By: Jade M. Gilstrap
In the midst of what appears to be a proliferation of “micro-units,” on Tuesday, October 18, 2016, the NLRB declined to reconsider its decision to certify a unit of 14 service technicians employed by the Buena Park Honda dealership in Buena Park, California. Sonic-Buena Park H, Inc. d/b/a Buena Park Honda, 21-RC-178527. In doing so, the Board rejected the employer’s argument that additional employees, particularly lube technicians, should be included in the unit, finding the two types of workers did not share “an overwhelming community interest,” necessitating their inclusion in the same unit.
Relying heavily on Specialty Healthcare & Rehab. Center of Mobile, 357 NLRB 934, 938 (2011), enfd. 727 F.3d 552 (6th Cir. 2013), the majority of the three-member board ruled that the petitioned-for unit of service technicians was appropriate based on an application of the “overwhelming community-of-interest” standard. As articulated in Specialty Healthcare:
When employees or a labor organization petition for an election in a unit of employees who are readily identifiable as a group (based on job classifications, departments, functions, work locations, skills, or similar factors), and the Board finds that the employees in the group share a community of interest after considering the traditional criteria, the Board will find the petitioned-for unit to be an appropriate unit, despite a contention that employees in the unit could be placed in a larger unit which would also be appropriate or even more appropriate, unless the party so contending demonstrates that employees in the larger unit share an overwhelming community of interest with those in the petitioned-for unit.
Because the facts clearly did not establish that the lube technicians shared an “overwhelming community of interest” with the service technicians, the dealership could not meet this burden. The Board noted that unlike the lube technicians, the service technicians were more skilled, paid substantially higher wages, and required to routinely update and maintain their training and skills, making them “clearly identifiable and functionally distinct.” Accordingly, the Board held, “[i]n denying review, we find that petitioned-for employees are an appropriate unit and the Employer has not sustained its burden of establishing that any of the disputed classifications, either individually or collectively, share an overwhelming community of interest with the petitioned-for employees such that their inclusion in the unit is required.”
Although board member Philip A. Miscimarra agreed that “the interests of the service technicians [were] sufficiently distinct from the excluded employees and otherwise appropriate for inclusion in a separate unit,” he disagreed with the application of Specialty Healthcare and the “overwhelming community of interest” standard to evaluate whether the petitioned-for unit should be required to include additional employees. Instead, Member Miscimarra argued that the Board should have applied its traditional principles, believing “bargaining unit determinations should be circumscribed and guided by industry-specific standards where applicable.”