Opinion ID: 790046
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Authority to Adjust Grievances

Text: 40 PSC also contends that the revenue-protection workers are supervisors because they exercise independent judgment to adjust ... grievances, or effectively to recommend such action. 29 U.S.C. § 152(11). The Regional Director, however, concluded that the revenue-protection workers' role in the grievance procedure is limited to communicating to management the basis of a bonus decision. Testimony at the hearing before the hearing officer established that the revenue-protection workers have no authority to grant, deny, or compromise grievances, and that they had never participated in a grievance meeting. It is not enough that a grievance challenging a bonus may effectively be decided by reliance on the revenue-protection worker's calculation of unmetered usage. As with the time-study workers in Brown & Sharpe, the revenue-protection workers do not participate in negotiations leading to settlement of the dispute. 169 F.2d at 332. And providing expert testimony for a grievance proceeding does not constitute adjustment of a grievance under 29 U.S.C. § 152(11). See id. at 334. Perhaps revenue-protection workers occasionally respond to informal complaints from workers seeking bonuses. But [t]here is a qualitative difference between adjustment of `grievances' and corrections of mere mistakes when an employee calls attention to them. NLRB v. Sheet Metal Workers Int'l Ass'n, Local 104, 64 F.3d 465, 469 (9th Cir.1995) (correcting travel pay). The record supports the Board's rejection of the contention that the revenue-protection workers were supervisors on the ground that they adjusted, or effectively recommended adjusting, grievances.