Opinion ID: 2827787
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Managerial Exclusion

Text: Even if TSSs and STOCS do not qualify as supervisors, they may nonetheless fall within the Act's exclusion of managerial employees. The Supreme Court offered its most thorough guidance as to the scope of this exclusion in NLRB v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672 (1980). The Supreme Court held there that an employee may be excluded as managerial only if he represents management interests by taking or recommending discretionary actions that effectively control or implement employer policy. Id. at 683. The Court further explained that employees whose decisionmaking is limited to the routine discharge of professional duties in projects to which they have been assigned cannot be excluded from coverage, and that [o]nly if an employee's activities fall outside the scope of the duties routinely performed by similarly situated professionals will he be found aligned with management. Id. at 690. The Court also noted that, under this rule, architects and engineers functioning as project captains for work performed by teams of professionals are deemed employees despite substantial - 43 - planning responsibility and authority to direct and evaluate team members.19 Id. at 690 n.3. The Acting Regional Director found that the TSSs and STOCs were not managerial employees. NSTAR does not identify any legal error the Acting Regional Director made in interpreting this exclusion. The sole issue for us, therefore, is whether substantial evidence supports the Acting Regional Director's determination that NSTAR failed to meet its burden of showing that TSSs and STOCs are managerial, as the Acting Regional Director applied that term. We conclude that substantial evidence does support that finding.
NSTAR contends that TSSs are managerial employees because the record shows they may purchase additional electrical generation on behalf of NSTAR, revise standard operating 19 Kentucky River did hold, with respect to the separate statutory exclusion of supervisors, that the fact that judgment was professional or technical was irrelevant to whether it was independent as that word is used in the supervisor definition. 532 U.S. at 713. The managerial exception, however, is simply a gloss on the meaning of the word employee and does not involve the word independent at all. There is thus no reason to believe that Kentucky River undermined this portion of Yeshiva University. Cf. Evergreen Am. Corp. v. NLRB, 362 F.3d 827, 838 (D.C. Cir. 2004). And in any event, NSTAR makes no argument that Kentucky River did have that effect. - 44 - procedures, and their loyalty lies with management, not the rankand-file.20 We consider each contention in turn. With respect to TSSs' power to purchase electricity, the Acting Regional Director concluded that their occasional actions in . . . requesting excess generation from utilities d[id] not rise to the level of formulating and effectuating management policies. The Acting Regional Director thus distinguished TSSs from workers that the Board had found to be managers based on their purchasing power. See Simplex Indus., Inc., 243 N.L.R.B. 111, 112-13 (1979); Cent. Me. Power Co., 151 N.L.R.B. 42, 44 (1965). In those cases, the Acting Regional Director explained, the workers' purchasing power had been more significant than the TSSs' power, and less guided by employer policies. NSTAR challenges the Acting Regional Director's finding only by contending that the Acting Regional Director erred in distinguishing Simplex Industries and Central Maine Power. NSTAR contends that in this case, as in those, there was no evidence of 20 As for TSSs' authority to shed load, which is unquestionably of great significance to NSTAR, we note that the record shows, and NSTAR concedes, that regulations required NSTAR to give such authority to the TSSs. That suggests that under the Supreme Court's Yeshiva University decision, the TSSs' possession of such authority is not beyond the scope of the duties routinely performed by similarly situated professionals and as such not managerial. 444 U.S. at 690. In any event, NSTAR does not mention load shedding in contending that the TSSs are managers in its brief to us, and so NSTAR has waived any contrary argument. Zannino, 895 F.2d at 17. - 45 - an employer policy governing the purchases at issue. But we conclude that substantial evidence supports the Acting Regional Director's conclusion that the workers in Simplex Industries and Central Maine Power are distinguishable from the TSSs. The record indicates that TSSs' authority to purchase power is very different from the authority of the workers in Simplex Industries and Central Maine Power. The workers in those cases had the authority to make discretionary purchases that, in the workers' views, would best serve their employer's economic needs. See Simplex Indus., 243 N.L.R.B. at 112-13; Cent. Me. Power, 151 N.L.R.B. at 44. TSSs' purchasing authority involves no similar discretionary exercise of unguided economic judgment about how to serve their employer's financial interests. To the contrary, the record suggests that TSSs have the authority to purchase power only when doing so is necessary to alleviate instability in the transmission system. In fact, there was testimony that TSSs were instructed to affirmatively ignore the financial impact of all their choices.21 A TSS testified that economic consideration played [v]ery little . . . I would almost say no[] role in his decision-making, because, under their 21 The extent of that impact is, in any event, unclear. The TSSs' manager, Conlon, testified that the TSSs decide whether to purchase additional electrical power to ensure a stable transmission system, which has the effect of bringing on a more expensive unit. But the record does not reflect how often such purchases occur, or how financially significant they are to NSTAR. - 46 - regulatory license we're supposed to operate the system reliably and safely and not factor in economics to any decisions we make. And in the sole example in the record of a TSS having purchased power, the TSS did so because a piece of NSTAR's transmission equipment had malfunctioned and caused overloading of NSTAR's other transmission equipment, which the purchase of electricity alleviated. We thus conclude that the Acting Regional Director reasonably determined TSSs' limited purchasing authority -- unlike the more discretionary authority involved in Central Maine Power and Simplex Industries -- d[id] not rise to the level of formulating and effectuating management policies. And our conclusion is reinforced by this Court's decision in Northeast Utilities, which likewise involved electrical workers who had some authority to purchase electricity. 35 F.3d at 626. In Northeast Utilities, this Court affirmed the Board's determination that pool coordinators responsible for buying and selling power among the member utilities as economically as possible while avoiding power outages were not managers. 35 F.3d at 623. We explained that operating policies that the coordinators did not set governed their purchasing decisions. Id. at 626. Beyond a common goal of keeping the lights on, we found no congruence of interests between the Company and the Coordinators sufficient to warrant the latter's exemption from the Act as - 47 - managers. Id. We conclude that the Acting Regional Director reasonably made the same determination with respect to TSSs. NSTAR next argues that TSSs' role in revising standard operating procedures makes them managers. But substantial evidence supports the Acting Regional Director's finding that such revisions were made according to, and consistent with, established policy, and that the TSSs do not possess the authority to set policies according to their own independent discretion. The TSSs' manager, Conlon, testified that TSSs had updated some guides containing certain of the standard operating procedures that TSSs follow. But no evidence reveals the form that the TSSs' work on updating such procedures took. And without such evidence, it is impossible to know whether the TSS were making new policy in updating an old procedure, or merely clarifying an existing policy. We therefore affirm the Acting Regional Director's conclusion that NSTAR failed to show, as was its burden, that TSSs' role in revising standard operating procedures involved the setting of management policy. Finally, NSTAR contends that the Acting Regional Director overlooked evidence about TSSs' own perspective about being managerial. NSTAR relies on a self-evaluation form that a - 48 - single TSS completed as part of his annual review.22 In that form, the TSS emphasized his efforts to [o]perate within [the] departmental operating and transmission budget and his aware[ness] of overtime and budgets. But such statements do not necessarily indicate that TSSs have a managerial status. Nor does NSTAR cite any case or Board decision finding comparable statements sufficient to make workers into managers. And thus, NSTAR's contention is inadequate to undermine the Acting Regional Director's decision that TSSs are not managerial employees.
NSTAR contends that the STOCs are managerial employees primarily due to their role in coordinating planned transmission system work. NSTAR also points to STOCs' role in revising standard operating procedures, and to STOCs' attendance at certain meetings. We begin with the coordinating issue. 22 While NSTAR relies solely on that single form, other indicia in the record -- TSSs' pay scales, severance packages, and attendance at certain meetings -- might reasonably be seen as suggesting a similar point, namely, that NSTAR treats TSSs differently from existing unionized employees, and expects different things from them. But such differential treatment does not establish that TSSs represent[] management interests by taking or recommending discretionary actions that effectively control or implement employer policy, as is necessary for them to be excluded from the Act's definition of employee. Yeshiva Univ., 444 U.S. at 683. - 49 - The record contains substantial evidence to support the Acting Regional Director's conclusion that STOCs' role does not rise to the level. . . of expressing and making operative decisions on behalf of the[ir] [e]mployer. In particular, the record shows that NSTAR's management policy concerning what transmission system work NSTAR will perform each year is contained in an annual work plan. And the record is clear that STOCs have no role in drafting this work plan.23 The record also contains substantial evidence supporting the Acting Regional Director's finding that any revisions to standard operating procedures that STOCs made did not involve setting management policy. Rather, the record shows that such revisions involved changing the written operating procedures to more clearly and accurately reflect NSTAR's pre-existing policies, not to change NSTAR's policies. In particular, a STOC described his update to a guideline as involving a better way to . . . get the point across and make it a little easier for people to understand. Moreover, the STOC said that he had merely recommended the change to the guideline 23For example, a STOC testified that he had no role in putting together the plan. And another STOC testified that the system planning group -- on which no STOC or TSS sat -- would decide what work would be done, and would assign a project manager -- still not a STOC or a TSS -- to oversee the project. Only then -- and subject to such oversight -- would the project get scheduled with a STOC. - 50 - to some unspecified other person, who then made the decision to adopt his changes. Consistent with that view, Conlon, the STOC's manager, described a STOC as having influence without authority in revising an operating guide. And Conlon listed a number of other groups involved in the revision process. That brings us to NSTAR's final argument. NSTAR contends that STOCs participate in many different management-only meetings, and that this participation shows that they have managerial authority. But as the Acting Regional Director explained, the record does not show that the STOCs' role in those meetings included the authority to pledge or commit [NSTAR] to any recommendations made by the groups or otherwise themselves set NSTAR's policy. To the contrary, as the Acting Regional Director went on to explain, the record shows that [a]ny recommendations reached in the task forces that the . . . STOCs attend . . . are subject to managerial review and approval by higher-level workers at NSTAR. For example, a STOC testified that when the task force he participates in reaches a recommendation, the task force then presents that recommendation to another, higher level task force, which will either accept or reject it. And, the STOC testified, no STOC participates in that higher level task force, though Conlon, the TSSs and STOCs' own manager, is a member of it. Thus, - 51 - we conclude that the Acting Regional Director reasonably found that NSTAR had not shown that the STOCs are managers. Our conclusion on this point finds further support in our decision in Northeast Utilities. 35 F.3d at 626. In that case, we referred to a paucity of evidence tending to show managerial powers, given that management policy seemed to be set by a committee that the employees at issue were not part of. Id. The same could equally be said in this case. The record supports the conclusion that a committee that does not include STOCs develops the work plan that the STOCs implement. The record also supports the conclusion that STOCs participate in groups that simply make recommendations to higher-level employees who have authority. The record thus does not show that STOCs wield managerial powers.