Allied Waste Services of North America, LLC d/b/a Allied Waste Services of Sacramento and Republic S

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 23, 2014

20-RC-133841 (N.L.R.B. Sep. 23, 2014)

Sacramento, CA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ALLIED WASTE SERVICES OF NORTH
AMERICA, LLC d/b/a ALLIED WASTE
SERVICES OF SACRAMENTO AND
REPUBLIC SERVICES OF SACRAMENTO
Employer
and Case 20-RC-133841
INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING
ENGINEERS, STATIONARY ENGINEERS,
LOCAL 39, AFL-CIO
Petitioner
ORDER
Employer’s request for special permission to appeal from the Regional Director’s
determination to hold a mail ballot election is granted.1 Because the Regional Director did not
abuse his discretion, the appeal is denied on the merits.2
KENT Y. HIROZAWA, MEMBER
HARRY I. JOHNSON, MEMBER
NANCY SCHIFFER, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., September 23, 2014

1 Although the document filed by the Employer is entitled “Special Appeal and Request for Review,”
we have treated it as a request for special permission to appeal the Regional Director’s determination
inasmuch as the determination was not contained in the Decision and Direction of Election.
We find that the Regional Director did not abuse his discretion in directing a mail-ballot election. His
primary consideration was the scattered status of the voting employees due to their staggered work
schedules. This was entirely appropriate; all other pertinent considerations are secondary. See San Diego
Gas & Electric, 325 NLRB 1143, 1145 (1998). Finally, to the extent that the Employer’s appeal relies on
an attached affidavit addressing the “scatter” issue, we note that relevant information contained in the
affidavit had not been presented to the Regional Director at the time he made his determination. Even
considering that affidavit in its entirety, however, we would reach the same conclusion, that the Regional
Director did not abuse his discretion.
2 Member Johnson would grant the appeal on the merits. Here, the Regional Director set forth no
specific facts of actual hardship to the Region in that a 100-mile deployment of a Board agent over two
days is not a hardship, the Employer and Union both agree that a manual ballot would serve the interest of
full employee election participation, and 69 employees — a clear majority of the unit — even submitted a
petition to the Board in favor of a manual ballot. Respectfully, he believes there are ample grounds to
grant the appeal.