias. These three cafeterias are located five miles apart, have a combined workforce of about 50 employees, and share a common manager.
A local newspaper article reported that the company wants all 19 cafeterias to be included in the bargaining unit and, thus, vote for the union because it knows that the employees are the far away locations are leaning anti-union. The union, they argued, only wanted the local three cafeterias included because they polled members and found that these locations were leaning pro-union. The union officials denied the charge.
In a TV interview the union officers argued that the company is trying to avoid offering benefits. That is, if the bargaining unit is 19 locations they can argue that some union-requested benefits are too expensive to offer to all possible employees. Having a small bargaining unit makes it more difficult to avoid paying for these benefits. For example, having one day-care centerfor employees at 1 locations where the employees are three locations can use is affordable. Having multiple day-care centers for employees is impossible to afford.
UNION ARGUMENTS
In the NLRB case the union presented the following arguments for why the 3 cafeteria locations should be combined as one bargaining unit. Their ultimate goal is to have a vote by the 50 members of these three locations to see if they want to be represented by a union:
1. The employees were under the common immediate supervision of a single manager.
2. The three cafeterias were grouped together as a cost center for accountability.
3. The unit manager retained control over day-to-day operations, especially in matters of hiring and firing.
4. The cafeterias were five miles apart, while the other 16 cafeterias were 14 miles away.
5. There was some employee interchange between the 3 cafeterias with some employees working at both locations..
6. There was no bargain history and no union seeking recognition for all 19 cafeterias. Thus, there is no prior definition of the appropriate bargaining unit for this company.
COMPANY ARGUMENTS
1. The Union is relying too heavily on the geographic proximity and the extent of union organization over the complete integration of the employer's managerial structure and labor relations policy. The company is still one company and so organizing a union over part of the food workers and not all makes nonsense.
2. It would not be fair to only allow some of the workers to vote for a union and exclude others only because they 14 miles away.
3. All 19 locations are financially interdependent under the corporate finance office, and receive paychecks from the same corporate payroll department.
4. The employees across all 19 cafeterias share a common 'community of interests' in that their jobs are identical across all locations. Thus, they should be included as part of the bargaining unit.
Questions for Discussion:
1. What is the definition of a 'community of interest' in a union context?
2. You are now the NLRB and you must decide what the appropriate bargaining unit will be. Keep in mind that the goal of the union is to get a specifically-defined bargaining unit so that they can hand out authorization cards to determine if they have a willingness to have a union. You are deciding if the appropriate bargaining unit involves all caferia workers at 19 locations or at the 3 locations desired by the union?
3. What is your reasoning for your decision?