Opinion ID: 2165230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: determining membership in a bargaining unit

Text: When determining the membership of units for collective-bargaining purposes, the NLRB has as its primary concern the grouping together of only employees who have substantial mutual interests in wages, hours, and other conditions of employment. Fifteenth Annual Report of the NLRB, 39 (1950). The community of interest doctrine, N.L.R.B. v. George Groh and Sons, 329 F.2d 265, 268 (10th Cir.1964), is used by the NLRB to determine whether certain employees in a unit are sufficiently concerned with the terms and conditions of employment as to warrant their participation in the selection of a bargaining agent. Id. In making such a determination, the board is not required to choose the most appropriate bargaining unit but only an appropriate bargaining unit. Wil-Kil Pest Control Co. v. N.L.R.B., 440 F.2d 371, 375 (7th Cir.1971). Specific factors that are relied upon by the NLRB in determining whether such a community of interest exists have been identified in N.L.R.B. v. Saint Francis College, 562 F.2d 246, 249 (3d Cir.1977). These criteria are: 1. Similarity in scale and manner of determining earnings, 2. Similarity of employment benefits, hours of work, and other terms and conditions of employment, 3. Similarity in the kind of work performed, 4. Similarity in the qualifications, skills, and training of the employees, 5. Frequency of contact or interchange among employees, 6. Geographic proximity, 7. Continuity or integration of production processes, 8. Common supervision and determination of labor relations policy, 9. Relationship to the administrative organization of the employer, 10. History of collective bargaining, 11. Desires of the affected employees, and 12. Extent of the union organization. Id. (citing Robert A. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law, Unionization, and Collective Bargaining, 69 (1976)).