Opinion ID: 407929
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jai Alai Pari-Mutuel Employees

Text: 13 On September 24, 1979, approximately one month prior to our decision in Jai Alai I, Local 385 of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers Union (the Pari-Mutuel Union) filed a representation petition with the Board seeking an election in a unit of all full-time and regular part-time employees of Florida Jai Alai, Inc., 10 such as cashiers, counters, and pari-mutuel clerks, but excluding players, judges, ball boys, pelota and cesta makers, concessionaries, contractors, clericals, guards, and supervisors. 11 The State moved to intervene, and the Board granted its motion. The case was referred to a hearing officer, who conducted a hearing at which the union, the employer, and the State introduced evidence and submitted their legal arguments. The hearing officer then forwarded the record of the proceedings to the Regional Director for decision. See section 3(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 153(b). 14 The employer and the State conceded that Florida Jai Alai's business affected interstate commerce and that labor disputes involving its employees therefore fell within the ambit of the Act. They contended, however, that the tenth amendment barred the Board's exercise of jurisdiction over these labor disputes because jai alai was a state-regulated gambling industry. In the alternative, the employer and the State contended that the Board should decline, under section 14(c)(1) of the Act, to exercise jurisdiction over the pari-mutuel employees at Florida Jai Alai's Orlando-Seminole fronton. They claimed that the employment-related characteristics of these employees were indistinguishable from those of the workers who performed identical functions at dog and horse tracks; that is, employee turnover rate was high, temporary part-time employees made up a high percentage of the labor force, and the work of all the employees was sporadic. The employer and the State argued that Board precedent, and a Board rule that adopted that precedent, recognized that it was virtually impossible for the Board effectively to regulate labor disputes at the dog and horse tracks, Hialeah Race Course, Inc., 125 NLRB 388 (1959); 29 CFR § 103.3, and they urged the Regional Director to apply this precedent and rule to the pari-mutuel jai alai employees. They suggested that it would be arbitrary and capricious, and therefore an abuse of discretion, for the Board to assert jurisdiction over these jai alai employees while declining to do so over identical employees at dog and horse tracks. 15 On November 16, 1979, the Regional Director ordered an election, scheduling it for December 8, 1979. Florida Jai Alai, Inc., Board Case No. 12-RC-5737 (1979). He held that the Board should exercise its jurisdiction over this labor dispute, citing the Board's decision in Volusia Jai Alai, Inc., as controlling precedent. He failed to explain, however, why Volusia Jai Alai, Inc., controlled his decision even though the employment characteristics of players in Volusia Jai Alai and the pari-mutuel employees in the case before him were materially different. He also failed to explain why the Board's rules applicable to dog and horse tracks did not govern this case. Both Florida Jai Alai and the State petitioned the Board to reconsider the Regional Director's decision, 29 U.S.C. § 153(b), but the Board denied their petition. 16 On December 3, 1979, the State filed suit in the district court to enjoin the December 8 election and to obtain the same declaratory relief it sought in Jai Alai I. The court refused to enjoin the election but did order the Board to impound the ballots and to refrain from certifying the election results or from otherwise conducting the representation proceeding until further order of the court. 17