Opinion ID: 3003868
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Authority to assign

Text: While the Board assumed that shift leaders had the authority to assign work to crew members, it also concluded that shift leaders did not exercise independent judgment while assigning the work. See Kentucky River, 532 U.S. at 713 (distinguishing “independent judgment” from the exercise of authority that is “merely routine or clerical [in] nature”). In applying the concept of independent judgment, the Board focused on the manner in which shift leaders assign work to their crew members. The shift leaders refer to the daily priority sheet, which “lists the jobs to be run on each machine in order of importance and when those jobs are due.” Only two shift leaders testified about their specific approach to assignments. Meeker reported that he used three basic strategies: (1) making sure people rotated to different machines; (2) allowing a person to continue working on the same machine if a project took more than a day; and (3) random assignment. Meeker did not take into account the personal characteristics of his co-workers when assigning work. Tim Monicken had a different system: he assigned higher priority work to more efficient workers. The Board gave no weight to Monicken’s testimony, however, because he was no longer a shift leader at the time of the hearing and he never professed to speak about how other shift leaders assigned work. Left with a meager record showing only Meeker’s approach to assigning work, the Board decided that this was not a position that required the exercise of independent judgment. Nos. 09-2187, 09-2289 19 Loparex contends that the Board should not have ignored Monicken’s testimony. Yet Loparex is unable to point to any evidence that any other shift leaders adopted Monicken’s practice of assigning work based upon workers’ relative productivity. In fact, the ALJ specifically found that Monicken’s job as shift leader differed in many respects from other shift leaders. Since Loparex had the burden to demonstrate independent judgment, we conclude that substantial evidence supports the Board’s decision to focus on Meeker’s approach to work assignments. Retreating to Meeker’s testimony, Loparex contends that it is irrelevant that Meeker failed to exercise independent judgment. As long as Meeker was empowered to make independent judgments about work assignments, Loparex asserts that he qualifies as a supervisor under section 2(11). Cf. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc. v. NLRB, 140 F.3d 684, 687 (7th Cir. 1998) (collecting cases that hold that the actual exercise of supervisory power is not necessary to qualify as a supervisor under section 2(11)). While it is possible that a statutory supervisor need only have the authority to exercise one of the supervisory powers enumerated in section 2(11), this does not suffice for the exercise of independent judgment. See NLRB v. Don’s Olney Foods, Inc., 870 F.2d 1279, 1283-84 (7th Cir. 1989). In Don’s Olney Foods, even though an employee had the ability to assign workers to different tasks, we found this authority insufficient because most of the assignments were dictated by informal routine. Id. Similarly, Meeker’s method of assignment was routine and clerical in nature; therefore, the Board acted within its 20 Nos. 09-2187, 09-2289 authority when it concluded that Loparex’s shift leaders did not exercise the requisite independent judgment to qualify as supervisors under the Act.