decision in this case is its lack of consistency with prior decisions on the appropriate composition of a bargaining unit at a full service hotel st the decision is irreconcilable with n l r b precedent and ramada beverly hills nd the decision is inconsistent with the court's with the board's reasoning in denying a previous petition of the union to certify a bargaining unit including both housekeeping and food and beverage employees at this hotel and the inevitable result of these and consistent decisions is a fractured bargaining unit that does not include front desk employees and that while punitively including separate units of housekeeping and food and beverage is being treated functionally as a single unit first i'd like to address the n president and ramada beverly hills our position is that this case is on all fours with from out of beverly hills st concerning the critical topic of function when it gratian both the president and it says it's not really what it's looking for and the findings here were that those elements did not exist here honor the standard of review for a decision like this are to kill aided in blue man vegas and other cases is whether the orange decision is arbitrary or unsupported by substantial evidence with regard cases and with respect to the western lodging and lodging in cases there are serious distinctions that make this case far more like ramana beverly hills even on the record warm found in western launching there was no centralized management and hiring by division supervisors which cuts far against the type of functional went to gratian that you see if this hotel and in hsien the board's decision was influenced by a factor of which there is no evidence in the record in this case which is regional industry practice about the appropriate compositions are getting units that was a key factor in several of the decision unsupported record and i think what i'm at the core of my argument is that those findings are irreconcilable with ramada beverly hills because they are not in fact inconsistent with what happened in ramadi or beverly hills and if they were viewed to be inconsistent and i don't necessarily view them to be inconsistent that they would then be unsupported by substantial evidence so i'd like to address the specific factual findings of this case and ramada beverly hills to show the similarities in the key topics the go to determining whether it's appropriate to exclude a unit of employees like the front desk employees st dysfunction when a gratian both hotels employed a single general manager misfiring final hiring and firing and policy authority as well as a rotating manager on floridian system that made the heads of different groups of employees at the hotel in charge of the hotel when the general manager was not there second were common terms and conditions in both cases there are common terms and conditions that govern all employees rd is functional integration to perform services for the guests and here is where i think some of the substantial evidence issue comes in if you look at ramada beverly hills and other decisions like atlanta hilton and western hotel the court of functional integration isn't whether there is some type of job overlap between employees it's whether all of the employees are being directed by a central management just serve the ultimate goal of the employer at the facility in this case to provide a seamless experience for the hotel don't understand this seamless experience when the board has acknowledged that approach but rohan down some of these things and at least it's known that your general manager did not  type of control in the units that it held appropriate that was true and some of these other hotels and you're saying that is a finding that is unsupported by substantial evidence it is unsupported by substantial evidence as much as it is feuds different than ramada hotel and i and i i heard two points in your question judge rogers the st is whether all hotels aim to provide a seamless experience for their guests through central management and i don't think that's necessarily the case when i was i didn't get that is that all of these hotels residents small hotels the guest happy is not mean that it would be appropriate to have any particular bargaining unit but where there is substantial interaction between the employees in this case the board found regular daily interaction between the front desk as well as the housekeeping and food and beverage employees and there's a centralized management and the management is virtually identical in ramada beverly hills in this hotel with the general manager when and the manager on duty system that that's the type of functional integration the board has looked at to find that there is it is not appropriate to have separate bargaining units of the housekeeping and the food and beverage in the service if you're i mean it are you focusing more on the lack of substantial evidence here or on the board's failure to adequately distinguish its other precedents you know along the lines of le moine owens and other cases like that are you making those two distinct arguments and i'm not clear from what you're saying if you're viewing that as part of the same argument or if the two distinct are words i think your honor our argument is primarily and i apologize if this was not clear earlier that this to state that the decision here is not reconcilable with ramana beverly hills so the former and in response to certain specific factual claims we believe that they are unsupported by substantial evidence but even if you take the board's findings as a whole we believe they are still the specific factual findings that it made i suppose to the ultimate conclusion supplying the law to those facts are irreconcilable with ramada beverly hills and you raise those claims before the regional director we raised those claims before the regional director and the board and the board split twenty one dollars on those claims with member emanuel dissenting he would have found as we argued that the only appropriate bargaining unit to so tell includes both food and beverage and front desk was the single unit was because it didn't incorporate the front desk employees to correct that's correct and we do believe that the decision of the nd decision to certify the separate housekeeping and food and beverage inconsistent with the reasoning of the n l r b st sip if you had to put the front desk people into the single unit why isn't that also the death knell for the two  we believe it is and we believe if you look and this is on page two hundred and thirty one of the joint appendix and this is the nd inconsistency your honor if you look at page two hundred and thirty one of the joint appendix the regional director listed five reasons why it was inappropriate to ex clude front desk employees st they had substantially the same terms and conditions that applies whether you have separate units for housekeeping and food and beverage  nd there was regular contact between employees to serve guests that also applies whether or not you have separate housekeeping in food and beverage units rd the employees reschedule based on hotel occupancy that applies equally whether you have separate front food and beverage and housekeeping units floors they have ploys had the same orientation that applies equally whether you have separate food and beverage and housekeeping units and th that there was some interchange between front desk and housekeeping as well as front desk and food and beverage that applies equally whether you have separate food and beverage housekeeping units ok rd question at the follow up if in fact the front desk employees and by law should have been included in the single unit and also in the original opinion the result director said that it was appropriate to separate out the food opinion what unit if you tried to put any the union tried to put two units to get separate the units unit would you put the front desk people they would go with housekeeping here are that's an alternative argu we've made and the reason so i mis understand why doesn't that mean that the beverage is ok and that is our alternative argument is that if if the court doesn't find that the only appropriate unit at this hotel includes food and beverage housekeeping and front desk that alternatively it should find that housekeeping needs to include food and excuse the housekeeping needs two good front desk they're part of the same rooms division at the is substantial interchange between those units but you know in particular you know there's there are substantial somewhere nice there i would say as to the consistency of the decisions we recognize that and then under reasoned dicta footnote on the final page of the regional directors st decision he suggests that a separate unit approach may be appropriate but we believe when you consider the consistency of decisions particularly in a single case you need to go to the reasoning of those decisions and not to a footnote on the last page but my question remains why if excepting everything you've just said in your alternative argument what i see that i'm out of time if there are further questions i'd be happy to answer them thank you we're here counsel for the board thank you your honor may it please the court kelly as the here on the half the national labor relations board in making a unit determination the board's task is to ensure that the petitions for units are an appropriate unit regarding does not have to choose the most appropriate unit or the only appropriate you know and this court  not overturn board unit determinations and less davidson has proved that those units are truly inappropriate which it has not done on this record so if we look at each unit individually housekeeping unit and the food and beverage unit each of those units the board determine share in internal community of interest they are separately supervised they have different skills different functions different training than the board compared those two units to the front desk employees to see whether or not the differences between the housekeeping the food and beverage and the front desk whether or not they are different has outweighed their similarities and determined on the basis of this record that they do all three i'll just call them units for the sake of ease and speaking all three groups of employees or units have separate supervision there is a general manager who is over the hotel but each one of those groups of employees has a separate manager who is over their work lives who decides whether or not to discipline them who has initial hiring authority each of those groups of employees has different functions different jobs within the hotel they work somewhat different hours they have different training so the food and beverage people have alcohol and food handling licensing requirements front desk employees that customer service training that the housekeeping employees don't get the regional director found that yes this hotel has some functional integration but  we're talking about functional integration we're not talking about just whether or not there's a general manager over the hotel we're talking about whether or not the employees how closely they work together to accomplish a single task so housekeepers go clean the rooms of course they work in conjunction with the front desk because of the front desk doesn't check people into the hotel there is no room to clean they put i'm sorry those are our units yeah i mean i guess you know on the lot of these you know factual determination about how the hotel works together of course the board you know we defer to a lot of the boards factual findings in the area but i'm concerned about the fact that  that they raised a number of cases you know the cases that were just scott speicher petitioner that the board did not address right now it seems that the board has some obligation under lemoine owens and other cases to distinguish to distinguish other cases and if they're going to be deciding and adjudicating cases on a case by case basis and petitioner raises cases that are arguably very similar facts doesn't the board have an obligation to distinguish those other cases and wouldn't that at a minimum require that at least to remain to the board to to distinguish those earlier precedents i don't recall that that they explicitly raise the issue that the regional director did not distinguish certain cases and i would have to go back through the decision and direction of election to make sure he didn't mention lindsey hilsum but i did a briefing is pretty clear that they raise these cases and and distinguish them in and you know in a number of ways but i mean it's a different issue if if the argument is actually that the board failed in its or the regional director here failed in his responsibility to adequately distinguish cases that has to be raves but when i don't think they they didn't raise that issue that particular legal issue no your honor or you sir are you talking raising before the border raising in this court raising before the board they have to file if they believe the original director made either an incorrect factual finding or an incorrect legal finding they have to raise that before the board and they they found exceptions for the regional directors decision and direction of election but the regional director went through many cases and showed why this is not the kind of case where functional integration required him to put all these employees together functional integration in a case like atlanta hilton the general manager there had control over minor the tail such that he was controlling how elevator doors were cleaned in ramada beverly hills there was substantial interchange between employees housekeeping employees and bell staffers who were attached to the front desk were both delivering food throughout the hotel bell staff and front desk assisted with housekeeping so those kinds of findings are just not here the front desk i think the testimony is that maybe three times a year when the hotel is severely overcrowded they might have to strip beds cleaning hotel rooms is not part of their job the health keeping group does not fill in for the sat they do not do anything at the front that food and beverage employees don't assist the housekeepers we have is a little bit of contact which the regional director acknowledge and some functional integration because it is a hotel and everyone is trying to ensure that there is a good guest experience but doing at this particular task like preparing a meal or serving a drink or cleaning a hotel room you do not need the front desk becoming help you do that you need them to check in people you need them to do their own work and that's the difference between that kind of functional integration in a case like atlanta hilton or ramada beverly hills so here the board did two types of analysis right you st have to determine that the employees in the petition for unit share community venturous clearly they do housekeeping and food and beverage units are traditional industry then it would fit whether or not they are different from the front desk just sharing similar terms and conditions of employment is not enough to require the board to put everyone together it does not show that the units are truly inappropriate they use the same parking lot they use the same cafeteria they clock in at the same time clock but they do not have the same supervision they do not have the same hours necessarily they don't do the same job so i'm not sure if your owners have additional questions for me on this issue did should we talk a little bit about the st case i think there was  some concern about the initial regional directors decision here and why the two cases are different or why they came out differently in the very st case the union petition for a combined petition for a combined unit of housekeeping and food and beverage leaving out the front desk the result director did the same analysis he did here do those two groups of employees share a creative interest yes same terms and conditions of employment same parking lot same time quite the same general manager but when you compare them to the front debts that's when the difference is appear because the front desk also uses the same time clock same cafeteria same parking lot have almost the same terms and conditions of employment  i'm sorry how so i was just looking looking through the materials here and it does seem that they raised this question about the departure the regional directors departure from board precedence before the board in its request for review they say they're in one of their headers and then have further discussion substantial question exists concerning the legality of the unit based on the r d s departure from the board's president so it does seem that they raised it before the board and my apologies is sometimes those requests for you can be a little long and i don't remember everything i think the regional director here adequately distinguished  the president remember hotel cases almost every unit the germination case they were decided on the facts and had decided on a case by case basis and the regional director was very clear about why he made the functional integration decision he made in this case he relied on cases that are very similar this case and the fact that he didn't distinguish very specific cases i don't think that that that does not show that he didn't do his due diligence in reviewing the law in this area and applying that law to these facts which show that there is not enough functional integration to require the board to find that individual units of housekeepers and booed and beverages are truly inappropriate remember it just has to be an appropriate unit for bargaining what was the original director's rationale for not including the front desk employees in either beverage were the housekeeping units his st of all you start with the petition for your right so that's your starting place and the front desk employees have no more community of interest with either group they have there they have similar terms and conditions of employment but there's nothing that rick were acquired them to be in either in either group they are separately supervised from the housekeeping employees there in the same room division but the room division has no manager they are each supervised by a separate either the front desk supervisor or the housekeeping supervisor and those inconsistent with the original decision say you had to include the front desk please the original decision said that you couldn't have a you couldn't have a unit that was just that was a combined housekeeping and food and beverage without the front desk because what they share what all three groups share are the same that makes sense i'm thinking of the blue ma shares those same thing but each group also has its own internal community of interest which makes all three groups different from each other so if you take two of those groups and put them together what they share they also share with the rd group so if you put front desk and food and beverage together they do share some terms and conditions of employment and some community ventures factors but what they share they also share with  the differences between the thirty three groups outweigh those similarities that's the basis of the board's findings in the st i'd like to this rock is heavier than that string is a long form if you want to put it that way right i sharing the same some of the same terms and conditions of employment because remember the front desk now has lower higher wages and lower medical costs ok i got your ok thank you there on work so to respond to what i think i understand is yours argument it said to the regional director you're just like ramada of beverly hills and the board never said no you're not what it did was just cite its decisions that discussed ramana beverly hills model atlanta and a number of other hotel identifying the factors the board interpreted those precedents to focus on what i think i hear an argument i'll ask counsel for the titian or is that and i heard my colleague discuss a supreme court case that wasn't cited either but to the board but the question is from the point of view of this court's review of the board's decision is it legal error in the sense of being if the board cites to us already distinguishing it's precedent but doesn't specifically say and your role i answer saying that you're exactly even saying and i'm out of beverly hills case on which to rely even though in the cases we did cite we pointed out why beverly hills is different i just want to be sure what we're saying the board has to do in response to the type of argument that was raised before the board by petitioner as to beverly hills right i've i don't know of any case that were required the board to specifically address every single case race the board is required to make to do rizieq reasoned decision making and on this record i don't think that can be the regional director reviewed multiple cases and laid out all of the factors that the board traditionally relies on in making community of interest decisions and as you point out in her rogers went through cases that ha cite its president including that precedent on which titian era lives where petitioner is saying essentially we're just like beverly hills i'm just trying to understand what the administrative principle would be here in that regard because that's sort of what i hear the scouts arguing today and it's great you didn't talk about beverly hills therefore your decision that may in fact be a better question for petitioners counsel well i don't know of any administer i'm sorry i just wanted to be sure since i won't be coming back to you i am going to ask the tissues counsel but based on the questions from my colleagues and me to be sure we understood the argument that petitions counsel is making i wanted you to have not to say why that principle either is required or isn't required i don't believe it is required your honor i mean that the board is required to engage in reason decision making i don't know of any case that requires the board  in a case where it is reviewing totality of circumstances tests to determine unit determinations that it has to address very specific cases of course if this were a case where someone raised p c c structuralism the board somehow didn't address the underlying you know determination testament's case that's a different issue but we're talking about very specific factual cases that the board i don't i don't know  administrative law principle that would require the board to literally distinguish every single case that every single case that's i'm trying to distinguish on the dictionary says you're wrong you're wrong for all kinds of reasons and says your decision is inconsistent with beverly hills and the board's response is look at what we've said about beverly hills and all these other cases in this opinion and they  that is enough your honor so my colleagues have any further question thank you all right intervener comes next i believe yes thank you so st i'd like to situate the two cases that the employer relies primarily upon from our beverly hills and atlanta hilton within the con the historical context of and i want to be decision making in this area  for fifty years since at least one thousand nine hundred and seventy the n l r b has found regularly consistently that front desk employees are different they're different because they don't do the manual labor that housekeepers and and food and beverage employees engage in and if you look at the cases the party sites and the cases cited within those cases by a margin of about two  that this is a case where there has been remarkable consistency pappas and also so the original decision by the original director was wrong that but the regional director found that the commonalities between those two groups of employees were also shared with front desk employees and so would make sense to have those t o to the exclusion of the rd they would have a that that didn't make sense the regional director and that's consistent with the nd decision because once you separate those groups out there internal communities of interest do differ enough from each other group that they can be bargained separately and that's what's important here is are we going to have a stable partnering relationship is the union securing the  the collective goods for each group of employees that makes sense we housekeepers have different interests from food and beverage employees and who have different interests from front desk employees  and so that's what's and porton to to keep in mind here so not only is there consistency across fifty years of case law there's consistency between the two decisions the regional director housekeeping employees they work alone and room they they have different tools they deal with with cleaners and so these are common areas that a union would bargain over that it wouldn't bargain over you know with with front desk employees and so we the internal interests of each group are distinct and can be bargained separately to the employer's point that these will be functionally treated as a single unit that is not supported by the record and in fact if the employer insisted that they be bargained separately the union would have to do that they had it has a duty to bargain for each unit that's what a bargaining unit is so if the employee doesn't want them to be treated as one  it doesn't have to it would be an unfair labor practice for the for the union to insist on  go through with benefits changes we look at those cases banner care at mercy hospital that is absolutely not true if those were scheduled the employer couldn't go through with them and in fact that charge was dismissed because  the region found that those wage increases and benefits changes had not been scheduled so we're left with discretionary wage increases that the employer gave to only front desk employees it's treated them differently  shows they have a different community of interest i see that my time is up if you have more questions i'd be happy to address  i don't see any question counsel for  you like to offer a bottle of st i'd like to on mute and now i'd like to offer rebuttal and i want to start with the question that you asked my colleague miss as well and that is when does the board have to address a president and you know mrs pell said i think what is essentially the right test that has to be reasoned decision making by the board but she also noted that you can't ignore the elephant in the room she said you can't ignore p c c structural zhan community of interest for example because it's just too important and i agree with that as well and in this case ramana beverly hills is that important due to the clo similarities between the facts of the davidson hotel in chicago and ramada beverly hills i don't think that there is a i mean we're dealing a lot with standards in this case as opposed to rules and i don't think that there is a crystal clear rule about when a specific case has to be addressed but when it's as close as ramada beverly hills is to this case for the board's decision to be rescind it does have to address that the rational director what i'm trying to focus on and i think you misunderstood my question to respondent my point is that if in this case the employers and we are just like ramada beverly cases in this same area will tell cases are you saying that there can be no reason decision making when the board does that because there must be a separate statements pacifically saying this case is not ramana beverly hills in this case because it's so close i think that there does need to be a separate statement i don't think that's a general rule for every case but if you look at the regional directors decisions on cheney three o four continuing on through j h three  and then another case on day three and so the court cites to its date decision which discusses the one decision why isn't that adequate  d decision making and your responses no there has to be a separate paragraph on day one case and i'm trying to understand what the rationale is behind that rationale is due to how similar the facts of the case day to day one case in your hypothetical and the instant cases that's the distinguishing factor i see that i'm out of time i had a few other brief points if the court is interested in hearing them but if not i would rest first i'd like to address the point about the internal communities of interest within food and beverage and housekeeping many of those were not in fact you know white interests mrs bill mentioned the alcohol training that's something that some parts of the food and beverage units got like the servers and the bartenders but not other parts of the unit like the cooks and the stewards so those aren't the type of communities of interest that could outweigh the strong interest the front desk employees with the same terms and conditions of employment share with other members in the unit and five and finally back to ramada beverly hills there was some question about the degree of interchange and again the facts are very similar in that case there was a evidence of the bell staff assisting the housekeepers that happens with regard to the bell staff at this hotel which there's undisputed also share responsibility for cleaning the parts of the hotel where they work there's mention of for of assistance between the food and beverage and in this case there were substantial assistance with front desk and food and beverage for banquet events there was one employee who worked i believe one hundred and fifty hours front desk employee who worked one hundred and fifty hours in the food and beverage banquets business over a two year period relevant to the organizing you know these sort of pic distinctions in the facts every hotel is a little bit different just like every fingerprints a little bit different but those type of tecate unfactual distinctions are not a reason basis for distinguishing the cases thank you thank you we'll take the case