National Labor Relations Board v. Guardian Armored Assets, LLC

201 F. App'x 298
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 16, 2006
Docket05-1517, 05-1649
StatusUnpublished

This text of 201 F. App'x 298 (National Labor Relations Board v. Guardian Armored Assets, LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. Guardian Armored Assets, LLC, 201 F. App'x 298 (6th Cir. 2006).

Opinions

[299]*299ALICE M. BATCHELDER, Circuit Judge.

Guardian Armored Assets, LLC, and Guardian Armored Security, operating as Guardian Security Services (“Guardian”), petition for review of a decision of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”), holding that Guardian had violated §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) (29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(1) & (5)) of the National Labor Relations Act (“the Act”) by refusing to bargain with Intervenor International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (“the Union”). See 29 U.S.C. § 160(f). The Board’s decision followed the decision of the director of the Region 7 office of the NLRB (“the regional office”) certifying the Union as the exclusive bargaining representative of certain employees of two of Guardian’s three Michigan facilities. The NLRB petitions for enforcement of its order requiring Guardian to cease and desist from refusing to bargain with the Union and from interfering with employees in the exercise of their rights, and that Guardian post a remedial notice. See 29 U.S.C. § 160(e). Because we find that the NLRB did not abuse its discretion and the underlying decision of the regional office was supported by substantial evidence, we will grant the NLRB’s petition for enforcement and deny Guardian’s petition for review.

I. Factual Background

A. Guardian Corporate Structure and Activities

Guardian provides a wide range of security services to its clients, including alarms, security guards, medical monitoring, and armored car transportation of valuables. It employs approximately 1700 people and has its corporate offices in Southfield, Michigan. The case involves the Guardian armored car division, which employs approximately 370 people, including about 50 managers and other non-guard personnel. Non-supervisory guard personnel include 10 types of guards, specialists, vault associates, security officers, dispatchers, and tellers.

The business of the armored car division is conducted out of three branch offices; the Highland Park office, which has approximately 250 employees; and the Mt. Morris and Comstock Park offices, which have approximately 60 employees each. The three branch offices are strategically located to serve Guardian’s customers in Michigan and northwest Ohio, though none of them has a geographically defined territory. Highland Park and Mount Morris are approximately 75 miles apart; Highland Park and Comstock Park are approximately 190 miles apart; and Comstock Park and Mt. Morris are approximately 100 miles apart. Guardian determines which branch to work from in providing service to a customer based on that customer’s needs and security considerations.

Jeffrey Prough (“Prough”), the President of Guardian Security Services, and Jeff Kipp (“Kipp”), the Vice President, oversee all of Guardian’s operations — including the labor relations policies — of all divisions, including the armored car division. Both officers are in regular contact with all divisions and branches. Hugh Adams (“Adams”) is the general manager of Guardian’s armored car division, and has an office at each branch location. He rotates around to the branches and oversees employee scheduling, customer accounts, and weekly management training meetings. The branches are controlled by the same human resources and business departments as the company at large, and the centralized functions include purchasing; billing; promulgation of employment policies, handbooks, and the like; payroll; hiring, firing, layoffs, transfers, and promotions; and orientation training.

[300]*300At the Highland Park branch, Guardian’s general manager is in charge of the armored car division as well as other divisions housed in the same facility, and an assistant branch manager and a customer service manager are in charge of most of the armored car division’s day-to-day operations. Two assistant branch managers oversee daily operations at the Mt. Morris facility, and a branch manager oversees daily operations at Comstock Park. The managers in charge of the three facilities communicate with each other regularly on the phone.

Each day there is a shuttle run among Highland Park and the other two branches in which one armored car picks up and delivers currency and paperwork; generally the same employees work this route every day. Additional runs between facilities are less frequent. Employees transfer among branches on occasion to cover a particular facility’s operations when it is temporarily short-handed, although Guardian does not keep track of how often this occurs or how many employees are involved when it does occur. Guardian presented testimony that there had been a few instances of temporary transfers in the two years preceding this case, one of which involved 6 or 7 guards over the course of three days, and that there have been roughly 11 permanent transfers among the three facilities over that same two-year period. Adams decides which employees will be going to the other branches when temporary transfers are needed, although the transfers are usually on a voluntary basis.

B. Representation Proceedings

Prior to 2004, none of the three branches had any history of collective bargaining. On March 12, 2004, the Union submitted a request to the regional office that a single bargaining unit be recognized covering 180 employees, to include all of Guardian’s “full time and/or regular part time security officers and drivers performing guard duties” at all three branch locations. The regional office directed that a hearing be held on the petition, but the Union withdrew the petition shortly before the appointed hearing date. The Union then filed a second request, proposing a single bargaining unit consisting of full-time and part-time employees performing guard duties at the Mt. Morris and Highland Park facilities, and stating that the number of employees involved would be 200.

The regional office conducted a hearing on the second request. At that hearing, the Union again changed its position and asked that the Highland Park and Mount Morris facilities each be a separate bargaining unit and that each have its separate election. Guardian opposed the certification of one bargaining unit for each branch on the grounds that Guardian’s business operations at all three Michigan branches are fully integrated, branches have no autonomy from one another or from the company at large, and employees assigned to each branch regularly coordinate, interchange, and interact with employees from the other branches. It therefore contended the appropriate bargaining unit would be a single unit consisting of all full-time and part-time guards at all three of its facilities.

The director of the regional office granted the Union’s request and ordered separate elections at the Highland Park and Mt. Morris facilities, finding that the separate bargaining units requested by the Union are appropriate for collective bargaining purposes within the meaning of § 9(b) of the Act (29 U.S.C. § 159(b)). The director acknowledged the evidence in the record showing that Guardian has centralized control over personnel decisions and some centralized control over daily opera

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Bluebook (online)
201 F. App'x 298, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-guardian-armored-assets-llc-ca6-2006.