ADT Security Services, Inc. and its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, ADT LLC, and Tyco Int

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 30, 2010

355 N.L.R.B. 1388 (N.L.R.B. 2010)

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
355 NLRB No. 223
1388
ADT Security Services, Inc. and Local Union 131,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Work-
ers (IBEW), AFL–CIO. Case 7–CA–51288
September 30, 2010
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN LIEBMAN AND MEMBERS BECKER
AND HAYES
On December 30, 2008, Administrative Law Judge
George Carson II issued the attached decision. The Re-
spondent filed exceptions, a supporting brief, and a reply
brief. The General Counsel filed an answering brief.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the decision and the record
in light of the exceptions and briefs and has decided to
affirm the judge’s rulings, findings, and conclusions and
to adopt his recommended Order as modified.
For 29 years, Respondent ADT Security Services rec-
ognized the Charging Party Union, Local Union 131,
International Union of Electrical Workers, as the exclu-
sive representative of a unit of service employees operat-
ing out of its Kalamazoo, Michigan facility and servicing
southwestern Michigan. In 2008, after the Respondent
closed its Kalamazoo facility and reassigned the service
employees to operate out of its Wyoming, Michigan fa-
cility, while continuing to service southwestern Michi-
gan, the Respondent withdrew recognition from the Un-
ion on the grounds that the old unit had ceased to exist.
We agree with the judge’s conclusion that the Respon-
dent thereby violated the Act.
Even absent the 29 year-old bargaining relationship,
were the Union now to petition to represent the service
employees assigned to southwestern Michigan, the ques-
tion would not be whether the unit sought was the most
appropriate unit, i.e., whether the unit of all servicemen
operating out of the Wyoming facility is more appropri-
ate, but merely whether it was an appropriate unit. E.g.,
Overnite Transportation Co., 322 NLRB 723, 723–724
(1996). But, as here, when the issue is whether an exist-
ing unit remains appropriate in light of changed circum-
stances, the Board gives significant weight to the parties’
history of bargaining. Specifically, our caselaw holds
that “‘compelling circumstances’ are required to over-
come the significance of bargaining history.” Radio Sta-
tion KOMO-AM, 324 NLRB 256 (1997) (citing Armco,
Inc. v. NLRB, 823 F.2d 357, 363 (6th Cir. 1987), and
other cases); accord: Comar, 339 NLRB 903 (2003),
enfd. 111 Fed.Appx 1 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (table).
We find that the Respondent has not met its burden to
establish that compelling circumstances are present here.
Even after the closure of the Kalamazoo facility, the em-
ployees in the unit continued to perform the same work
in the same distinct geographical area under largely un-
changed terms and conditions of employment. Contrary
to the Respondent’s contentions, the record does not es-
tablish that the Kalamazoo servicemen were “absorbed”
or “integrated” into a unit including all the servicemen
who work out of the Wyoming facility. To the contrary,
some of the most fundamental terms of employment that
distinguished the Kalamazoo servicemen from the Wyo-
ming servicemen—including the location of their work,
their rate of pay, and their separate, dual “on call” list—
not only remained intact following the closure of the
Kalamazoo facility, but continued to separate them from
the Wyoming servicemen. The previous collective-
bargaining agreement referred to the Kalamazoo “service
territory,” and, even after the closure of the Kalamazoo
facility, the Kalamazoo employees continued to be as-
signed work within that territory. Both before and after
the closing, the servicemen’s work assignments were
made by a national dispatching center. Moreover, the
Respondent continued to pay the Kalamazoo servicemen
less than the original Wyoming servicemen.
The Respondent’s assertion that the Kalamazoo ser-
vicemen’s lower rate of pay was based on “labor market”
issues, and therefore is not evidence of the group’s sepa-
rate identity, is meritless. They are paid less because
they work in a distinct geographic area, i.e., both the lo-
cation of their work and the resulting wage rates remain
distinct. Moreover, Respondent’s contention is further
undermined by the fact that after the closing of the
Kalamazoo facility, the Kalamazoo servicemen were
paid at the lower Kalamazoo rate even when they per-
formed work in the Wyoming region.1 Finally, the clos-
ing of the Kalamazoo facility is of less significance here
than it would be if the employees had performed work at
the facility. But here, both before and after the closing,
the Kalamazoo employees performed work in the field,
reporting originally to the Kalamazoo facility only to
turn in their timesheets and pick up supplies, and later to
the Wyoming facility, after the closing, only to replenish
their parts supply approximately once a week. Accord-
ingly, we find that the historical unit of Kalamazoo ser-

1 Our dissenting colleague suggests that this factor should be dis-
counted because the Respondent’s director of labor relations, James
Nixdorf, testified that the Respondent was waiting until the following
January to consider whether to make any wage adjustments for the
Kalamazoo employees. Nixdorf’s testimony, however, established that
any pay adjustments would be merit-based and would not “even up” the
pay scales of the two groups. Nixdorf’s testimony further established
that, even after the closure of the Kalamazoo facility, the Kalamazoo
employees’ wages would continue to be based on “whatever the wages
are in that particular market,” i.e., on the economics of the distinct
geographic area in which they worked.
ADT SECURITY SERVICES 1389
vicemen at issue here “maintained its integrity” follow-
ing the closure of the Kalamazoo facility and continued
to be an appropriate unit with which the Respondent was
obligated to bargain. See Comar, 339 NLRB at 903, 903
fn. 2. Certainly, nothing about this unit “with extensive
bargaining history” became “repugnant to Board policy”
simply because of the closing of the Kalamazoo facility.
P.J. Dick Contracting, 290 NLRB 150, 151 (1988).2
ORDER
The National Labor Relations Board adopts the rec-
ommended Order of the administrative law judge3 and

2 We respectfully disagree with our dissenting colleague’s assertion
that the unit of Kalamazoo servicemen does not remain an appropriate
unit solely because the employees did not retain separate supervision.
The relevant caselaw establishes that, although separate supervision is a
factor to consider in determining whether a unit has lost its separate
identity, it is not conclusive. See, e.g., Comar, 339 NLRB at 910
(weighing separate supervision as one factor in the analysis and finding
that, although the Vineland unit employees were no longer separately
supervised, the retention of their former supervisors weighed in favor
of finding that the unit retained its separate identity). Even in initial
unit determinations, separate supervision is not an indispensable ele-
ment of all appropriate units. See, e.g., United Operations, Inc., 338
NLRB 123 (2002). Further, because the servicemen at issue in this
case work out of their homes, have no onsite supervision, and, in fact,
do not even see their supervisors on a daily basis, we do not accord the
absence of separate supervision here the weight it bears in other cases.
Finally, we note that neither of the cases cited by our colleague, Trane,
339 NLRB 866 (2003), and J&L Plate, 310 NLRB 429 (1993), in-
volved a preexisting bargaining unit and neither suggests that the ab-
sence of separate supervision is alone determinative. See Trane, supra
at 867–868 (first analyzing other factors and finding that employees at
a single facility had no distinct community of interest and only then
concluding “in these circumstances” that lack of separate supervision
led to conclusion that facility lacked autonomy); J&L Plate, supra at
429 (explaining that Board looks at several factors).
In addition, we note that while the dissent quotes language from
Crown Zellerbach Corp., 246 NLRB 202, 203 (1979), in that case the
question was not whether an existing unit remained an appropriate unit;
indeed, the Board held that “the recent changes in the Employer’s or-
ganizational structure are insufficient to affect our determination of the
appropriate unit.” Id. Crown Zellerbach presented the unique circum-
stance that all parties to the original bargaining relationship covering
two facilities sought a separate one-facility unit. Id. at 204.
3 The Respondent contends that the judge’s Order is “inherently and
impermissibly vague” insofar as it orders the Respondent to bargain
with the Union as the collective-bargaining representative of a unit
consisting of “[a]ll full-time and regular part-time servicemen regularly
assigned to work in the Kalamazoo service territory employed at its
Wyoming, Michigan facility . . . .” The Respondent’s argument in this
regard, however, is essentially a restatement of its position that the
Kalamazoo employees have lost their identity as a separate bargaining
group. In addition, we note that the judge’s decision, which we have
adopted, expressly states that the bargaining unit shall include “the
former Kalamazoo unit employees as well as any employees hired to
fill future unit vacancies.”
The dissent makes a similar semantic argument when it suggests that
we have rewritten the contract, which describes the unit as including
servicemen “employed by the Employer at its Kalamazoo, Michigan
facility.” As we explain above, the employees described in the contract
orders that the Respondent, ADT Security Services, Inc.,
Wyoming, Michigan, its officers, agents, successors, and
assigns, shall take the actions set forth in the Order as
modified.
1. Substitute the following for paragraph 1(a).
“(a) Withdrawing recognition from and failing and re-
fusing to recognize and bargain with Local Union 131,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW),
AFL–CIO, as the exclusive collective-bargaining repre-
sentative of employees in the following appropriate unit:

All full-time and regular part-time servicemen regularly
assigned to work in the Kalamazoo service territory;
but excluding branch managers, service supervisors,
chief clerks, office clerical associates, professional as-
sociates, guards, sales associates, and supervisors as de-
fined in the Act.”

2. Substitute the attached notice for that of the admin-
istrative law judge.

MEMBER HAYES, dissenting.
The Respondent shuttered a Kalamazoo, Michigan fa-
cility from which 14 union-represented servicemen
worked. The Kalamazoo operations were consolidated
with the Respondent’s Wyoming, Michigan facility, from
which 27 nonrepresented servicemen worked. Following
the consolidation, the former Kalamazoo employees re-
ported to Wyoming and no longer operated under sepa-
rate supervision. Both groups of employees performed
the same duties, and, with minor exceptions discussed
below, enjoyed the same wages and benefits. My col-
leagues find that notwithstanding the closure of the
Kalamazoo facility, the elimination of any separate su-
pervision, the commonality of employment terms and
conditions within the combined unit of servicemen, and
the effective integration of all operations at Wyoming,
the former Kalamazoo unit somehow continued to exist
as a separate entity because of the unit’s long bargaining
history and the fact that the Kalamazoo employees cov-
ered the same geographic area from Wyoming as they
did before. In my view, that conclusion is inconsistent
with Board precedent in giving conclusive weight to bar-
gaining history, in spite of compelling circumstances

remained clearly identifiable after the closure of the facility and, as we
explain below, the employees were never employed “at” the facility.
We have thus slightly revised the judge’s description of the unit, in-
sofar as his description referred to the servicemen at issue as being
“employed at the [Wyoming] facility” (emphasis added). The record
clearly establishes that the servicemen at issue did not perform work at
the Wyoming facility; rather, their presence at the facility was limited
to reporting there approximately once a week to obtain parts and sup-
plies.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1390
manifest in the realities of the Respondent’s current op-
erating structure. I therefore dissent.
Facts
The Respondent sells, installs, and services security
systems. The Union has represented the Respondent’s
Kalamazoo installers and service technicians since June
1979. The Kalamazoo unit is defined as “[a]ll full-time
and regular part-time servicemen employed by the Em-
ployer at its Kalamazoo, Michigan facility[.]” The most
recent collective-bargaining agreement, effective from
January 24, 2007 until January 22, 2010, described the
geographic area served by the Kalamazoo facility as the
“Kalamazoo service territory.”
On June 2, 2008, the Respondent closed its service op-
erations at the Kalamazoo facility and consolidated them
with its service operations at its Wyoming facility (also
referred to as the “Grand Rapids” facility). Following
the consolidation, the Respondent withdrew recognition
from the Union on June 2, asserting that the Union no
longer represented a majority of the servicemen in the
combined unit.1
Both before and after the consolidation, the Kalama-
zoo servicemen took their company-owned trucks home
at night and received their assignments electronically
from a nationwide central dispatch system. They contin-
ued to cover the same Kalamazoo service territory after
the consolidation. Prior to the consolidation, the Kala-
mazoo servicemen reported to the Kalamazoo facility to
submit their timesheets and to pick up parts and supplies.
After the consolidation, they faxed their timesheets to the
Wyoming facility and reported there at least once a week
to pick up parts and supplies.
Prior to the consolidation, the Kalamazoo servicemen
were subject to separate, local supervision, reporting
directly to the installation and service manager at the
Kalamazoo facility. After the consolidation, that super-
visory position was eliminated, and the Kalamazoo ser-
vicemen thereafter reported to Supervisors Dave
Fitzsimmons and Dan Beuschel at the Wyoming facility.
Fitzsimmons and Beuschel also oversaw the Wyoming
servicemen. Roy Rogers, the branch manager of both the
Wyoming and Kalamazoo facilities prior to the consoli-
dation, continued as the branch manager of the consoli-
dated Wyoming operations.
Analysis
Relying on Radio Station KOMO-AM, 324 NLRB 256,
262 (1997), for the proposition that “compelling circum-
stances” are required to overcome the lengthy history of

1 The 14 Kalamazoo employees comprised only 36 percent of the
consolidated unit of 41 servicemen.
bargaining in the Kalamazoo facility unit, the majority
finds that the historical bargaining unit “maintained its
integrity” after the consolidation and that the Respondent
failed to establish compelling circumstances that would
allow the merger of the Kalamazoo bargaining unit with
the Wyoming unit. To accomplish that result, my col-
leagues must rewrite the parties’ collective-bargaining
agreement to define the unit, not as those servicemen
actually employed at the Kalamazoo facility, but rather
as those servicemen “regularly assigned to work in the
Kalamazoo service territory.”2 We obviously have no
authority to unilaterally impose such a change, and my
colleagues err in doing so. See H. K. Porter Co. v.
NLRB, 397 U.S. 99, 108 (1970) (one of the fundamental
policies of the Act is freedom of contract and the Act
does not permit the Board to compel agreement between
the parties).
My colleagues’ analysis turns heavily on the existence
of the bargaining history of the Kalamazoo unit. How-
ever, while the Board takes bargaining history into ac-
count in determining whether a unit is, or remains, an
appropriate unit, the Board has also made clear that “the
weight given to a prior history of collective bargaining is
‘substantial’ not ‘conclusive.’” Turner Industries Group,
Inc., 347 NLRB 428, 430 (2007), citing A.C. Pavement
Stripping Co., 296 NLRB 206, 210 (1989). Indeed, the
Board “will not adhere to the historical bargaining unit in
situations where ‘that unit does not conform reasonably
well to other standards of appropriateness.’” Crown
Zellerbach Corp., 246 NLRB 202, 203 (1979), quoting
Hygrade Food Products Corp., 85 NLRB 841, 847
(1949).3 Put another way, “[w]hile the Board places
great weight on collective bargaining history, it is not
determinative where, as here, significant changes in the
organizational structure and operations” of a company
have occurred. Rock-Tenn Co., 274 NLRB 772, 773
(1985). Thus, my colleagues’ claim that “‘compelling
circumstances’ are required to overcome the significance
of bargaining history” is, at best, an incomplete descrip-
tion of the applicable standard, i.e., that the Board has
established “a presumption in favor of historical bargain-
ing units.” Banknote Corp. of America v. NLRB, 84 F.3d

2 In redefining the bargaining unit, my colleagues purport to correct
the judge, who himself redefined the unit as those servicemen “regu-
larly assigned to work in the Kalamazoo service territory employed at
its Wyoming, Michigan, facility” (emphasis added). The judge did not
err. Since the former Kalamazoo service employees worked from the
Wyoming facility after the consolidation, the judge accurately de-
scribed them as “employed at” that facility. My colleagues’ “correc-
tion” only underscores the fact that the preexisting unit ceased to exist
after the consolidation of operations.
3 I have cited language from Crown Zellerbach in the course of set-
ting out general principles applicable to all cases.
ADT SECURITY SERVICES 1391
637, 648 (2d Cir. 1996). The Respondent has overcome
that presumption here because it has established that the
Kalamazoo bargaining unit did not maintain its integrity
after the consolidation of operations.
To be found an appropriate unit, the newly defined
Kalamazoo service territory created by my colleagues
would have to retain some level of local supervision and
some degree of local autonomy.4 The Respondent has
established that neither exists here, as both the overall
management of the former Kalamazoo facility service
operations and the local supervision of the former Kala-
mazoo unit employees now occur at Wyoming. The
“centralized control over daily operations and labor rela-
tions; lack of local autonomy [and] common supervision
[with the Wyoming servicemen]” demonstrate that the
former Kalamazoo unit has lost its separate identity.
Trane, 339 NLRB at 868. The newly-fashioned Kalama-
zoo “service territory” unit cannot exist as a separate
appropriate unit. Cf. J&L Plate, 310 NLRB 429, 429–
430 (1993).5
The next issue is whether the Kalamazoo service em-
ployees share a sufficient community of interest with the
Wyoming service employees to warrant their inclusion in
the Wyoming unit. I find that the merged unit is an ap-
propriate unit under the applicable standard.6 The fact
that the former Kalamazoo facility unit employees now
share common overall management and local supervision
with the Wyoming service employees strongly supports a
finding that they share a sufficient community of interest
with the Wyoming service employees to warrant their
inclusion, their merger, into the Wyoming unit. The facts

4 See Trane, 339 NLRB 866, 868 (2003), where the Board, in find-
ing that the single facility presumption had been rebutted and that the
petitioned-for bargaining unit at one facility must include employees
working at a second facility, relied especially on “[t]he complete ab-
sence of any separate supervision or other oversight” at the second
facility. Comar, Inc., 339 NLRB 903 (2003), cited by my colleagues, is
not to the contrary because there the Board, unlike here, found the
employees “continued to perform [their] work under essentially the
same supervision.” 339 NLRB at 910.
5 My colleagues contend that my reliance on Trane and J&L Plate is
misplaced because neither case involved a preexisting unit. That factor
is irrelevant to the points for which I cite Trane and J&L Plate and
there is no mention of it as a limitation to the analysis in either case.
6 As explained in Home Depot USA, 331 NLRB 1289, 1290 (2000),
quoting Kalamazoo Paper Box Corp., 136 NLRB 134, 137 (1962),
“[f]actors considered by the Board in determining community of inter-
est among employees include:”

[A] difference in method of wages or compensation; different hours of
work; different employment benefits; separate supervision; the degree
of dissimilar qualifications, training, and skills; differences in job
functions and amount of working time spent away from the employ-
ment or plant situs . . . the infrequency or lack of contact with other
employees; lack of integration with the work functions of other em-
ployees or interchange with them; and history of bargaining.

that the Kalamazoo and Wyoming servicemen share the
same skills, duties, and working conditions, that they all
receive their assignments at home from the same central-
ized dispatch system, and that they share common bene-
fits further support a finding of merger.7
In cases where a represented group of employees and
an unrepresented group are merged together and the em-
ployer challenges the union’s majority status in the entire
unit, the Board applies “accretion principles” to deter-
mine whether the combined group will be represented or
unrepresented.8 Since the 27 unrepresented servicemen
at the Wyoming facility constitute a majority of the

7 The foregoing analysis clearly demonstrates that I do not rely
“solely” on the lack of separate supervision as my colleagues contend.
The majority does rely, however, in order to discount the importance
of the lack of separate supervision, on the facts that the former Kalama-
zoo unit employees continue to work in their former service area and
they work in the field as opposed to on site. First, all servicemen, in-
cluding the Wyoming employees, work in the field so the Kalamazoo
employees are no different in that regard. And the fact that they con-
tinue to do most of their work in the former Kalamazoo office geo-
graphic area is, as the Respondent argues, simply a function of the fact
that, to maintain efficient service, employees drive their service trucks
home in the evening and depart home in their trucks the next day di-
rectly to their assigned customer sites and then travel from site to site in
their trucks. While this is part of the Respondent’s field business
model, employees and operations continue to be organized, supplied,
managed and directed from a central site to which all the servicemen
are assigned. The former Kalamazoo employees’ prior central site was
located in Kalamazoo. When that site closed and the Kalamazoo em-
ployees were merged into Wyoming, they then lost their separate iden-
tity.
While the majority also relies on the fact that the Kalamazoo ser-
vicemen continued to be paid at the lower contractual wage rate after
the consolidation, James Nixdorf, the Respondent’s director of labor
relations, testified without contradiction that the Kalamazoo employees
had received a wage increase in January, the time when the Respondent
gives wage increases, and it was decided to wait until the next January
to make any wage adjustments. Accordingly, the Kalamazoo employ-
ees’ wage rate is not a significant factor in determining whether the
Kalamazoo bargaining unit maintained its integrity after the consolida-
tion. Moreover, the majority’s reliance on the difference in wage rates
puts the Respondent in a Catch-22 situation. The Respondent did not
change the former Kalamazoo employees’ wage rates upon the consoli-
dation. It did, however, change their vacation benefits (increasing them
to match those of the Wyoming employees), and it brought them in line
with Wyoming employees regarding overtime and travel compensation.
The judge and my colleagues find these three changes were unfair labor
practices. Presumably then, had the Respondent brought the Kalamazoo
employees’ wages in line with those of the Wyoming employees, the
judge and my colleagues would have found that action also violated the
Act. Since the Respondent did not do so, however, the judge and my
colleagues then find that fact to be significant support for their unit
determination adverse to the Respondent—thus placing the Respondent
in a no-win situation.
8 See Nott Co., 345 NLRB 396, 399–401 (2005), where the Board
found that since the union did not represent a majority of the employees
in the newly merged unit, the union lost its majority status and there-
fore the respondent did not violate Sec. 8(a)(5) by withdrawing recog-
nition from the union.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1392
merged unit, the Union lost its majority status as of the
June 2 consolidation. Consequently, the Respondent did
not violate Section 8(a)(5) by withdrawing recognition
from the Union. And since the Respondent’s withdrawal
of recognition was lawful, I would also find that the Re-
spondent’s subsequent changes to the Kalamazoo em-
ployees’ terms and conditions of employment were law-
ful. I would therefore dismiss the complaint in its en-
tirety.
APPENDIX
NOTICE TO EMPLOYEES
Posted by Order of the
National Labor Relations Board
An Agency of the United States Government

The National Labor Relations Board has found that we vio-
lated Federal labor law and has ordered us to post and obey
this notice.
FEDERAL LAW GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO
Form, join, or assist a union
Choose representatives to bargain with us on
your behalf
Act together with other employees for your bene-
fit and protection
Choose not to engage in any of these protected
activities.

WE WILL NOT withdraw recognition from and fail and
refuse to recognize and bargain with Local Union 131,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW),
AFL–CIO, as the exclusive collective-bargaining repre-
sentative of employees in the following appropriate unit:

All full-time and regular part-time servicemen regularly
assigned to work in the Kalamazoo service territory;
but excluding branch managers, service supervisors,
chief clerks, office clerical associates, professional as-
sociates, guards, sales associates, and supervisors as de-
fined in the Act.

WE WILL NOT unilaterally, without notice to and bar-
gaining with the Union, change the manner in which
overtime is paid to you who are in the foregoing unit,
increase your unpaid travel time from 30 minutes to 45
minutes, or alter vacation eligibility.
WE WILL rescind our withdrawal of recognition from
the Union, and WE WILL extend recognition to the Union
as the collective-bargaining representative of our former
Kalamazoo employees, reinstate the collective-
bargaining agreement without retracting any benefit con-
ferred, and bargain collectively in good faith with the
Union as the exclusive collective-bargaining representa-
tive of the employees in the foregoing appropriate unit.
WE WILL rescind the unilateral changes made in the
manner in which overtime and travel time are paid to unit
employees and make whole any of you whose benefits
were decreased as a result of those unilateral changes
plus interest.
WE WILL, only if requested by the Union, rescind the
manner in which vacation eligibility is determined.
ADT SECURITY SERVICES, INC.

A. Bradley Howell, Esq., for the General Counsel.
Bernard P. Jeweler, Esq., for the Respondent.
DECISION
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
GEORGE CARSON II, Administrative Law Judge. This case
was tried in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 28 and 29,
2008. The complaint issued on August 12, 2008, and alleges
that the Respondent violated Section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act (the Act) by withdrawing recogni-
tion from the Union and thereafter making certain unilateral
changes.1 The Respondent filed an answer admitting that it
withdrew recognition from the Union but denying that its ac-
tions violated the Act. I find that the Respondent violated the
Act substantially as alleged in the complaint.
On the entire record, including my observation of the de-
meanor of the witnesses, and after considering the briefs filed
by the General Counsel and the Respondent, I make the follow-
ing
FINDINGS OF FACT
I. JURISDICTION
The Respondent, ADT Security Services, Inc. (the Com-
pany), is a corporation with facilities throughout the United
States including its facility in Wyoming, Michigan, where it is
engaged in the sale, installation, and service of security sys-
tems. The Company annually purchases and receives goods and
services valued in excess of $50,000 directly from points lo-
cated outside the State of Michigan. The Company admits, and
I find and conclude, that it is an employer engaged in com-
merce within the meaning of Section 2(2), (6), and (7) of the
Act.
The Respondent admits, and I find and conclude, that Local
Union 131, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW), AFL–CIO (the Union) is a labor organization within
the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
II. ALLEGED UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES
A. Facts
1. Introduction
The Company operates nationally selling, installing, and
maintaining various types of security systems. The Company’s
sales operations are separate from its installation and service

1 All dates are in 2008, unless otherwise indicated. The charge was
filed on May 29 and was amended on July 14.
ADT SECURITY SERVICES 1393
operations. The employees who install and service the security
systems are referred to as servicemen with subclassifications as
installers and service technicians.
The facts herein are virtually undisputed. The issues pre-
sented arose when the Company, on May 19, announced that
the installation and service component of its facility in Kalama-
zoo, Michigan, would close on June 2 and that the Company
would no longer recognize the Union as the representative of
those 14 servicemen, who it contended were being consolidated
with the 27 unrepresented servicemen who worked out of its
Wyoming, Michigan facility. As admitted in the answer to the
complaint, the Union had represented the Kalamazoo employ-
ees for almost 29 years, since June 29, 1979. At the time recog-
nition was withdrawn, there was a collective-bargaining agree-
ment in effect that extended from January 24, 2007, until Janu-
ary 22, 2010, and which recognized the Union as the exclusive
collective-bargaining representative of employees in the fol-
lowing appropriate unit:

All full-time and regular part-time servicemen employed by
the Respondent at its Kalamazoo, Michigan, facility; but ex-
cluding branch managers, service supervisors, chief clerks, of-
fice clerical associates, professional associates, guards, sales
associates and supervisors as defined in the Act.
2. The Company’s operations
In the State of Michigan, the Company employs servicemen
at Detroit, which also serves the Ann Arbor metropolitan area;
at Flint, which also serves the Saginaw area; at Lansing, which
also serves the Jackson area; and, prior to June 2, at Grand
Rapids and Kalamazoo. The addresses of the facilities do not,
in all cases, coincide with the metropolitan area. The Lansing
facility is actually located in the suburb of Okemos, Michigan.
The Grand Rapids facility is located in the suburb of Wyoming,
Michigan. Thus, references in testimony to Grand Rapids and
Wyoming refer to the same facility. That facility served west-
ern and northwestern Michigan including Traverse City, some
three hours from Grand Rapids, up to the Mackinac Bridge, the
northernmost point on the Michigan Lower Peninsula. The
Kalamazoo facility served southwestern Michigan including
Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and Benton Harbor. The collective-
bargaining agreement uses the term “service territory,” and that
territory is shown on a Company color coded map. Work per-
formed in that territory is identified on computer printouts by
code numbers 45 and 230.
The term serviceman, as already noted, refers to installers
and service technicians. Installers typically handle the same
type of installations. Thus, residential installers, most of whom
are classified as high volume residential installers, perform
installations at individual residences and are paid pursuant to a
piece rate schedule for the components that they install. Small
business installers handle small commercial installations and
are paid an hourly wage. Commercial installers, referred to as
core commercial installers, install multiple systems in large
buildings and factories and are also paid hourly. Service techni-
cians, who handle problems that develop or repairs that need to
be made after the systems are installed, are also paid hourly.
Immediately prior to June 2, Mike Swift was installation and
service manager at Kalamazoo. He reported to Roy Rogers,
who was branch manager over both the Wyoming and Kalama-
zoo facilities. From June 2 until late September, he remained as
branch manager over the Wyoming facility. The closure of the
service and installation function in Kalamazoo eliminated
Swift’s position. He worked as a serviceman for a short period
after the elimination of his supervisory position and then left
the Company.
The residential installers and service technicians who had
been employed at Kalamazoo were initially placed under the
supervision of Dave Fitzsimmons, who supervised the Wyo-
ming service technicians and residential installers. The Kala-
mazoo small business and core commercial installers were
placed under the supervision of Dan Beschel, who supervised
the Wyoming employees who performed that work.
In late September, the Company reconfigured it supervisory
hierarchy. Rogers, who had formerly been branch manager, was
assigned as manager of core commercial installations. Dan
Beschel, who formerly supervised core commercial installa-
tions and small business installations, was assigned as manager
of residential and small business installations. Fitzsimmons,
who had formerly overseen both service technicians and resi-
dential installations, became service manager over the service
technicians. According to Rogers, the foregoing three positions
are of equal rank, but he is the “senior manager in the office.”
The Company installs multiple types of systems including
security systems, fire alarm systems, and card access systems.
Notwithstanding the different types of systems, Manager
Rogers explained that ninety percent of the work is generic and
able to be performed by any serviceman. Before and after June
2, when numerous outages or malfunctions caused by a storm
or other disaster occurred, installers would assist service tech-
nicians and the Company would, if necessary, assign service-
men from other locations. Thus, Kalamazoo servicemen might
assist in the Grand Rapids area and vice versa. Similarly, when
a job required a specific skill or certification or when assistance
was needed for a large installation, servicemen would be as-
signed from their normal service area. Employee Donald Berry,
currently a service technician but formerly a Kalamazoo com-
mercial installer, was once assigned work in the Lansing area.
3. The withdrawal of recognition
On May 19, the Company’s director of labor relations, James
Nixdorf, wrote the Union the following letter:

I’m writing to notify Local 131 the Company will be
absorbing the Kalamazoo office into our Wyoming,
Michigan[,] office effective June 2, 2008. All managerial,
operations and administrative functions formerly housed
in Kalamazoo will now be conducted in the Wyoming of-
fice. Given the Kalamazoo unit employees will now be
Wyoming employees and Local 131 does not represent a
majority of the employees located in Wyoming, the Com-
pany is withdrawing recognition of Local 131 as agent for
the former Kalamazoo bargaining unit effective June 2,
2008.
Please let me know if you have any questions or wish
to discuss this issue further.

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1394
Also on May 19, the Company, without notifying the Union,
held a meeting with the Kalamazoo unit employees in which
the closure of the installation and service function at Kalama-
zoo was announced directly to them. Rekha Agrawal, who at
that time was general manager for the Midwest, was present as
was then Branch Manager Rogers, who was the principal
speaker. Manager Dave Fitzsimons was also present. Employee
Bruce Abrams recalled that Rogers informed the employees of
the closure and consolidation, but he stated that the employees’
jobs “would basically remain the same,” that they would be
serving the same areas and would be going to jobs from their
homes, and that their wages would remain the same. Rogers
told the servicemen that the service technicians and residential
installers would be supervised by Fitzsimmons and the small
business and core commercial installers would be supervised by
Dan Beuschel. Employee Abrams recalled that Rogers, in re-
sponse to questions, stated that overtime would be for work
over 40 hours in a week whereas, under the collective-
bargaining agreement, hourly employees had received overtime
if they had to work over 8 hours on a single day. Employee
Leonard Dean Osborn recalled that Rogers also spoke about
travel time, explaining to the employees that they would not
receive compensation for commuting until the trip exceeded 45
minutes rather than the 30 minutes specified in the collective-
bargaining agreement. Rogers did not dispute any of the fore-
going testimony.
On May 29, the Union filed the charge herein and Business
Manager Leroy Crabtree wrote Nixdorf stating:

I am writing to notify you that on May 29, 2008,
IBEW Local 131 filed an 8(a)(5) ULP against ADT Secu-
rity Service Inc. for unilaterally repudiating our collective
bargaining agreement.
Please feel free to contact me at any time.

Director of Labor Relations Nixdorf denied receiving the
foregoing letter but admitted receiving the charge. Whether he
did or did not receive the letter is irrelevant. In response to
questioning by counsel for Respondent, Business Agent Crab-
tree admitted that the Union never requested “effects bargain-
ing.” Insofar as the Union had been informed that the Company
would no longer recognize the Union, any such request would
have been futile. Port Printing AD & Specialties, 351 NLRB
1269, 1270 (2007).
General Manager for the Midwest Agrawal made the deci-
sion to consolidate the installation and service function at
Kalamazoo into the Wyoming office “because the cost structure
in that branch . . . was too high.” Agrawal testified that she
made the decision in consultation with Manager Rogers and
“input from other managers” and that the cost savings realized
was the elimination of Swift’s supervisory position and one
clerical position. There was no reduction in the number of ser-
vicemen.
When asked about the decision regarding the compensation
of the Kalamazoo employees whose collective-bargaining rep-
resentative the Company no longer recognized, General Man-
ager Agrawal testified that “we essentially deferred to Jim
Nixdorf’s expertise on that.” Director of Labor Relations
Nixdorf, who “negotiate[s] [and] adminsister[s] all the collec-
tive agreements” between the Company and various unions,
confirmed that he was involved in the decision to continue
paying the former Kalamazoo employees the contractual wage
rate, although he acknowledged that it was a “fair statement”
that the Wyoming employees generally made more than the
Kalamazoo employees. In explaining the decision, Nixdorf
noted that, pursuant to the contract, the Kalamazoo employees
had received a raise in January, that the Company made wage
adjustments in January and, therefore, it was decided that “we’d
approach it at that point.” On cross examination, Nixdorf ad-
mitted that, when negotiating a particular contract, “whatever
the wages are in that particular market, that’s what we address.”
When asked whether it was a market based consideration that
the Company could “pay people in Kalamazoo less and retain
them” while having “to pay people in Grand Rapids more,”
Nixdorf answered, “Absolutely. We don’t pay all of our bar-
gained for employees and we don’t pay all our non-bargaining
unit cities the same.”
The building out of which the employees had worked is
leased by the Company, and the lease runs until 2012. Because
of competitors in the Kalamazoo area, the Company decided to
maintain a presence in Kalamazoo by keeping the sales office
open. Efforts to sublease the space have been unsuccessful.
Thus, two salesmen currently work out of the otherwise unoc-
cupied leased building. Manager Agrawal acknowledged that
there was “no sophisticated analysis” regarding the consolida-
tion decision. No financial documents or documents reflecting
financial projections and savings were offered into evidence.
Agrawal acknowledged that the Company was aware that it
would still have to get parts and materials to the employees,
either by delivering them or paying to have them delivered, but
“we never did a formal cost analysis of what that would look
like.”
4. Effect of the closure upon employees
a. Unchanged conditions
On May 19, the employees were told that they would con-
tinue to receive the same wages, and the Company continued to
pay the contractual rate after the closure of the Kalamazoo
facility. Director Nixdorf confirmed that it was a “fair state-
ment” that the Wyoming employees made more than the Kala-
mazoo employees. The piece rate schedules pursuant to which
high volume residential installers are compensated are different
for the Kalamazoo and Wyoming installers. The Company
continued to pay the Kalamazoo residential installers according
to the Kalamazoo piece rates.
The collective-bargaining agreement provides for “Tyco
benefits,” the corporate benefit package of Tyco, the parent
company of ADT; thus, there was no change in the employee
benefits of health insurance, pension, or the 401(k) plan, al-
though it appears that employees in the 401(k) plan were as-
signed a different account number.
As already mentioned, when additional help is needed in a
specific area, both before and after June 2, employees assigned
to other locations would be called in. Manager Rogers ac-
knowledged that “when the need arises,” as in a storm situation,
installers would assist the service technicians. He acknowl-
edged that, before June 2, Kalamazoo employees would go into
ADT SECURITY SERVICES 1395
the Grand Rapids service area to perform work “[o]nce in a
while,” and that Wyoming employees would go into the Kala-
mazoo area “off and on.” In a pretrial affidavit Rogers admitted
that there “hadn’t been much change.” That, of course, is con-
sistent with what he told the employees on May 19, and it con-
tinued to be true until a few weeks before the hearing herein
when, as hereinafter discussed, the Company began requiring
Kalamazoo employees to report to the Wyoming office 1 day a
week for materials.
The collective-bargaining agreement refers to the Kalamazoo
“service territory.” The employees take their company owned
vehicles to their homes at night. Both before and after the con-
solidation, service technicians have been dispatched by a na-
tional dispatching center in Rochester, New York, where
“optimizers,” according to zip code, identify the closest avail-
able technician who can respond to a reported problem. Man-
ager Rogers acknowledged that, in order to “save on expenses,”
service technicians would typically be routed “to the closest
spot to their house,” explaining that the Company sought to
have people that lived in the area do the work because that was
the least expensive. Manager Rogers confirmed that Fitz-
simmons had assigned the former Kalamazoo service techni-
cians various areas that corresponded to subdivisions of the
Kalamazoo service territory as shown on a Company map that
is color coded (GC Exh. 13).
Rogers testified that assignments to installers are made on
the same basis: whoever is the closest available installer “and
the travel time.” Residential installers are scheduled out of a
national dispatching center in Jacksonville, Florida.
Thus, with the exception of the new requirement that ser-
vicemen report to Wyoming 1 day each week for replenishment
of parts, at which time the servicemen are assigned work in the
Grand Rapids area in order to eliminate unproductive travel
time, there has been virtually no change in the work the service
technicians and installers perform or where they perform it.
In order to handle emergencies on nights and weekends, em-
ployees are assigned “on call” duty pursuant to a weekly rotat-
ing schedule. The Kalamazoo contract, article 6, section 3,
provided that “[s]eparate call out lists will be created for Com-
mercial and Residential Service,” whereas only one Wyoming
employee was on call each week. Employee Grant Korteway, a
Kalamazoo commercial service technician on the commercial
call out list, testified that, after the consolidation, when he has
received calls that should have been routed to the residential
employee who was on call, he would explain the dual Kalama-
zoo list to the dispatcher. Manager Rogers confirmed that the
dual call out list is being used for the former Kalamazoo em-
ployees.
b. Changed conditions
When the termination of the service and installation function
at Kalamazoo was announced, the employees were informed
that they would no longer receive overtime for working over 8
hours in a single day as provided in the collective-bargaining
agreement.
The employees were also told that uncompensated travel
time would be 45 minutes rather than 30 minutes. Article 6,
section 1, of the contract provided that employees would be
compensated at their regular rate of pay for “traveling time in
excess of thirty (30) minutes.”
Manager Rogers confirmed that those changes did occur, and
Business Agent Crabtree’s uncontradicted testimony estab-
lished that there was no notice to or bargaining with the Union
with regard to any changes that have been made.
The collective-bargaining agreement, in article 3, required
that the Company notify the Union, “if practicable,” when sub-
contractors or non-Kalamazoo ADT employees were “perform-
ing work in the Kalamazoo service territory.” Manager Rogers
admitted that he understood that provision existed because the
Union was “concerned about people doing their work,” i.e., unit
work, in the Kalamazoo service territory. He acknowledged
that the Company no longer “had that restriction.”
The Company extended its vacation eligibility policy to the
Kalamazoo employees, which resulted in some employees re-
ceiving one additional week of vacation.
The building in Kalamazoo out of which the Company oper-
ated contained the working area of two clerical employees, the
offices of two salespersons, the office of Manager Mike Swift,
and the area to which the security devices and equipment, such
as wiring, used by the servicemen were delivered. Unit em-
ployees had turned in their weekly timesheets at that office on
Wednesdays. After June 2, the Company provided facsimile
machines to those employees who did not have one so that their
timesheets could be faxed to the Wyoming office.
Prior to June 2, Dave Ross or Jeff Griffioen, the warehouse-
men at Wyoming, would place the parts needed by particular
employees in separate plastic bins and then travel to Kalamazoo
to distribute the parts to the employees. They generally did this
twice a week.
After June 2, for about 6 weeks, Ross and/or Griffioen drove
to a Meijer’s supermarket parking lot where the materials used
by the Kalamazoo employees were distributed. General Man-
ager Agrawal explained that, although the Company’s leased
building remained available, the distribution of materials was
made in the Meijer’s parking lot because “we didn’t have a
management presence” and the Company did not want the em-
ployees to “have access to that office.” The employees’ access
cards to the building had been deactivated. Agrawal did not
explain how, given the deactivation of the employee access
cards, the pickup of parts could not have been carried out at the
Company’s unused leased facility in the presence of the same
individuals who had been entrusted with the parts for delivery
at a supermarket parking lot. The supermarket distribution ap-
pears to have been designed to underscore the termination of
the service and installation function at the Kalamazoo facility.
After about 6 weeks, the Company began shipping parts to
employees or distributing them at meeting points individually
prearranged between the serviceman receiving the materials
and another serviceman or supervisor. Manager Rogers ex-
plained that it had been the intention of the Company to utilize
Federal Express to get parts to the servicemen, but that “a
whole host of issues” caused the Company to abandon that
procedure.
Beginning in September, the Company began phasing in a
requirement that Kalamazoo employees report to the Wyoming
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1396
warehouse 1 day each week in order to obtain their parts and
supplies. According to Manager Beuschel, the Company phased
in this requirement to avoid inundating that system and
“creat[ing] havoc.” Thus, at the time of the hearing, some of the
Kalamazoo employees, including Jason Raymond, had been
coming to Wyoming once each week for as many as 6 weeks
whereas others, including Chris Green who lives in Decatur,
Michigan, some 75 miles from Grand Rapids, had come only
once or twice. On the day that an employee comes to the ware-
house, the Company gives the warehouse address to the dis-
patching centers as that employee’s starting location on that
day, which results in the employee working in the Grand Rap-
ids area, thus avoiding unproductive time and travel.
B. Analysis and Concluding Findings
The complaint alleges that the Respondent, on June 2,
unlawfully withdrew recognition from the Union and thereafter
unilaterally implemented changes relative to travel time, over-
time, “and possibly other terms and conditions of employment”
of the unit employees.
1. The withdrawal of recognition
The General Counsel argues that, notwithstanding the con-
solidation, the Kalamazoo unit is an historical unit that has
maintained its identity and that the Respondent was not privi-
leged to terminate this “longstanding bargaining relationship”
by withdrawing recognition from the Union as the exclusive
collective-bargaining representative of the employees in that
historic unit.
The Respondent contends that it has consolidated the Kala-
mazoo employees with the Wyoming employees and that, inso-
far as the 14 former Kalamazoo employees constitute only
slightly more than a third, 34 percent, of the larger employee
complement at Wyoming, it was privileged to withdraw recog-
nition from the Union. Although the brief of the Respondent
acknowledges that the former Kalamazoo unit employees con-
tinue to perform “most of their work” in the Kalamazoo area
because of the proximity of the employees to the work, the
Respondent argues that those employees “share working condi-
tions, supervisors, and every other conceivable indicia or aspect
of employment” with the Wyoming employees. I disagree. The
Respondent’s brief does not acknowledge or discuss the undis-
puted fact that the former Kalamazoo employees continue to be
paid at the Kalamazoo contractual rate or that Director of Labor
Relations Nixdorf admitted that Kalamazoo was a separate
labor market. More significantly, the Respondent’s brief, nei-
ther in its argument nor in the precedent cited, does not address
the status of the Kalamazoo unit as an historical unit with a
bargaining history of almost 29 years, since June 29, 1979.
In addressing the Respondent’s withdrawal of recognition,
my analysis begins with precedent establishing that a historic
bargaining relationship will not be disturbed absent compelling
circumstances. In that regard, the decision of the Board in Ca-
nal Carting, Inc., 339 NLRB 969 (2003), is instructive. In that
case, the Board reversed a Regional Director’s decision that
disregarded the presence of a bargaining history that began in
“the 1970s.” Although the date the history began is not speci-
fied, the historic relationship existed for at least 24 years. The
bargaining history in this case is almost 29 years. In Canal
Carting, Inc., the Board stated:

In our view, the Regional Director failed properly to con-
sider the importance of bargaining history in making his de-
termination on the appropriateness of Sanitation’s unit and on
the contract bar issue. As one court has noted, “the Board
usually applies the community-of-interest and plant-wide unit
tests only when delineating units of previously unrepresented
employees, not, as here, when it is assessing historical units
that have had long periods of successful collective bargain-
ing.” Trident Seafoods, Inc. v. NLRB, 101 F.3d 111, 118
(D.C. Cir. 1996). Rather than pursue solely a community-of-
interest analysis, the Regional Director should have consid-
ered whether compelling circumstances warranted disturbing
the historical bargaining units that developed at Carting and
Sanitation.

. . . .

It is well settled that the existence of significant bargaining
history weighs heavily in favor of a finding that a historic unit
is appropriate, and that the party challenging the historical
[unit] bears the burden of showing that the unit is no longer
appropriate. See Children’s Hospital of San Francisco, 312
NLRB 920, 929 (1993) (“Both the Board and the courts have
long recognized not only that the traditional factors, which
tend to support the finding of a larger or single unit as being
appropriate, are of lesser cogency where a history of meaning-
ful bargaining has developed, but also that this fact alone sug-
gests the appropriateness of a separate bargaining unit and
that compelling circumstances are required to overcome the
significance of bargaining history.”) [internal quotation marks
omitted], enfd. sub nom. California Pacific Medical Center v.
NLRB, 87 F.3d 304 (9th Cir. 1996). See also Fisher Broad-
casting, Inc., 324 NLRB 256, 262–263 (1997); Buffalo
Broadcasting Co., 242 NLRB 1105, 1105 fn. 2 (1979) (“The
Board is reluctant to disturb units established by collective
bargaining as long as those units are not repugnant to Board
policy or so constituted as to hamper employees in fully exer-
cising rights guaranteed by the Act.”); Columbia Broadcasting
System, Inc., 214 NLRB 637, 643 (1974); Great Atlantic &
Pacific Tea Co., 153 NLRB 1549, 1550 (1965) (“[T] he
Board has long held that it will not disturb an established bar-
gaining relationship unless required to do so by the dictates of
the Act or other compelling circumstances.”). Id. at 969, 970.

There are no compelling circumstances that support the
withdrawal of recognition from the historic Kalamazoo unit.
The letter of May 19 states that the Company was “absorbing
the Kalamazoo office into our Wyoming, Michigan, office” and
“withdrawing recognition” from the Union. The withdrawal of
recognition was predicated upon the number of unrepresented
employees at Wyoming, but the Respondent did not “absorb”
the Kalamazoo employees. They continue, as the Respondent
admits and the record establishes, to perform “most of their
work” in the Kalamazoo area. The term “service territory” is
used in the collective-bargaining agreement and is shown on
the Respondent’s color coded map. The work performed in that
ADT SECURITY SERVICES 1397
territory is identified on computer printouts by the code num-
bers 45 and 230.
Director of Labor Relations Nixdorf’s testimony confirms
that the Kalamazoo employees were not absorbed into Wyo-
ming. Despite the consolidation, Nixdorf decided that the Re-
spondent would not pay the Kalamazoo employees the same
wages being paid to the Wyoming employees because they had
received their contractual wage increase the previous January.
Although acknowledging that it was a “fair statement” that the
Wyoming employees made more than the Kalamazoo employ-
ees who had purportedly been absorbed into Wyoming, he de-
fended the discrepancy by explaining that the wages paid by the
Respondent were dependent upon the market, and that the Re-
spondent could pay less than the Wyoming/Grand Rapids rate
to employees in the Kalamazoo metropolitan area and retain
them. The foregoing testimony establishes that the Respondent
recognizes that Kalamazoo is a separate labor market and pays
the employees accordingly. Thus, on the basis of the wage rate
alone, the Kalamazoo employees were not absorbed, and they
remain a separate identifiable unit.
The collective-bargaining agreement refers to the Kalamazoo
“service territory,” jurisdiction over which the Union sought to
maintain pursuant to the provision in the contract that provided
for notification if employees not assigned to Kalamazoo were
sent to work in that service territory. Manager Fitzsimmons
informed the purportedly absorbed service technicians of their
respective areas, and the Respondent’s color coded map shows
the subdivisions within the Kalamazoo service territory to
which Manager Rogers acknowledged they had been assigned.
Manager Rogers confirmed that installation jobs are assigned
similarly, to the closest available installer based upon “the
travel time.” Both before and after June 2, Kalamazoo employ-
ees were sent to work outside the Kalamazoo area and employ-
ees from other locations were sent to the Kalamazoo area when
needed. Such work assignments were dictated by the need for a
specific skill certification, the size of an installation job, or a
natural disaster that affected installed security systems. The
Respondent’s assignment of installation and service jobs in the
Grand Rapids area on the weekday that the former Kalamazoo
employees are required to report to Wyoming simply assures
that they will not be unproductive for a significant proportion
of the day and that the Respondent will not be compensating
them for traveling time. The overwhelming majority of their
work is performed in the Kalamazoo service territory. The
Kalamazoo employees are compensated at the contractual wage
rate even when working in the Grand Rapids area. The Kala-
mazoo unit is not only identified by the wage scale being paid
but also by the geographic area in which the employees have
continued to work.
The Respondent has continued to use the Kalamazoo con-
tractual dual call out roster that separates employees on the
basis of their assignment to commercial or residential work.
Although the supervisory position of Swift was abolished,
the Kalamazoo employees remained under the ultimate supervi-
sion of Branch Manager Rogers, who, as branch manager of the
Kalamazoo office, had been Swift’s direct supervisor. The re-
cord does not reflect whether, following the corporate recon-
figuration that occurred about a month before the hearing
herein, Rogers, as senior manager, remains as the individual
ultimately in charge at Wyoming. His current authority is im-
material insofar as an employer may not escape its obligation to
bargain by employing different supervisors. See University
Medical Center, 335 NLRB 1318, 1332 (2001), enfd. in perti-
nent part 335 F.3d 1079, 1085 (D.C. Cir. 2003).
The fact that the former Kalamazoo employees, like all ADT
employees, are subject to the same handbook rules, wear the
same uniforms, and perform the same work does not render the
historic unit inappropriate and does not privilege the Respon-
dent to withdraw recognition from it. As pointed out in P. J.
Dick Contracting, 290 NLRB 150, 151 (1988), “units with
extensive bargaining history remain intact unless repugnant to
Board policy.” The unit herein is not repugnant to Board pol-
icy. Neither is it repugnant to any policy of the Respondent
which regards Kalamazoo as a separate labor market and has
continued to pay the Kalamazoo hourly employees the contrac-
tual wage rate rather than the higher wages paid to Wyoming
employees and to pay residential installers the contractual piece
rates rather than Wyoming piece rates. Changes made by the
Respondent that conformed the working conditions of the
Kalamazoo employees to the policies in effect at the Wyoming
office, such as overtime and travel time, insofar they were
made unilaterally, do not detract from the separate identity of
the historical unit. See Comar, Inc., 339 NLRB 903, 911
(2003); Holly Farms Corp., 311 NLRB 273, 279 (1993); see
also Serramonte Oldsmobile, 318 NLRB 80, 104 fn. 67 (1995).
The Respondent, by withdrawing recognition from the Union
as the representative of the employees in the historic Kalama-
zoo unit, violated Section 8(a)(1) and (5) of the Act.
I shall, consistent with precedent, alter the description of the
appropriate unit to reflect the current reality and specify that the
unit consists of employees regularly assigned to work in the
Kalamazoo service territory, which thereby includes the former
Kalamazoo unit employees as well as any employees hired to
fill future unit vacancies. See Comar, Inc., supra at 911.
2. The unilateral changes
It is undisputed that the Respondent, pursuant to what I have
found was its unlawful withdrawal of recognition on June 2,
changed the terms and conditions of the employment of unit
employees by ceasing to pay overtime for working more than 8
hours in a single day, increasing unpaid travel time from 30 to
45 minutes, and altering vacation eligibility without notice to or
bargaining with the Union. By unilaterally changing the terms
and conditions of employment of the unit employees in the
foregoing manner, the Respondent violated Section 8(a)(5) of
the Act.
There is no evidence that the failure of the Respondent to
honor the contractual requirement of notification to the Union
regarding the presence of nonunit employees in the Kalamazoo
service territory has affected any employee. Insofar as my rec-
ommended order shall direct reinstatement of the contract, the
Respondent must honor that provision.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. By withdrawing recognition from the Union, the Respon-
dent has engaged in unfair labor practices affecting commerce
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1398
within the meaning of Section 8(a)(1) and (5) and Section 2(6)
and (7) of the Act.
2. By unilaterally, without notice to and bargaining with the
Union, changing the manner in which overtime is paid to unit
employees, increasing unpaid travel time, and altering vacation
eligibility, the Respondent has engaged in unfair labor practices
affecting commerce within the meaning of Section 8(a)(1) and
(5) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
REMEDY
Having found that the Respondent has engaged in certain un-
fair labor practices, I find that it must be ordered to cease and
desist and to take certain affirmative action designed to effectu-
ate the policies of the Act.
The Respondent, having unlawfully withdrawn recognition
from the Union, it must extend recognition to the Union as the
bargaining representative of its former Kalamazoo employees,
reinstate the collective-bargaining agreement without retracting
any benefit conferred, and bargain collectively in good faith
with the Union. Cook County School Bus, 333 NLRB 647
(2001); Custom Mfg. Co., 220 NLRB 1256, 1258 (1975).
The Respondent, having unilaterally changed the terms and
conditions of employment of the unit employees by altering the
manner in which overtime and travel time are paid, must make
whole any employees whose benefits were decreased as a result
of those unilateral change, plus interest as computed in New
Horizons for the Retarded, 283 NLRB 1173 (1987).
Consistent with Cook County School Bus, supra at 648 and
654, and Children’s Hospital, 312 NLRB 920, 931 (1993), the
Respondent shall not rescind the unilaterally changed benefit
with regard to vacation eligibility unless requested to do so by
the Union.
On these findings of fact and conclusions of law and on the
entire record, I issue the following recommended2
ORDER
The Respondent, ADT Security Services, Inc., Wyoming,
Michigan, its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall
1. Cease and desist from
(a) Withdrawing recognition from and failing and refusing to
recognize and bargain with Local Union 131, International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), AFL–CIO, as the
exclusive collective-bargaining representative of employees in
the following appropriate unit:

All full-time and regular part-time servicemen regularly as-
signed to work in the Kalamazoo service territory employed
at its Wyoming, Michigan, facility; but excluding branch
managers, service supervisors, chief clerks, office clerical as-
sociates, professional associates, guards, sales associates and
supervisors as defined in the Act.

(b) Unilaterally, without notice to and bargaining with the
Union, changing the manner in which overtime is paid to unit

2 If no exceptions are filed as provided by Sec. 102.46 of the Board’s
Rules and Regulations, the findings, conclusions, and recommended
Order shall, as provided in Sec. 102.48 of the Rules, be adopted by the
Board and all objections to them shall be deemed waived for all pur-
poses.
employees, increasing unpaid travel time from 30 to 45 min-
utes, and altering vacation eligibility.
(c) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining,
or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed
them by Section 7 of the Act.
2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effec-
tuate the policies of the Act.
(a) Rescind the withdrawal of recognition and extend recog-
nition to the Union as the bargaining representative of its for-
mer Kalamazoo employees, reinstate the collective-bargaining
agreement without retracting any benefit conferred, and bargain
collectively in good faith with Local Union 131, International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), AFL–CIO, as the
exclusive collective-bargaining representative of employees in
the appropriate unit set out above.
(b) Rescind the unilateral changes made in the manner in
which overtime and travel time are paid to unit employees and
make whole any employees whose benefits were decreased as a
result of those unilateral changes plus interest.
(c) Only upon request by the Union, rescind the manner in
which vacation eligibility is determined.
(d) Preserve and, within 14 days of a request, or such addi-
tional time as the Regional Director may allow for good cause
shown, provide at a reasonable place designated by the Board
or its agents, all payroll records, social security payment re-
cords, timecards, personnel records and reports, and all other
records, including an electronic copy of such records if stored
in electronic form, necessary to determine the amount of back-
pay due under the terms of this Order.
(e) Within 14 days after service by the Region, post at its fa-
cility in Wyoming, Michigan, copies of the attached notice
marked “Appendix.”3 Copies of the notice, on forms provided
by the Regional Director for Region 7, after being signed by the
Respondent’s authorized representative, shall be posted by the
Respondent and maintained for 60 consecutive days in con-
spicuous places including all places where notices to employees
are customarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the
Respondent to ensure that the notices are not altered, defaced,
or covered by any other material. In the event that, during the
pendency of these proceedings, the Respondent has gone out of
business or closed the facility involved in these proceedings,
the Respondent shall duplicate and mail, at its own expense, a
copy of the notice to all current employees and former employ-
ees employed by the Respondent at any time since May 19,
2008.
(f) Within 21 days after service by the Region, file with the
Regional Director a sworn certification of a responsible official
on a form provided by the Region attesting to the steps that the
Respondent has taken to comply.

3 If this Order is enforced by a judgment of a United States court of
appeals, the words in the notice reading “Posted by Order of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board” shall read “Posted Pursuant to a Judg-
ment of the United States Court of Appeals Enforcing an Order of the
National Labor Relations Board.”