Opinion ID: 197361
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Switching Stations.

Text: B. Switching Stations. The proffered evidence is of two types. We treat each type separately. 3The applicable agency rule provides in pertinent part: A party to a proceeding may, because of extraordinary circumstances, move after the close of the hearing for reopening of the record, or move after the decision or report for reconsideration, for rehearing, or to reopen the record . . . . Only newly discovered evidence evidence which has become available only since the close of the hearing or evidence which the regional director or the Board believes should have been taken at the hearing will be taken at any further hearing. 29 C.F.R. 102.65(e)(1). 16 1. The evidence concerning the elimination of Corps'
position as technical supervisor the May 15 letter requires scant comment. This letter had been submitted as an attachment to the request for review filed in the wake of the regional director's adverse decision in the representation proceeding. Because a request for review may not raise any issue or allege any facts not timely presented to the regional director, 29 C.F.R. 102.67(d), the submission of the letter imposed no obligation on the Board to consider the implications of Corps' termination, especially in the absence of a motion to reopen the record. See generally East Mich. Care, 246 NLRB at 459 (dictum). Beyond that pitfall, a second obstacle looms. The Board, in its own phrase, fully considered the May 15 letter. Telemundo, slip op. at 1 n.1. We think it would be curious to remand a case for consideration of evidence that an agency already has fully considered, and we will not do so here.4 2. The more nettlesome question relates to the claim
that the TDs had been vested with some managerial duties formerly handled by the technical supervisor and had been assigned added responsibility for evaluating other employees. The Board's first notice of these alleged innovations came on July 16, 1996 (after the bargaining unit had been certified), when the Company 4Moreover, we readily appreciate the Board's refusal to attach decretory significance to the epistle. The letter states only that the Company had decided to eliminate the position of technical supervisor. It furnishes no indication that this position elimination might alter or affect the scope of the technical directors' duties. 17 submitted, as part of its reply to the unfair labor practice charge, an affidavit executed on May 9 by Elizabeth Rivera, the department director. The Rivera affidavit claimed, for the first time, that some administrative duties that were performed by the Technical Supervisor, such as the preparation of the daily schedules and the revision and approval of the weekly payroll, are now performed by the Technical Directors. The affidavit also disclosed that in March 1996 the Company had created a committee to evaluate the technicians' work and made the TDs members of it (thus enhancing their supervisory roles). Assuming arguendo the truth of the Company's description of these augmented duties, the timing gives us pause. While Rivera's affidavit is strangely silent as to when the changes transpired its text states only that the TDs assumed the additional duties; it does not broadcast the time frame in which the Company made the reallocation it is transparently clear that the attempted expansion of the TDs' job description took place at some time after the record had closed in the representation proceeding. Thus, those changes, no matter when thereafter they were effectuated, do not constitute evidence that can vitiate the Board's determination of the propriety of the bargaining unit. It follows that the Board acted well within its lawful authority in refusing to entertain the proffer. If an employer could insist that evidence of this kind be considered by a reviewing tribunal (be it court or agency) after the administrative record had been closed, then the 18 employer routinely could defease a bargaining unit despite the fact that the Board had determined it to be appropriate. Indeed, doing so would require no greater effort than modifying the affected employees' duties. Such a regime would be antithetical not only to the Board's regulations but also to precedent, policy, and the objectives of the Act. The regulatory scheme is explicit; the Board determines the appropriateness of a bargaining unit based upon the conditions of employment as they exist at the time of the hearing, and, at least in the absence of extraordinary circumstances,5 the record thereafter may be augmented only by newly discovered evidence. See 29 C.F.R. 102.65(e)(1). This regulation limits the rubric newly discovered evidence to evidence which has become available only since the close of the hearing, or evidence which the regional director or the Board believes should have been taken at the hearing. Id. This definition effectively demarcates the representation proceeding as the outermost point in time to which evidence can relate. Facts which arise only after the hearing has been concluded and the record closed are irrelevant, whereas facts which are not discovered until then (but which relate to the time frame at 5We reject out of hand the Company's argument that the change in duties here constitutes extraordinary circumstances requiring the Board to reexamine the appropriateness of the bargaining unit. If an employer, dissatisfied with the upshot of a representation proceeding, could manufacture circumstances sufficient to require reconsideration simply by shifting duties around, then Board certifications would be little more than hollow gestures. 19 issue in the hearing) are potentially relevant and may be considered in the Board's discretion. Precedent fully supports the general proposition that unilateral changes to employment parameters occurring after a representation hearing has been completed can have no bearing upon the outcome of that proceeding. See K-Mart, 322 NLRB No. 98, slip op. at 1 (NLRB Nov. 22, 1996) (If the change was the result of unilateral actions by the Respondent, it would normally not be a basis for reconsidering the certification . . . .), petition for review pending (D.C. Cir., No. 96-1461); East Mich. Care, 246 NLRB at 459 (holding that evidence of subsequent changes made in the duties of unit employees lacked relevance because the evidence d[id] not involve facts which existed at the time of the hearing in the underlying proceeding and, therefore, d[id] not constitute newly discovered and previously unavailable evidence). This proposition also comports with sound policy and core purposes of the Act. Affording an employer (or a labor union, for that matter) unilateral control over critical aspects of the collective bargaining process would dislodge the balance and weaken the structure of the collective bargaining framework. See Auciello Iron Works, Inc. v. NLRB, 116 S. Ct. 1754, 1758-60 (1996). What is more, enforcing this policy furthers the broad objective of restoring the equality of bargaining power between employers and employees that is so central to the Act, while simultaneously securing stability in labor relations. See id. at 20 1759; see also 29 U.S.C. 151. Of course, the closing of the record in a representation proceeding does not freeze the duties of the members of the proposed bargaining unit for all time and in all circumstances. When the motion to reopen is premised on subsequently conferred duties, the Board is warranted in presuming that such duties are irrelevant to its conclusion. An employer who seeks to overcome that presumption bears a heavy burden of showing that a legitimate business necessity arising out of circumstances that were in play before the representation proceeding concluded forced him to recast job descriptions. See, e.g., Frito Lay, Inc., 177 NLRB 820, 821 (1969) (vacating a certification after ensuring that changes in duties were effected pursuant to legitimate business purposes, and without intent to evade the Respondent's obligation under the certification).6 We need not tarry. The Company has presented no evidence that either the shifting of the technical supervisor's duties or the creation of the evaluation committee resulted from events set in motion prior to, and independent of, the 6In Frito Lay, the Board dismissed an unfair labor practice complaint, finding that subsequent changes attributable to the company's nationwide reorganization eliminated the essential factor which made the previously certified unit appropriate. 820 NLRB at 821. As was repeatedly underscored in the decision, the employer undertook this reorganization as a result of the recommendations provided by a management consultant which had begun a study of the employer's operations before the union instituted the representation proceeding. The timing enabled the Board to find that the restructuring was clearly not for the purpose of avoiding compliance with the Board's unit finding. Id. Telemundo has sketched no comparable story line. 21 representation proceeding. Thus, the evidence contained in Rivera's affidavit falls well outside the compass of relevance and cannot justify a remand for the purpose of relitigating the issue of supervisory status. There is, moreover, another basis for sustaining the Board's order in the face of the Company's proffer. As we previously mentioned, the evidence is cloudy as to exactly when Telemundo first purposed to augment the TDs' responsibilities. See supra p. 17-18. It is, however, pellucid that the TDs were not assigned to positions on the evaluation committee until March 1996 at the earliest. By that time, any proposed change in duties that would convert unit employees to statutory supervisory status (and thereby eliminate the bargaining unit) had become a mandatory subject of collective bargaining. See East Mich. Care, 246 NLRB at 459-60 & n.4; Highland Terrace Convalescent Ctr., 233 NLRB 87, 88 (1977); Kendall College, 228 NLRB 1083, 1087-89 (1977), enforced, 570 F.2d 216 (7th Cir. 1978); see also 29 U.S.C. 158(d) (designating as mandatory bargaining subjects wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment). Because the change in duties that Telemundo attempted here was done unilaterally and, in the Company's own words, should carry the day in its quest to incorporate the TDs into management, the change transgressed the obligation to bargain collectively. Therefore, rather than constituting evidence of misclassification, the new assignment constitutes further evidence of an unlawful refusal to bargain. See, e.g., NLRB v. 22 Westinghouse Broad. & Cable, Inc., 849 F.2d 15, 20, 22 (1st Cir. 1988); East Mich. Care, 246 NLRB at 459-50 & n.4.7