Opinion ID: 2994875
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Single Employer Status

Text: NRM first challenges the Board’s conclusion that NRM, WEC, and T&W are a single employer for purposes of liability under the Act. We must decide first whether the legal standard the Board used to make this determination was a permissible one. If it is, then the single employer finding is a factual determination subject only to substantial evidence review. NLRB v. Emsing’s Supermarket, Inc., 872 F.2d 1279, 1289 (7th Cir. 1989). NRM’s attack is against both the legal standard the Board used and its factual conclusions, but we find no reversible error in either./1 The Board acts within its discretion when it treats as a single employer firms that operate as an integrated enterprise and exert[ ] significant control over the employees in question. G. Heileman Brewing Co. v. NLRB, 879 F.2d 1526, 1530 (7th Cir. 1989). In this case, the Board used its standard four factor test to determine whether the companies were sufficiently integrated to constitute a single employer: (1) common management; (2) centralized control of labor relations; (3) interrelation of operations; and, (4) common ownership or financial control. See Radio and Television Broadcast Technicians Local Union 1264 v. Broadcast Service of Mobile, Inc., 380 U.S. 255, 256 (1965). NRM concedes that this was the proper legal approach in general, but it argues that the Board erred by failing to give primacy to the second factor, centralized control of labor relations. The statute, however, does not impose such an inflexible weighting requirement on the Board, nor has the Board adopted such a rule for itself. At most, the Board has commented that centralized control of labor relations is a particularly important factor, see, e.g., Fedco Freightliners, Inc., 273 NLRB 399 (1984), but it has also consistently said that this is a contextual inquiry and no one factor is determinative. Id. at 399; Bistritzky v. Service Employees Int. Union, Local 32E, AFL- CIO, 323 NLRB 524 (1997); NLRB v. Carson Cable TV, 795 F.2d 879, 881 (9th Cir. 1986). The listed factors merely help to guide the Board as it assesses whether there exists overall control of the critical matters at the policy level. Emsing’s Supermarket, Inc., 284 NLRB No. 41 (June 18, 1987), enforced 872 F.2d. 1279 (7th Cir. 1989). On the facts, we find that the Board’s single employer finding is adequately supported by substantial evidence. First, as the Board noted, there is evidence of common ownership. Wehrli and his wife owned NRM; Wehrli was the sole owner of WEC; and Wehrli owned 50% of T&W. There is also substantial evidence of shared management. Wehrli was an officer in each of the companies; he was president of NRM and WEC and he was secretary, and one of only two directors, of T&W. The other director of T&W, Bob Tilly, was a maintenance supervisor at NRM and assumed management responsibilities at WEC on or shortly before July 1, 1992. As the Board pointed out, the only other individuals involved in the management of these companies were Wehrli’s wife, his son Scott, and Jerry Doll. Wehrli also testified before the ALJ that in the first four months of 1992 it was his daily practice to come in and spend time with each of the managers and officers and whatever titles they had of the various companies and we would go over major problems or issues that they had that they were working on. Finally, there was evidence of operational integration among the three companies, including a shared location, informal sharing of labor among the companies, and the fact that T&W and WEC served primarily, if not exclusively, the hauling and maintenance needs of NRM. Under these circumstances, the Board was entitled to conclude that the companies shared common ownership and management. Indeed, the only factor where the record does not strongly support the Board’s conclusion is the one NRM has targeted: whether there was centralized control of labor relations. Nonetheless, there is significant evidence that such centralized control existed, and even if it did not extend to all three companies, the absence of one factor is not fatal to the Board’s conclusion. There is no dispute that Wehrli controlled labor relations for NRM. He was president of the company and represented it during negotiations with the Union. With respect to T&W, Wehrli was one of only two directors and on at least one occasion it was Wehrli rather than Tilly who met with the T&W workers to inform them of the consequences of not continuing to work during the NRM drivers’ strike. As the Board concedes, there is little direct evidence that Wehrli controlled labor relations at WEC, but the record permits the inference that he did so. He was president of the company, regularly involved himself in the management of WEC, and exercised substantial control over major budgetary decisions. The record also suggests that it was Wehrli who directed the use of WEC and NRM employees in constructing a new ready-mix batch plant for NRM at the High Grove Street facility. Taken as a whole, substantial evidence indicates that NRM, WEC, and T&W were highly integrated and that Wehrli, assisted by a small group of primarily family members, exercised substantial control over all aspects of the companies’ affairs. We therefore find that the Board’s decision to treat them as a single employer is entitled to enforcement.