Sears, Roebuck & Co.

607 319 NLRB No. 80 SEARS, ROEBUCK & CO. 1 Indeed, the Petitioner does not contest the Employer’s assertion in its request for review that the transfer of operations to Doral took place as scheduled, and that all employees now work on one floor of the Doral facility. Sears, Roebuck and Co. and International Brother- hood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 349, affiliated with the AFL–CIO, Petitioner. Case 12–RC–7861 October 31, 1995 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN GOULD AND MEMBERS COHEN AND TRUESDALE On August 17, 1995, the Board granted the Employ- er’s request for review of the Regional Director’s De- cision and Direction of Election, which, inter alia, ex- cluded the approximately 100 maintenance agreement (MA) sales employees from the districtwide unit found appropriate. The election was held as scheduled on August 17 and 18, 1995, and the ballots were im- pounded pending the Board’s Decision on Review. No briefs on review were filed. The Board has delegated its authority in this pro- ceeding to a three-member panel. Having carefully considered the entire record, we have decided to reverse the Regional Director’s deci- sion with respect to the issue on review, and we find that the MA sales employees must be included in the unit found appropriate. The Regional Director found appropriate a unit con- sisting of all full-time and regular part-time service technicians, technician helpers, installers, support spe- cialists, and the truck mechanic assigned to the Em- ployer’s Miami Service District. The record shows that the unit employees and the MA sales employees are hourly paid, eligible for overtime pay, receive common fringe benefits, and work similar work hours. They are subject to the same work rules, company personnel policies, and employee handbook. Time, payroll records, and personnel files for all Miami Service Dis- trict employees, including the MA sales employees, are centrally maintained and administered by the Em- ployer. In finding that MA sales employees have a suffi- ciently separate community of interest from all other employees assigned to the Miami Service District such that inclusion of the MA sales employees was not re- quired in the otherwise overall unit of district employ- ees, the Regional Director relied on what she consid- ered to be the MA sales employees’ separate work lo- cation, dissimilar job duties, and separate immediate supervision. The record, however, does not support the Regional Director’s findings because the evidence re- veals that the MA sales employees work near, interact with, and share common supervision with at least the MA support specialists, who are included in the unit. As of the date of the hearing, June 20, 1995, the Employer’s Miami Service District had facilities lo- cated at Opa Locka (the district headquarters), Miami Airport, Key West, Miami Lakes, and South Dade. At that time, the MA sales employees and most of the MA support specialists worked in adjacent areas on the second floor of the Miami Airport facility, while the technicians and support specialists assigned to that fa- cility worked on the first floor of the building. The record establishes that, effective July 2, 1995, a new district headquarters at Doral was scheduled to replace the facilities at Opa Locka and Miami Airport. As noted by the Regional Director, two-thirds of the dis- trict employees, or approximately 286 employees, in- cluding the 100 MA sales employees working at the Miami Airport facility, were to be assigned to the new one-story building at Doral. There is no indication that these operational changes have not occurred as planned.1 In finding that the MA sales employees are seg- regated from other employees in the unit, the Regional Director emphasized that those employees and ‘‘some’’ support specialists work on a separate floor and punch a separate timeclock from the 11 techni- cians and an undetermined but small number of sup- port specialists working on the first floor of the Miami Airport facility. This approach, however, obscures the close working proximity and integration that exists be- tween the MA sales employees and the MA support specialists. Furthermore, the Regional Director incor- rectly viewed the recent transfer of MA sales employ- ees and the unit employees to the new Doral head- quarters as having no bearing on the issues presented here. The record shows that, with the opening of the Doral facility, the MA sales employees will have even more contact with unit employees because, unlike the layout at the Miami Airport facility, there is only one floor at the new Doral facility. See Sears, Roebuck & Co., 160 NLRB 1435 (1966) (telephone service cleri- cals who work in close proximity to unit employees were included in the service department unit). In drawing comparisons about job duties, the Re- gional Director found that there is minimal and infre- quent functional overlap between unit employees and the MA sales employees. Although the record shows that all unit employees are expected to sell mainte- nance agreements to some extent, the Regional Direc- tor considered the job duties of the MA sales employ- ees to be only tangentially related to those of the unit employees. The Regional Director also focused exclu- sively on the MA sales employees’ primary role to so- licit customers to purchase maintenance agreements, and gave insignificant weight to the several related tasks performed by the MA sales employees and unit employees alike. For example, the 21 MA support spe- VerDate 12-JAN-99 15:08 Jul 30, 1999 Jkt 183525 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 0610 Sfmt 0610 D:\NLRB\319\31980 apps04 PsN: apps04 608 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD cialists update customer histories from service orders submitted by the technicians; process cancellation of maintenance agreements and refunds; handle paper- work generated in the sale of maintenance agreements; assist technicians in handling questions concerning maintenance agreements and the coverage, age, and service history of merchandise; and train technicians on selling maintenance agreements, imparting sales strategies and techniques for closing sales. The record establishes that the MA sales employees engage in many of these same activities, including training tech- nicians and communicating with them concerning maintenance agreements. We further find that the Regional Director incor- rectly discounted the fact that the MA sales employees and the MA support specialists share immediate super- vision by the two MA supervisors and the MA sales manager. It is true that the MA support specialists also report to another supervisor, the support manager, who periodically visits the Miami Airport facility, but this additional supervision does not eliminate nor detract from the onsite supervision shared by the MA sales employees and the MA support specialists on a day- to-day basis. See Sears, Roebuck & Co., 227 NLRB 1403 (1977) (telephone solicitors who are supervised by the manager who is also in charge of the unit em- ployees are included in the unit). In sum, we find that the MA sales employees do not have a sufficiently separate community of interest to warrant their exclusion from the unit found appro- priate. ORDER The Regional Director’s Decision and Direction of Election is reversed with respect to the issue on re- view, and the unit found appropriate is modified spe- cifically to include maintenance agreement sales em- ployees. The proceeding is remanded to the Regional Director for further appropriate action. VerDate 12-JAN-99 15:08 Jul 30, 1999 Jkt 183525 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 0610 Sfmt 0610 D:\NLRB\319\31980 apps04 PsN: apps04