United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 16, 2020 Decided July 30, 2021

No. 20-1032

ALASKA COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS HOLDINGS, INC.,

PETITIONER

v.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with 20-1069

On Petition for Review and Cross-Application

for Enforcement of an Order of

the National Labor Relations Board

Daniel A. Adlong argued the cause for petitioner. On the 

briefs were Matthew J. Kelley and Kenneth B. Siepman. 

Christopher C. Murray entered an appearance.

Brady Francisco-FitzMaurice, Attorney, National Labor 

Relations Board, argued the cause for respondent. With him 

on the brief were Ruth E. Burdick, Acting Deputy Associate 

General Counsel, David S. Habenstreit, Assistant General 

Counsel, and Usha Dheenan, Supervisory Attorney.
2

Before: SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge, HENDERSON and 

MILLETT, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SRINIVASAN.

SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge: Alaska Communications 

Systems Holdings, Inc. provides telecommunications services 

throughout Alaska and in Oregon. While most of the 

company’s employees are based in Alaska, some are in 

Oregon. Before the proceedings in this case, the union that 

represents a majority of the company’s employees did not 

represent any of the Oregon-based employees. The union then 

sought to hold a representation election among a subset of the 

Oregon-based employees. The National Labor Relations 

Board certified a voting group that differed slightly from the 

petitioned-for unit, and that group voted to join the preexisting 

bargaining unit.

The company now challenges the Board’s certification of 

the voting group. We conclude that the Board permissibly 

adjusted the composition of the voting group and permissibly 

determined that the group shares a community of interest with 

the preexisting bargaining unit it voted to join. We thus reject 

the company’s challenges.

I.

A.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act guarantees 

employees the right to “bargain collectively through 

representatives of their own choosing.” 29 U.S.C. § 157. 

Under Section 9, representatives “selected for the purposes of 

collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit 

appropriate for such purposes[] shall be the exclusive 
3

representatives of all the employees in such unit.” Id. § 159(a). 

The Act tasks the Board with deciding “in each case . . . the 

unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.” Id.

§ 159(b).

The Act also sets out the procedures the Board uses to 

determine an appropriate bargaining unit. After a labor union 

files a petition for a representation election, if the Board 

determines that the petitioned-for unit is appropriate, the Board 

orders an election in which employees in the unit vote on 

whether to select union representation. See id. § 159(c). If the 

Board, though, determines that the petitioned-for unit is 

inappropriate, “the Board may examine the alternative units 

suggested by the parties, but it also has the discretion to select 

an appropriate unit that is different from the alternative 

proposals of the parties.” Bartlett Collins Co., 334 NLRB 484, 

484 (2001).

This case involves a “self-determination” election, in 

which a union petitions to “add residual employees to an 

already existing unit rather than to create a new unit.” Rush 

Univ. Med. Ctr. v. NLRB, 833 F.3d 202, 205 (D.C. Cir. 2016). 

In such an election, employees unrepresented by a union vote 

on whether to join a preexisting unit of represented employees. 

The Board’s approval of a self-determination election is 

contingent on, among other things, a determination that the 

voting group and the preexisting unit share a “community of 

interest.” See id.

B.

Alaska Communications Systems Holdings, Inc. (the 

Company) provides a range of telecommunications services, 

including landline telephone, internet service, fiber optic data 

transport, and more. The Company is principally based in 
4

Alaska but also has an office and employees in Oregon. Before 

the proceedings in this case, approximately 320 of the 

Company’s 580 employees were represented by the 

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1547

(the Union) in a bargaining unit known as the Alaska Unit. 

Until these proceedings, none of the Company’s Oregon-based 

employees belonged to a union.

In Alaska, the Company provides local exchange carrier 

services, commercial and residential internet service, and data 

transport services. The Alaska-based group responsible for 

remote network monitoring is called the Integrated Network 

Management Center. The Center remotely monitors the 

Company’s vast network in Alaska, as well as certain 

equipment located in Oregon and Washington. The Alaska 

group responsible for physically tending to the Company’s 

cables throughout Alaska is called the Network Engineering 

group.

The Company’s Oregon branch is headquartered in 

Hillsboro, near Portland. The organization of the Oregonbased operations resembles that of the Alaska-based 

operations. The Cable Systems Group consists of two subgroups: the Network Operations Center remotely monitors the 

telecommunications networks, and the Cable Operations 

department physically maintains the Company’s cables.

The Network Operations Center includes only Oregonbased employees. They remotely monitor the Company’s 

network in Oregon, its cables running across the Pacific Ocean 

between Alaska and Oregon, and a line in northern Alaska. The 

Cable Operations department, meanwhile, has five employees 

in Oregon and two in Alaska. That department tends to the 

Company cables’ landing stations in Oregon and Alaska. The 

Alaska landing stations are serviced by Jacob Kelley and 
5

Stephen Huff, the two employees stationed in Alaska. They

work on equipment throughout Alaska, including servicing the 

line in northern Alaska. Prior to these proceedings, Kelley and 

Huff did not belong to the Union.

The Company’s Alaska and Oregon operations are 

overseen by common management. The Company’s Vice 

Presidentsupervises Thomas Brewer and Greg Tooke. Brewer, 

whose primary office is in Anchorage, oversees the network 

monitoring groups in both Anchorage and Hillsboro. And 

Tooke, who is also primarily stationed in Anchorage, oversees 

the cable operations groups, which consist of the Alaska-based 

Network Engineering group and the Oregon-based Cable 

Operations department.

Under Brewer, Network Operations consists of seven 

employees, including Jeffrey Holmes and six employees who 

report to Holmes. Under Tooke, Cable Operations consists of 

seven employees, including Anatoliy Pavlenko and six 

employees who report to him. That group of six employees is 

made up of four Oregon-based employees, as well as Kelley 

and Huff, the two Anchorage-based technicians. Both Brewer 

and Tooke spend some time working in Oregon.

C.

In 2018, the Union filed a petition seeking a representation 

election among a group of the Company’s Oregon-based 

employees. The petitioned-for unit encompassed twelve Cable 

Systems Group employees, including both Holmes and 

Pavlenko. The lone Cable Systems Group employees excluded 

from the unit were the Alaska-based Kelley and Huff.

The Company opposed the petition on two grounds. First, 

the Company contended that Holmes and Pavlenko were 
6

supervisors and thus were ineligible employees under the Act. 

See 29 U.S.C. § 152(11). Second, the Company argued that the 

petitioned-for unit did not share a community of interest with 

the existing Alaska Unit.

Following hearings spanning multiple days, the Regional 

Director issued a Decision and Direction of Election. The

Regional Director credited the Company’s first objection and 

excluded Holmes and Pavlenko from the voting group because 

they were supervisors. The Regional Director further found 

that excluding Kelley and Huff—the sole Cable Systems Group 

employees not included in the unit—“would unduly fragment 

the workforce and render the proposed Voting Group an 

irrational and indistinct one.” Reg’l Dir.’s Decision &

Direction of Election at 23, J.A. 427. The Regional Director 

explained that the record adduced at the hearing “includes

ample evidence” to justify the inclusion of those two Alaskabased employees in the voting group. Id. at 23 n.30. The 

Regional Director then applied the Board’s community-ofinterest standard and concluded that the voting group—

consisting of the petitioned-for unit, but with Kelley and Huff 

replacing Holmes and Pavlenko—was an appropriate unit.

The Board denied the Company’s request for review.

Although the Board modified certain of the Regional Director’s 

findings, the Board agreed with the Regional Director’s 

ultimate conclusion that the selected unit shared a community 

of interest with the Alaska Unit.

The approved voting group held a self-determination 

election and voted to join the Alaska Unit. The Regional 

Director then certified the Union as the exclusive collectivebargaining representative of the voting group.
7

To enable judicial review of the Board’s certification 

decision, see, e.g., Ozark Auto. Distribs., Inc. v. NLRB, 779 

F.3d 576, 579–80 (D.C. Cir. 2015), the Company refused to 

bargain with the Union over the Cable System Group’s terms 

of employment. The Board’s General Counsel issued an 

unfair-labor-practice complaint and later moved for summary 

judgment, which the Board granted. The Company filed a 

timely petition for review in our court, and the Board filed a 

cross-application for enforcement of its order.

II.

“[W]e will uphold the Board’s decision if its ruling is not 

arbitrary, capricious, or founded on an erroneous application of 

the law, and if its factual findings are supported by substantial 

evidence.” Advanced Life Sys. Inc. v. NLRB, 898 F.3d 38, 43 

(D.C. Cir. 2018). We “accord the Board an especially wide 

degree of discretion on questions of representation.” Rush 

Univ. Med. Ctr., 833 F.3d at 206 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The Board’s “broad” discretion “in this area . . . 

reflect[s] Congress’ recognition of the need for flexibility in 

shaping the bargaining unit to the particular case.” Dodge of 

Naperville, Inc. v. NLRB, 796 F.3d 31, 38 (D.C. Cir. 2015) 

(quoting Serramonte Oldsmobile, Inc. v. NLRB, 86 F.3d 227, 

236 (D.C. Cir. 1996)). When reviewing the Board’s findings 

of fact under the substantial evidence standard, we reverse 

“only when the record is so compelling that no reasonable 

factfinder could fail to find to the contrary.” Inova Health Sys. 

v. NLRB, 795 F.3d 68, 80 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Bally’s 

Park Place, Inc. v. NLRB, 646 F.3d 929, 935 (D.C. Cir. 2011)).

Before turning to the merits of the company’s challenges, 

we note that a pending lawsuit in the Court of Appeals for the 

Ninth Circuit involving the same factual background poses no 

obstacle to our deciding this case. See Int’l Brotherhood of 
8

Elec. Workers, Local 1547 v. Alaska Commc’ns Sys. Holdings, 

Inc., 424 F. Supp. 3d 598 (D. Alaska 2019), appeal docketed, 

No. 20-35021 (9th Cir. Jan. 14, 2020). That litigation, filed 

directly by the Union, stems from an effort to arbitrate the 

dispute between the Union and the Company under the terms 

of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement. See 424 F. 

Supp. 3d at 602. The Board—which is seeking to enforce its 

order against the Company here—is not a party to that separate 

litigation. And the Company, the only common party between 

the two lawsuits, does not object to our deciding this appeal. 

See Oral Argument at 12:30–19:00.

A.

The Company first argues that the Board acted unlawfully 

in various ways when it modified the petitioned-for unit to 

include Kelley and Huff, the two Alaska-based employees in 

the Cable Systems Group. We find no merit in the Company’s 

arguments.

1.

Section 102.66(d) of the Board’s regulations precludes

parties from “raising any issue, presenting any evidence 

relating to any issue, cross-examining any witness concerning 

any issue, and presenting argument concerning any issue that 

the party failed to raise in its timely Statement of Position or to 

place in dispute in response to another party’s Statement of 

Position.” 29 C.F.R. § 102.66(d) (2017). The Company argues 

that the Union violated that rule by belatedly attempting to 

include Kelley and Huff in the voting group.

The Company’s argument stems from a mistaken premise: 

the Company itself, rather than the Union, introduced the 

notion that excluding Kelley and Huff from the voting group
9

would be improper. The Union initially sought to incorporate 

only the Oregon-based Cable Systems Group employees into 

the existing Alaska Unit. The Company responded by 

challenging whether a sufficient community of interest existed 

between those employees and the existing unit. Then, at the 

hearing, the Company repeatedly elicited testimony suggesting 

that the petitioned-for unit would be inappropriate without 

Kelley and Huff’s inclusion. The Hearing Officer then asked 

the Union if it wished to proceed to an election with an 

alternative unit if the petitioned-for unit was found 

inappropriate by the Regional Director or the Board. In 

response, the Union deferred to the Board’s authority to select 

an appropriate unit. The Union thus did not raise the issue of 

Kelley and Huff’s inclusion, and the rule cited by the Company

has no bearing on the Board’s decision to add the two 

employees.

The Company next attempts to reframe its procedural 

challenge by arguing that the Board violated its rules by 

recognizing an alternate unit not proposed by either party and 

without affirmatively soliciting evidence on that unit. Nothing 

in the Board’s rules, however, constrains its authority to 

identify an appropriate unit not presented by the parties. To the 

contrary, while Section 102.66(d) precludes a party from 

raising arguments not made in its Statement of Position, 

another subsection expressly preserves “the regional director’s 

discretion to direct the receipt of evidence concerning any 

issue, such as the appropriateness of the proposed unit, as to 

which the regional director determines that record evidence is 

necessary.” Id. § 102.66(b) (2017). 

That rule “ensures that the Board will have sufficient 

evidence in the record to make an appropriate unit 

determination,” as “it is the Board’s responsibility under 

Section 9(b) of the Act to make appropriate unit 
10

determinations.” Representation—Case Procedures, 79 Fed. 

Reg. 74,308, 74,365 (Dec. 15, 2014). Accordingly, the 

Company errs insofar as it suggests that the Board’s 

recognition of a bargaining unit not proposed by the parties 

exceeds the Board’s authority under the statute: the Act calls 

for the Board, not the parties, to “decide in each case” a “unit 

appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.” 29 

U.S.C. § 159(b); see State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. NLRB, 

411 F.2d 356, 361 (7th Cir. 1969) (en banc) (“The Board’s 

determination is not confined to the units suggested by the 

parties, but it may choose any unit which it reasonably deems 

appropriate.”). 

With regard to the solicitation of evidence about an 

alternate unit, the Act requires the Board to “provide for an 

appropriate hearing” when representation questions arise. 29 

U.S.C. § 159(c)(1). And the Board’s regulations require the 

Hearing Officer to “inquire fully into all matters and issues 

necessary to obtain a full and complete record.” 29 C.F.R. 

§ 102.64(b) (2017). Here, the Company presented extensive 

evidence at the hearing about the two Alaska-based employees 

and their relationship with the rest of the Cable Systems Group. 

In that context, the fact that the Hearing Officer did not 

expressly solicit evidence about the alternative unit caused no 

discernible prejudice to the Company. Indeed, despite

challenging the Regional Director’s decision before the Board 

and again in this court, the Company “suggests no specific 

information that it was foreclosed from presenting that 

contradicts the NLRB’s findings.” NLRB v. Lake Cnty. Ass’n 

for the Retarded, Inc., 128 F.3d 1181, 1185 n.2 (7th Cir. 1997).

The Company relatedly suggeststhat, because it ostensibly 

received inadequate notice of possible bargaining units, the 

Board’s unit-selection procedures failed to provide an

“appropriate hearing” within the meaning of Section 9(c) of the 
11

Act. 29 U.S.C. § 159(c)(1). But the Board held two sets of 

multiday hearings on the record about the appropriate 

bargaining unit, and the Board collected extensive evidence 

from the parties about that determination. It was only after the 

Company raised the issue of Kelley and Huff’s exclusion from 

the unit that the Board determined they were integral to an 

appropriate unit. The Board’s process wasfully consistent with 

its duty under the Act to “provide for an appropriate hearing 

upon due notice.” Id.

2.

The Company next argues that the Board’s procedures

deprived the Company of due process. “The fundamental 

requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard” 

at “a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.” Goldberg 

v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 267 (1970) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). As noted, Section 9(c) of Act provides for such a 

hearing. See 29 U.S.C. § 159(c)(1). The Company does not 

dispute that “the parties spent seven days at hearing, generating 

over 1,300 pages of transcript and submitting dozens of 

exhibits,” and that the “Regional Director also allowed the 

Parties to file post-hearing briefs.” Company Br. 26. Rather,

the Company contends that the Board acted unconstitutionally 

by including Kelley and Huff in the bargaining unit without 

providing appropriate notice.

“[T]he contours of due process are flexible and vary 

depending upon the circumstances of a given case.” Propert v. 

District of Columbia, 948 F.2d 1327, 1332 (D.C. Cir. 1991) 

(citing Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 127 (1990)). 

“[R]epresentation cases, unlike unfair labor practice cases, are 

not adversarial in nature but are fact-finding hearings.” 

Springfield Terrace, 355 NLRB 937, 940 (2010); accord NLRB 

v. ARA Servs., Inc., 717 F.2d 57, 64 (3d Cir. 1983) (en banc). 
12

A representation hearing “is designed primarily to enable the 

Board to fulfill its statutory function with respect to the 

certification of bargaining representatives.” State Farm Mut. 

Auto. Ins. Co., 411 F.2d at 360. And in that investigatory 

context, “all persons concerned have the duty to produce all 

information relevant to the issue.” Id. at 360–61. In that 

setting, the Board was not obligated to provide explicit notice 

to the Company of every possible alternate unit it might 

consider, especially when the Company itself introduced 

evidence relating to the alternate unit ultimately chosen by the 

Board.

Given the non-adversarial nature of the representation 

hearing, the Company’s appeal to cases involving the Board’s 

finding of an unfair labor practice without providing adequate 

notice is inapposite. This case, for instance, is quite unlike 

NLRB v. Blake Constr. Co., 663 F.2d 272 (D.C. Cir. 1981), in 

which we held that the Board violated an employer’s due 

process rights when it found the employer had committed an 

unfair labor practice that was neither alleged in the complaint 

nor fully litigated. See id. at 280. Here, the Company was not 

charged with any violation at the time of the hearing. Rather, 

the hearing was meant to investigate which set of employees 

constituted an appropriate bargaining unit so that the Board 

could fulfill its statutory mandate to select an appropriate unit. 

See 29 U.S.C. § 159.

B.

The Company’s other main challenge is to the Board’s 

conclusion that the voting group shares a community of interest 

with the preexisting Alaska Unit. We hold that the Board’s 

conclusion is supported by substantial evidence.
13

A self-determination election “permits employees sharing 

a community of interest with an already represented unit of 

employees to vote whether they wish to be added to the existing 

unit.” Rush Univ. Med. Ctr., 833 F.3d at 205 (quoting St. 

Vincent Charity Med. Ctr., 357 NLRB 854, 855 (2011)). Such 

an election is warranted when (i) the “employees to be added 

constitute an identifiable, distinct segment” of the 

unrepresented employees, and (ii) the “employees to be 

included share a community of interest” with employees in the 

preexisting unit. Id. at 209 (quoting Warner-Lambert Co., 298 

NLRB 993, 995 (1990)). The first prong is not in dispute in 

this case. The sole question is whether, under the second 

prong, the voting group shares a community of interest with the 

preexisting unit.

The Board considers a series of factors in examining that 

question. Specifically, the Board assesses whether the two sets 

of employees: are organized into a separate department; have 

distinct job functions and perform distinct work; are 

functionally integrated; have interchange and frequent contact 

with each other; have distinct skills and training and distinct 

terms and conditions of employment; and are separately 

supervised. PCC Structurals, Inc., 365 NLRB No. 160, 2017 

WL 6507219, at *13 (Dec. 15, 2017) (citing United 

Operations, Inc., 338 NLRB 123, 123 (2002)). And when, as 

here, the potential unit encompasses employees in different 

locations, the Board also examines “geographic proximity; 

centralized control of management and supervision; and 

bargaining history.” Alamo Rent-A-Car, 330 NLRB 897, 897 

(2000).

We see no basis for setting aside the Board’s determination 

that the factors relating to the employees’ organization within 

the Company weigh in favor of finding the requisite

community of interest. As the Board found, including the 
14

voting group within the existing Alaska Unit coheres with the 

Company’s departmental structure. The voting group is 

coextensive with the Cable Systems Group (aside from 

supervisors, whom the Board found to be ineligible), which the 

Company organizes together with the Alaska Unit under the 

broader Network Development and Engineering department. 

Thus, as the Regional Director explained, “[a]llowing the 

Cable Systems Group employees to vote in a selfdetermination election would not fracture the Alaska Unit. 

Instead, it would more closely ‘complete’ the Alaska Unit by 

integrating the additional statutory employees under the 

Network Development and Engineering umbrella.” Reg’l 

Dir.’s Decision & Direction of Election at 25, J.A. 429.

Relatedly, because the same managers—Brewer and 

Tooke—supervise both the voting group and the Alaska Unit, 

the Board reasonably determined that common supervision 

also supports finding a community of interest. True, working 

under Brewer and Tooke are Holmes and Pavlenko, who at 

least partially oversee only the voting group. But the record 

demonstrates that Brewer and Tooke, who oversee the Alaska 

Unit, also engage in some day-to-day supervision of the voting 

group.

Additionally, the Board permissibly viewed the factors 

relating to the employees’ duties and functional integration to 

fortify its finding of a community of interest. As the Board 

determined, there is significant overlap in job duties between 

the units, as well as some functional integration of the 

employees. Technicians at the Hillsboro Network Operations 

Center “have very similar skills and duties and must be 

proficient in the use of most of the same software as the 

Network Technicians in Anchorage.” Id. at 28. And the Cable 

Operations employees share many of the same responsibilities 

as the field technicians in the Alaska Unit, including installing, 
15

repairing, and maintaining network equipment. While the 

Cable Operations employees largely work separately from their 

counterparts in the Alaska Unit, the network monitoring groups 

work closely together on the same matters.

Substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that 

the two remaining factors in the ordinary community-ofinterest assessment—whether the two units have frequent 

interchange and contact and whether they share similar terms 

and conditions of employment—are neutral. With regard to the 

first of those factors, the two groups regularly worked together 

on issues relating to troubleshooting and network monitoring. 

While those contacts typically took place via phone and email

rather than in person, the nature of the network monitoring 

employees’ work lends itself to virtual contact instead of faceto-face collaboration.

The record also includes two examples of employees 

making permanent transfers between the Company’s Alaska 

and Oregon locations. This, then, is not a case like NLRB v. 

Tito Contractors, Inc., 847 F.3d 724 (D.C. Cir. 2017), in which 

the Board disregarded the Regional Director’s finding that 

“[t]here [was] no evidence of any interchange between the 

recycling employees, or between the recycling employees and 

any other classification of employee.” Id. at 733 (alterations in 

original). In fact, the Board here corrected the Regional 

Director’s finding that there was evidence of temporary 

interchange between the Alaska and Oregon locations, 

explaining that the record did not support that conclusion. 

Based on that evidence, the Board permissibly assigned a 

neutral value to whether the two groups have frequent 

interchange and contact.

The same is true with regard to the employees’ terms and 

conditions of employment. On the one hand, the employees in 
16

both groups are paid on an hourly basis and earn comparable

hourly wages, and are subject to some universal Company 

policies and benefits. On the other hand, certain benefits—

including pensions and health insurance plans—vary between 

the groups. But differences with respect to terms and 

conditions of employment “may reasonably be expected” when 

unrepresented workers seek to join an existing bargaining unit, 

in which such items are governed by a labor contract. Dillon 

Cos., Inc. v. NLRB, 809 F. App’x 1, 2 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (quoting 

Pub. Serv. Co. of Colo., 365 NLRB No. 104, 2017 WL 

3115256, at *1 n.4 (July 5, 2017)). For that reason, the Board 

has previously explained that, in self-representation elections, 

differences in employment terms attributable to one group’s 

union membership should not weigh heavily against finding a 

community of interest. See Pub. Serv. Co. of Colo., 2017 WL 

3115256, at *1 n.4. It may be that the employees seeking to 

join the union hope to attain precisely the benefits enjoyed by 

their unionized colleagues.

Because the potential unit comprises employees in 

different locations, the Board also examined “geographic 

proximity; centralized control of management and supervision; 

and bargaining history.” Alamo Rent-A-Car, 330 NLRB at 

897. The Board’s conclusions with regard to those factors are 

supported by the record.

As the Board acknowledged, the lack of geographic 

proximity between most of the employees in the voting group 

and those in the Alaska Unit is the lone factor that weighs 

against finding a community of interest. With the exception of 

Kelley and Huff, the employees in the voting group are all 

based in Oregon, while the preexisting unit is based in Alaska. 

But the Board could permissibly conclude that the unique facts 

of this case temper the degree to which the distance between 

the groups militates against finding a community of interest. 
17

Two members of the voting group are stationed in Anchorage 

alongside many other employees in the Alaska Unit. And the 

nature of the Company’s operations lessens the salience of 

geographic distance in this case. The Company’s work 

requires it to have employees spread across large distances: it 

offers telecommunications services throughout the entirety of 

Alaska, and it maintains cables that run across the Pacific

Ocean from Alaska to Oregon. The Alaska Unit thus already 

included employees in far-flung portions of Alaska, some of 

which are more difficult to reach from Anchorage than is 

Hillsboro, Oregon.

With regard to the remaining two considerations—

centralized control of management and supervision and 

bargaining history—the Board permissibly found that the first 

supports the overall finding of a community of interest while 

the second factor is neutral. The record amply supports the 

Board’s determination (which the Company does not contest) 

that the Company exerts centralized control of management 

and supervision over both groups of employees. And the Board 

appropriately corrected the Regional Director’s determination 

that the employees’ bargaining history favored finding a 

community of interest. The Board recognized that “there is no 

bargaining history relevant to the community of interest 

analysis in the instant self-determination dispute, as the 

petitioned-for Cable Systems Group employees have never 

been represented by a labor union.” J.A. 440 n.1.

In sum, the Board appropriately considered the full record 

in concluding that the voting group shares a community of 

interest with the existing bargaining unit, and the Board took 

account of evidence that tended to cut against its finding. We 

thus hold that the Board’s ultimate finding of a community of 

interest is supported by substantial evidence.
18

* * * * *

For the foregoing reasons, we deny the petition for review 

and grant the Board’s cross-application for enforcement of its 

order.

So ordered.