Marlott Corp.

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.