Amalgamated Transit Union v. Lane Transit Dist.
| Decision Date | 16 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. RC-008-20 |
| Parties | AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION, DIVISION 757, Petitioner, v. LANE TRANSIT DISTRICT, Respondent. |
| Court | Oregon Employee Relations Board |
(PETITION TO CERTIFY A NEW BARGAINING UNIT)
RECOMMENDED RULINGS, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND PROPOSED ORDER
A hearing was held before Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) B. Carlton Grew on February 16, 2021. Subsequently, the case was reassigned to ALJ Martin Kehoe. The record closed on March 26, 2021, upon receipt of the parties' post-hearing briefs.
Krista Cordova, Labor Relations Coordinator, Amalgamated Transit Union, Division 757, Portland, Oregon, represented the Petitioner.
Sarah M. Rain, Attorney at Law, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., Indianapolis, Indiana, represented the Respondent.
On November 2, 2020, the Petitioner, Amalgamated Transit Union, Division 757 (ATU), filed a petition with the Employment Relations Board (Board) to certify a new bargaining unit of certain unrepresented Lane Transit District (District) employees via the Board's "card check" process. As listed in the petition, the proposed unit includes the following job classifications: (1) Data Warehouse Manager, (2) Information Technology (IT) Systems Administrator, (3) Applications Administrator, (4) IT Network Engineer, and (5) IT Helpdesk. The petition was accompanied by an adequate showing of interest. The issue is whether the petition proposes an "appropriate bargaining unit."
On November 20, 2020, the District filed timely objections to the petition. In sum, the District asserts that the proposed bargaining unit is inappropriate because it would create fragmentation of the District's workgroup and is against the Board's preference for "wall-to-wall" units, and because the petitioned-for employees have a community of interest with other unrepresented employees who are not included in the proposed unit. As set forth below, we reject the District's objections and certify the proposed unit.
All rulings by the ALJ were reviewed and are correct.
1. The District is a "public employer" within the meaning of ORS 243.650(20). It operates a public transit system in the Eugene and Springfield, Oregon metropolitan area. It primarily provides bus service. The District currently has about 300 employees. (9:25 a.m.)
2. The District is organized into nine departments, including (1) Human Resources & Risk Management, (2) Finance, (3) IT, (4) Business Services, (5) Customer & Specialized Services, (6) Planning & Development, (7) Facilities Management, (8) Transit Operations, and (9) Maintenance.1 The Finance department includes a Payroll subgroup. The Customer & Specialized Services department includes a Marketing and Communication subgroup. The Transit Operations department includes a Public Safety subgroup. (Exh. R-10.)
3. All of the District's departments report to the District's Executive Office, which in turn reports to the District's Board of Directors. (Exh. R-10.) The Executive Office includes the District's General Manager, Assistant General Manager, and Clerk of the Board. Nearly every department has its own Director who reports to the Assistant General Manager, who in turn reports to the General Manager. However, the Director of Planning & Development reports directly to the General Manager. (9:39 a.m.)
4. ATU is a "labor organization" within the meaning of ORS 243.650(13). It currently represents 29 separate bargaining units. (12:13 p.m.) Two of those units include District employees, while the rest involve employees of other employers. Accordingly, if certified by the Board, the petitioned-for unit would be ATU's third distinct unit of District employees. ATU's current President-Business Representative is Shirley Block.
5. At least one of ATU's non-District bargaining units includes IT workers. Further, outside of ATU's two existing units of District employees, ATU has multiple units that are separated but share the same employer. That includes those affiliated with C-Tran and Valley Transit, both of which are in Washington. (12:13-12:14 p.m.) 6. ATU's larger existing bargaining unit of District employees includes a variety of job classifications in Transit Operations (including Bus Operator), Fleet Services (including Lead Journeyman, Journeyman Mechanic, Journeyman Tire Specialist, General Service Worker, Lead Detailer, Equipment Detail Technician, Lead Inventory Technician, and Inventory Technician), Customer Services (including Lead Customer Service Representative and Customer Service Representative), and Facilities Services (including Station Cleaner). (Exh. R-2 at 54.)
7. ATU's other existing bargaining unit of District employees, which was formed in February 2019, exclusively includes the Public Safety Officer job classification. (Exh. R-3 at 4.) The unit currently includes eight Public Safety Officers in total. (11:04-11:05 a.m.)2 All of the Public Safety Officers are part of the Public Safety subgroup of the Transit Operations department. All of the other represented employees in Transit Operations are part of the larger ATU unit. (11:00 a.m., 11:11 a.m.)
8. The District and ATU are parties to two separate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), with one CBA for each of ATU's existing bargaining units of District employees. Each unit's CBA is bargained separately. The District and ATU's Public Safety Officer unit completed the negotiations for their first CBA near the end of 2020. (9:29-9:31 a.m., 11:05 a.m.) The CBA for the larger bargaining unit is effective July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2021, while the CBA for the Public Safety Officer unit is effective through June 30, 2024. (Exhs. R-2 at 1, R-3 at 1.)3
9. All of the District's unrepresented employees (including those in the IT department) are often referred to collectively as "Administrative Staff or "Administrative Employees." (Exh. U-5, Exh. R-16 at 1, 9:30 a.m.) However, those terms, and the related terms used for the same group, do not describe those employees' job duties. (10:21-10:22 a.m., 11:39 a.m.) Furthermore, unrepresented employees work in virtually all of the District's departments. (10:05-10:06 a.m.) Many employees who are currently unrepresented were part of an organizing drive in 2018 and/or 2019, but have not yet been part of a representation petition or bargaining unit.
10. All unrepresented District employees are governed by an Administrative Employee Handbook containing all of the District's policies, including those concerning outside employment, nepotism, complaints, job postings, holidays, consolidated annual leave benefits, and the use of office for financial gain, for example. (Exh. R-23.) "A majority" of the Handbook also applies to the District's represented employees. (10:04-10:05 a.m., 10:52-53 a.m.) 11. Currently, all of the District's represented employees are hourly employees and considered "nonexempt" under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and accordingly may receive overtime pay. The majority of the unrepresented employees are salaried and considered FLSA "exempt," and accordingly do not receive overtime pay. However, two employees in Finance, one employee in Human Resources & Risk Management, two employees in Business Services, two employees in Marketing, and one employee in IT (the IT Helpdesk classification) are unrepresented, hourly, and FLSA nonexempt. (9:47 a.m., Exh. R-8 at 3.)
12. The payroll of represented and unrepresented employees is administered by the same Payroll subgroup. (10:21 a.m.) Likewise, all District employees are paid every other Friday (i.e., bi-weekly). (9:46 a.m., 9:50 a.m., Exh. R-13.)
13. The District operates out of multiple buildings in a single square block in the Glenwood community of Lane County. (Exh. R-1.) Those include (1) the Administration building (the District's "primary" office/facility), (2) the Maintenance building, (3) a bus wash building, (4) a fueling station, (5) a storage building, and (6) the Facilities Management building. In addition, a small number of District employees work at the District's Eugene Station in downtown Eugene. (9:25-9:28 a.m.)
14. A number of Transit Operations, Human Resources & Risk Management, Executive Office, Finance (e.g., Payroll), Marketing and Communication, IT, Planning & Development, and Business Services employees work in the Administration building. That group includes both represented and unrepresented employees. (9:29 a.m., 10:55-10:57 a.m.) However, certain areas of the Administration building are only accessible by unrepresented employees between 5:30 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. each day. (9:45 a.m.) 174 represented Bus Operators use the Administration building to get their daily route assignments and to sign in and out of work. Additionally, certain Bus Operators regularly work in the Administration building in the Transit Planning subgroup. The Administration building's boardroom, conference rooms, courtyard, lunchrooms, and lobby can be used by any District employee (represented or not). Further, represented and unrepresented employee trainings regularly occur in the Administration building. (10:19-10:20 a.m., 10:55-57 a.m.) The "union office" is also in the Administration building, right between the building's lunchroom and wellness center. (10:19 a.m., 10:24 a.m.)
15. All District employees (both represented and unrepresented) receive paid consolidated annual leave that includes vacation and sick time. Additionally, for all those employees, the amount of paid consolidated annual leave received each year increases with the length of their employment. Unrepresented employees also uniquely receive an "extended illness bank" of three to five more days off for illnesses lasting more than three days in addition to their regular consolidated annual leave (as outlined in Policy 307 of the Administrative Employee Handbook, at Exh. R-21). (10:00-10:02 a.m., 10:23-10:24 a.m., Exh. R-20.)
16. Each of ATU's two bargaining units of...
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