units across the country not a nation wide single unit its result oriented rush to establish a single unit in doing that the board abdicated its responsibility to foll reversed for two principal reasons first the collective bargaining agreements language and architecture are clear on its face that there are multiple units here this court is not a rubber sta and reached a collective bargaining agreement the no zero knows no deference to the board in that regard second sixty years ago the board construed the very same before because in two thousand and six the world changes and i don't know how you i mean it's an interesting test i don't know how you this thing which is soo situation look i should question first there are no separate respect to the various local area suits a master agreement covering all of these units and units was the word used in general motors this is difference in general motors your honor and let me tell you why when you look at this agreement you see that here are and you look at the table of contents which is on page eight to all seven of the record going from state to zero seven j two eleven you see the architecture of disagreement there are said twelve separate agreements each has a separate scope of unit clause this is the way it has been since the board ruled in one thousand fifty five and the board can't just backhand its own precedent just want to do we're going to negotiate or go to separate agreement and we're doing we're known they have to wait until the master agreement is done in the international union and then all these other arrangements that are in the part of the master agreement or the lawyer testified and he testified about the bargaining process and if you look at that testimony which is in the board decision at page three it's exactly the same five and there are the family units and they found multiple units there based on that but any process there should be multiple units here the ratification process was the other thing they cited and that was what they admitted on page thirty two of their br longstanding and b c doesn't control the ratification process as you know that's a matter of union democracy and union bureaucracy and that the way n b c finds out about it whether the agreement is ratifies again a phone call we don't know the seven of the record are terms and conditions that cover kind of an umbrella that are general terms that cover all of the different units they may be specific agreements for each unit and if the the way this contract is going to be written and so when you want to figure out school we decided to do is with respect to each of the local pieces of the overall agreement you're going to find them there and we'll describe it and at those p right with respect to anything there as opposed to the international you're right there's no signatories however if you look at the page two fifteen the preamble of the agreement and you'll see agreement quote unquote and then goes on to say on page three and four of the opinion that the terms of the master agreement clearly preserve the separate identity of the various groups borgen four and goes on to say we know particularly in this connection the language of the master agreement same parties same preamble same recognition clause which now the acting regional director somehow found and it was the board local represents them and the neighbors locals affiliated with the international neighborhood which is i believe based in washington so that's i mean that's the structure of what we do bargaining we have to go to each local that's how n b c negotiates they talk to each local over they what they want to do something under this agreement they want to move the jimmy fallon show from policy angeles to new york they have to conduct negotiations with the l a local then they have to come to new york cases here think it's this song arose from a request for information that the company didn't comply with and then i thought that was the genesis of the unfair labor practice there was a quest for information from me the union in light of that the number of content producers has change the weight content producers are used has changed and  a contract language here is the same since going back before nine hundred fifty five the preambles the same the recognition clause is the same that the unit structure of multiple eunice is is the same this is this is there makes sense because you're talking about taking work from one of the twelve individual units and so you have to read the clause in that way in any  was read correctly creates any ambiguity and regardless a missing ass in one clause in a three hundred page seventy year old collective bargaining agreement numbered by lawyers doesn't make it ambiguous  and so even when you go if you find it in big us which you shouldn't as we've talked about when you look at the board says of the changed circumstances from the extreme to evidence they're not changed there's no change in the bargaining process there's no change in the graphic ation process which is not in n b c s control as it is so this agreement has been very unusual certifications in the for the national labor relations board on the boards of orders not all to the parties or any relationship in this case with the board simply did is to recognize that over the decades of bargaining relationship the mr  spoke of the parties have evolved into treating all union representative police as part of a single unit and the board did this by playing its own well established law first looking at the terms of the contract to determine whether they were clearly and unambiguously indicating that there was one or multiple units so you agree you agree with the old saw it started out as individual units so what arguments do you have well the the the first and most important argument is the transfer work clause and the fact that it refers to this agreements and this morning  fact in the preamble it says this agreements in the plural and then there's a more recent the last sentence was just clearly more recent because it deals with saying that when we use the word his it also means her then the term appears in the singular this agreement not turning to your second question why is it important the transfer of words vis art this agreement is all about and he sees ability to transfer work from with all employees covered by the union or one with all the other employees who aren't and it says you can't transfer work there is bargaining unit work to cameramen and so on and so forth when they have to produce way into the course of their primary job function it can be useful for them to do those other of those other functions as well if you were to read versus nonunion employees fifty fifty one are talking about people who are clearly in some organ unit even the whole are individuals and whether they can move from one location to another that's right and ends w do is that they create to help create this single unit the single bargaining unit by facilitating the ability of employees to do work that other units also perform in the context of even if you have you know even in the in the context of a single bargaining unit your honor you know let's assume that we're right and that you really have a single bargaining unit you still have employees with different job functions to different and and that came in with is that if you didn't have let's say if you didn't have the transfer of four guys take that out of this agreement would you then be governed by the one hundred fifty five decision  or quite even understand what the board's test is for ambiguity and it could be that this new thing comes in and that that or that combined with the bargain in history well enough but i thought your position was we have to find ambiguity first and then we can look at bargaining seriously ok so we should look says ok and so then is that enough i thought i'm getting normally required to reasonable readings of the document as a whole right and as opposed to motors which is making the same cars for your money from virginia as it is for maryland the whole point is that n b c isn't producing just national product it produces regional project and produces local product like things are and particularly with the evolution that was at issue here is producing things for taxicabs and some jurisdictions and it really is not a single national product in the way that cars are know that the national product is news you know that and that product and also be the feeds the where they go there where they gather their contents whether it be from news or french or tame and that's from all over the country and all of that coalesces into a single product which is  of the whole amount both product of information which is then distributed among the various markets as n b c sees fit in your move seventeen you have lots of references to do some agreement decision you know i did we did not say it's a nice represents that this was like you know the basis of the board's decision but it was notable enough for the boy to tell us how is it going to go now would like to i just don't know what that was that was that is how we do which is that if you have a unit of news writers people who people you know who have a certain who are defined as doing a certain job function that individual are going to find out what their job function and it's not other editions that have changed the way that the the the contract looks a little bit of them seem to say that really the definition of bargaining units is driven by the individual articles and not this single master a quick points if your honor the issue to go back to judge edward first question this is not a g m situation it's not a c p s situation where there's a single nationwide unit the issue is not whether there are multiple agreements the parties here are party to one agreement but they've created over time twelve separate organising units and the fact that they're not separate signatories on every one is we would say is really irrelevant the whole the neighborhood file four separate you see petitions here and the board consolidated them that shows the nature of what was happening second there's there's one which recognises that you can transfer people from one unit to another and if somebody is transferred they remain a member of the original organ unit and unless there were multiple units third divorce or mention louisiana doc i just have to point that louisiana docs recognition clause which created multiple units is similar to n b c and a bit recognition clause just pointed out that the individual articles prevail that is