Lexington Taxi Corp.

LEXINGTON TAXI CORPORATION 503 Lexington Taxi Corporation-Transportation Man- agement Corporation and Local 829 , a/w Interna- tional Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America Case AO- 181 June 8, 1976 ADVISORY OPINION By CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS JENKINS, PENELLO, AND WALTHER On May 5, 1976, a petition for an advisory opin- ion, with attachments, and a brief in support thereof, was filed by Lexington Taxi Corporation-Transpor- tation Management Corporation, herein called the Employer, in conformity with Sections 102 98 and 102 99 of the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, seeking to determine whether the Board would assert juris- diction over the Employer's operations Thereafter, on May 11, 1976, the Employer filed an amendment to the petition In pertinent part, the petition and brief and the amendment to the petition allege as follows (1) There is pending before the Labor Relations Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts, herein called the State Board, a representation petition filed by Local 829, a/w International Broth- erhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, herein called the Union, Case CR-3512, for an election among a portion of the Employer's employees There is also pending be- fore the State Board charges filed by the Union, Cases UP-2317 and 2319, alleging that the Employer engaged in discriminatory discharges (2) The Employer is in the business of furnishing bus, van, and other vehicular transportation services at its Boston and Lexington, Massachusetts, loca- tions The Employer's transportation services in- clude (a) providing services for the City of Boston School Department,' including the busing of students out of their so-called neighborhood school districts and into other areas of the city of Boston as specifi- cally required as a result of desegregation litigation, (b) providing transportation services for public school districts in Eastern Massachusetts, (c) provid- ing transportation services for various agencies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, for Boston Aid to the Blind (a private nonprofit organization), for vari- 1 The Employer has a contract with the Boston School Department and provides busing for special needs, kindergarten, and miscellaneous other ous private camps, and for private persons who pay for the transportation of their children to various public or private schools, and (d) providing round trip transportation for deaf children to the State of Vermont for special programs (3) The Employer expects that its 1975-76 reve- nues from the Boston contract will be between $1 75 million and $2 million, and expects that over $500,000 per year will relate to the busing of students as required by the desegregation litigation (a), supra It is expected that 1975-76 revenues with respect to (b), supra, will amount to about $1 6 million, it is estimated that the Employer's revenues in 1975-76 with respect to (c), supra, will amount to approxi- mately $65,000, and $10,000 with respect to (d), su- pra During fiscal year June 1, 1974, to May 31, 1975, the Employer purchased more than $50,000 worth of equipment, fuel, etc , from concerns outside the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and/or which orig- inated outside the Commonwealth (4) The Union neither admits nor denies the afore- said commerce data and the State Board has made no findings with respect thereto (5) On April 27, 1976, the Union filed with this Board a representation petition in Case 1-RC-14457, involving this labor dispute (6) Although served with a copy of the petition for advisory opinion, no response, as provided by the Board's Rules and Regulations, has been filed by any of the parties On the basis of the above, the Board is of the opin- ion that The Employer admits, in its brief in support of the petition for advisory opinion, that "most of the Employer's business consists of transporting public school children to and from school pursuant to con- tracts with the appropriate public school authorities in the community or school district involved " In contending that the Board should assert jurisdiction, the Employer argues that it is either a transit enter- prise whose operations satisfy the standard for transit systems established in Charleston Transit Comapany,2 or a nonretail business whose operations meet the nonretail standard established in Siemons Mailing Service 3 As indicated above, most of all of the Employer's revenue is derived from contracts with the appropri- ate public school authorities in the community or school district for the transportation of public school children to and from school Its services are not available to the general public and are not performed pursuant to franchise Although the Employer's bus service does provide round trip transportation for students which commenced in September 1975 and continues until June ' 123 NLRB 1296 (1959) 1980 3 122 NLRB 81, 85 (1958) 224 NLRB No 136 504 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD deaf children to the State of Vermont, it does not materially change the substantially local nature of the Employer's operations It thus appears that the Employer is a local bus enterprise engaged primarily in the intrastate transportation of school children The Board has consistently refused to assert jurisdic- tion over schoolbus enterprises, and we would adhere to the longstanding precedent that we should not as- sert jurisdiction over essentially local enterprises en- gaged primarily in aid of the State in the field of education 4 In declining jurisdiction in the Raybern and Camp Baumann cases, the Board found as we do here that the bus companies were essentially local enterprises engaged in aid of the State in the field of education and that they were not transit enterprises within the meaning of the Charleston case While it may be that the Employer's operations might otherwise meet the Board's standards for transit systems of nonretail 4 See S L Lines Inc, d/b/a Pacific Scenic Lines, 164 NLRB 1179 (1967), Community Interprises, Inc, d/b/a Community Charter Bus System 164 NLRB 1186 (1967), Brothers Coach Corp, 158 NLRB 931 (1966) Camp Baumann Buses Inc, and V S Buses, Inc, 142 NLRB 648 (1963) Raybern Bus Service, Inc, 128 NLRB 430 (1960) businesses, we reaffirm the principle of the Raybern and Camp Baumann cases that it would not effectu- ate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction over local bus transportation companies, such as the Em- ployer herein, which are essentially local in character and which operate primarily in aid of local commu- nities and of the State in the field of education The Employer contends that the busing is done for the City of Boston School Department pursuant to racial desegregation orders of the United States Dis- trict Court and, therefore, is not merely "local in character," but rather is a matter of overriding Fed- eral interest Although there is an outstanding Feder- al court order against the Boston School District, such factor, standing alone, does not alter the essen- tially "local in character" operations of the Employer and is no basis for the Board's assertion of jurisdic- tion herein Accordingly, the parties are advised under Section 102 103 of the Board's Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, that, on the allegations submitted herein, the Board would not assert jurisdiction over the Employer's operations with respect to disputes cognizable under Sections 8, 9, and 10 of the Act