[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 239 (Tuesday, December 14, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 74541-74542]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-27344]


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NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

[53 FR 10305]


Merger of Regional Offices

AGENCY: National Labor Relations Board.

ACTION: Final notice.

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    Notice of change in status of the Milwaukee Regional Office to 
Subregional Office (Subregion 30) of the Minneapolis Regional Office 
and transfer of supervision over the Des Moines Resident Office from 
the Minneapolis Regional Office to the Kansas City Regional Office.
SUMMARY: The National Labor Relations Board is reorganizing the 
structure of its office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to restructure it from 
a Regional Office to a subregion of the Minneapolis Regional Office. As 
part of this reorganization, the supervision of the Des Moines Resident 
Office will be transferred from the Minneapolis Regional Office to the 
Kansas City Regional Office. The National Labor Relations Board is 
revising its Statement of Organization and Functions accordingly.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The National Labor Relations Board has 
decided to restructure the status of the Agency's Milwaukee office from 
a Regional Office to a Subregion of the Minneapolis Regional Office and 
to transfer supervision of the Des Moines Resident Office from the 
Minneapolis Regional Office to the Kansas City Regional Office. These 
change are prompted by a decline in unfair labor practice and 
representation case filings in the Minneapolis and Milwaukee offices 
and a desire to equalize caseload and case management responsibilities 
in the three contiguous NLRB regions.
    Twenty-four comments were received in response to the notice of 
proposed merger published in the Federal Register on June 2, 2004. 
Those comments exclusively addressed the merger of Region 18 
(Minneapolis) and Region 30 (Milwaukee). Each of the comments opposed 
the action proposed. The reasons advanced by the comments can be 
summarized as follows:
    1. Access by Wisconsin practitioners to the Regional Director 
deciding their cases will be impeded and representatives will lose 
their ability to advocate directly to the Regional Director.
    2. The addition of Milwaukee's caseload to Region 18 will create 
overload and slow down case decisions.
    3. Combining the offices to save the cost of a Regional Director 
salary is not sufficient to justify the change and will be offset by 
such costs as travel between the offices and transportation of files.
    4. Insofar as the proposal is based upon a decline in case intake 
in Region 30, that decline is transient and case intake will increase 
in the future.
    5. Having a smaller office absorb a larger office seems justified 
only because the Milwaukee Regional Director position is currently 
vacant, not a logical rationale for a decision to reorganize.
    6. There are other small offices (Regions 11 (Winston-Salem), 15 
(New Orleans) and 34 (Hartford)) that are not being consolidated.
    7. The merger will have a deleterious effect on promotional 
opportunities and the morale and retention of Milwaukee employees.
    The comments received were carefully considered. The Board 
(Chairman Robert J. Battista and Members Peter C. Schaumber and Ronald 
Meisburg; Members Liebman and Walsh dissenting) has approved the merger 
and restructuring set forth in the proposed notice of merger. The Board 
majority has confidence that the concerns raised by the comments will 
be addressed productively and successfully by the staffs of the 
Minneapolis and Milwaukee offices with the cooperation of the 
management-labor bar and the labor-relations communities in the State 
of Wisconsin. The Board majority also noted that similar concerns have 
been successfully addressed in other prior restructuring efforts; 
advances in technology have made communication far easier and will 
allow the Regional Director in Minneapolis to establish and maintain 
close relations with the Milwaukee Office and stakeholders of the 
Agency in Wisconsin; that the increased size of the case intake of the

[[Page 74542]]

restructured Region will not negatively impact on the quality or 
efficiency of case processing; that the merged region will be a mid-
level region in terms of intake and staffing level; and that while not 
dramatic, the cost savings to be realized by the merger are not 
insubstantial.
    The Milwaukee Subregional Office will be headed by an Officer-in-
Charge who will report to the Regional Director in Minneapolis. This 
change will vest the Regional Director in the Minneapolis Regional 
Office with casehandling authority for the geographic area covered by 
the Milwaukee Subregional Office. The geographic area covered by the 
Milwaukee Subregion will be the same as that covered by the Milwaukee 
Regional Office. The Statement of Organization and Functions published 
at 53 FR 10305-10308 on March 30, 1998, is revised to reflect the 
addition of Subregion 30, the elimination of Region 30 and the transfer 
of the territory in the State of Iowa served by the Des Moines Resident 
Office from Region 18, Minneapolis, to Region 17, Kansas City.
    EFFECTIVE DATE: The changes announced above shall be effective on 
January 13, 2005.

    Dated: Washington, DC December 9, 2004.
    By direction of the Board.
Lester A. Heltzer,
Executive Secretary.
[FR Doc. 04-27344 Filed 12-13-04; 8:45 am]
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