Opinion ID: 2827787
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Responsibly to Direct

Text: The next supervisor function the Acting Regional Director addressed is the power responsibly . . . to direct other employees. 29 U.S.C. § 152(11). Here, the Acting Regional Director relied on the accountability definition of responsible direction the Board adopted in Oakwood Healthcare, 348 N.L.R.B. at 691-92, and then applied to electrical dispatchers in Entergy Mississippi, 357 N.L.R.B. No. 178, at 6.15 The Board held in Oakwood Healthcare that [f]or direction to be responsible, the person directing . . . must be accountable for the performance of the task by the other, such that some adverse consequence may befall the one providing the oversight if the tasks performed by the employee are not performed properly. 348 N.L.R.B. at 691-92. In particular, the employee 15The Acting Regional Director also found that NSTAR had not shown that the TSSs engage in any direction of any kind. But we need not address that finding, because even if the Acting Regional Director was wrong, and NSTAR did show that the TSSs direct other employees, that error would be of no consequence if -- as we conclude -- the Acting Regional Director supportably determined that any direction the TSSs undertake was not responsible. - 31 - engaged in responsible direction must have not only the authority to direct the work and the authority to take corrective action, but also the prospect of adverse consequences . . . if he/she does not take these steps. Id. at 692. That definition, the Board explained, protects the organizing rights of those employees whose interests, in directing other employees, is simply the completion of a certain task. Id. Entergy Mississippi then applied this accountability definition. In doing so, the Board in that case held that electrical dispatchers who had the authority to direct field employees in the step-by-step instructions of a switching order, but who were not accountable for the actions of field employees they direct, did not engage in responsible direction. Entergy Miss., 357 N.L.R.B. No. 178, at 7. Rather, the Board concluded that the dispatchers are accountable for their own work, i.e., their own failures and errors, and not those of the field employees. Id. at 8. NSTAR makes no argument that this accountability-based distinction between responsibility for the work of others and responsibility for one's own work is incompatible with the Act's supervisor definition.16 Thus, the 16 Moreover, our own Northeast Utilities decision accords with this distinction. 35 F.3d 621 (1st Cir. 1994). In Northeast Utilities, we affirmed the Board's conclusion that a group of electrical workers called Coordinators -- employees similar to TSSs -- did not responsibly direct field employees. Id. at 625. In doing so, we applied a responsible direction standard that - 32 - only issue for us is whether substantial evidence supports the Acting Regional Director's finding that NSTAR had not met its burden of showing that TSSs are accountable for their actions in directing field employees. We conclude that record does support that finding. The Acting Regional Director acknowledged that Conlon, the TSSs' manager, testified that TSSs can be and have been held accountable for field employee deficiencies. But the Acting Regional Director reasonably concluded that assertion was simply a conclusion without evidentiary value, and that [t]he record lack[ed] evidence that any TSS or STOC ha[d] been disciplined for failure to oversee or correct a field employee, or as a result of a field employee's failure to adequately perform her/his duties. The Acting Regional Director also gave little weight to an incident on which NSTAR relied heavily and that involved a TSS being written up negatively, apparently by a supervisor. Specifically, Conlon recounted a situation in which a TSS did not properly perform all nine steps of the required pre-switching brief prior to issuing the switching order, but in which the field employee executing that order then did something that caused a breaker to trip that should not have tripped. also emphasized accountability. See id. We explained that although [t]he Coordinators in this case may direct [other employees,] . . . they are not responsible for what [those] employees actually do. Id. - 33 - But the Acting Regional Director supportably found that the TSS was held responsible in this instance for how he did his own work and not for how the field employee did his. Conlon testified that any decrease in the TSS's compensation based on this incident would be as a result of the switching error that [the TSS] was involved in directly, rather than as a result of the field employee's error. And later, Conlon testified that he had not held any of the TSSs or STOCs accountable on paper, as a negative on paper in their appraisals, for the field personnel having committed some error. NSTAR does argue that the Acting Regional Director erred in emphasizing the lack of evidence that any TSS or STOC has been disciplined for a supervisory failure. But the Acting Regional Director did not decide that an employee must actually be disciplined -- rather merely face the prospect of discipline -- in order to be found to responsibly to direct other employees. The Acting Regional Director focused instead on what the record showed about why the TSS was disciplined in this one instance on which NSTAR relied. And the Acting Regional Director did so only in the course of applying the distinction the Board made in Oakwood Healthcare and Entergy Mississippi between accountability for one's own error and accountability for the error of another. Finally, NSTAR argues that the TSSs have the authority responsibly to direct other workers based on evidence that the - 34 - TSSs' bonuses reflect, among other things, the manner in which they have managed projects in the field. Substantial evidence, however, supports the Acting Regional Director's finding that NSTAR did not show that TSSs' bonuses suffice to make TSSs' direction of field employees into responsible direction. Conlon did testify that the TSSs are evaluated based on achievement of outage scheduling goals, and that without field personnel work, those goals could not be achieved.17 But even NSTAR acknowledges that a TSS's ability to meet his or her goals is in significant part determined by how the TSS decides to structure a job, and thus by the TSS's own performance. Moreover, Conlon provided no details to back up his statement, and he conceded that he didn't think there were any examples of TSSs or STOCs ever in fact having been held accountable for field personnel problems. In fact, with respect not only to switching orders but also to all other work episodes in which the TSSs or [STOCs] had some role in directing work of some field personnel, Conlon conceded that he had found no examples suggesting that TSSs or [STOCs] were held accountable for the misdeeds of field personnel. Thus, we affirm the Acting Regional Director's finding 17 Specifically, Conlon testified that the reality of the situation was that if the field employees didn't get all their work done, . . . then it would reflect on my goals, my performance plan. We assume that although Conlon used the first person, he meant to refer to TSSs' goals and performance plans. - 35 - that NSTAR failed to show that TSSs have the authority responsibly to direct other workers.