Opinion ID: 185833
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Regal's Challenge

Text: 30 Here, the Board affirmed the ALJ's conclusion that the Fibreboard/Torrington approach governed Regal's decision to convert to manager-operated theaters and thereby eliminate the projectionist position. This conclusion stemmed directly from the ALJ's determination that Regal has continued to operate the same business at the same locations and the only change is in the identity of the employees doing the work. JDA 16. On review, Regal maintains that the Board's decision cannot be sustained due to its reliance upon Torrington, a decision that, in its view, creates a virtual ` per se ' rule that is incompatible with the test established in First National Maintenance.  Br. for Pet'r at 17. Because the Board's decision is both reasonably defensible, Ford Motor Co., 441 U.S. at 497, 99 S.Ct. at 1849, and consistent with this court's precedent, see, e.g., Rock-Tenn, 101 F.3d at 1446, we reject Regal's challenge. 31 Regal's argument relies chiefly upon the Third Circuit's decision in Furniture Rentors of America, Inc. v. NLRB, 36 F.3d 1240 (3d Cir.1994), which criticized the Board for applying the Torrington standard to an employer's decision to subcontract delivery services because of employee theft. Noting that [i]nflexibly applied, the holding in Torrington is at odds with the principles of Fibreboard and First National [ Maintenance ], id. at 1247, the Third Circuit decried the Torrington manner of examining [a] decision to subcontract only to see whether it is analogous to Fibreboard 's general factual framework as simplistic and ... potentially hamhanded, id. at 1248. Determining whether a subcontracting decision requires mandatory bargaining necessitates, the Third Circuit reasoned, an examination of the reasons motivating the decision. Id. Citing the Third Circuit's favorable discussion of Dubuque, id. at 1246-48, Regal argues that the Board should have applied Dubuque 's burden-shifting framework to Regal's decision to convert to manager-operated theaters. 32 The Third Circuit's criticisms of Torrington aside, 7 we have long held that [t]he allocation of work to a bargaining unit is a `term and condition of employment' and that an employer may not unilaterally attempt to divert work away from a bargaining unit without fulfilling [its] statutory duty to bargain. Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union No. 669 v. NLRB, 676 F.2d 826, 831 (D.C.Cir.1982) (reviewing double-breasted operation in which single employer transferred unit work from union side of firm to non-union side of firm). We have likewise recognized that  First National Maintenance is inapposite to transfer of work cases in the context of double-breasted operations, finding Fibreboard to be the more apt precedent. Road Sprinkler Fitters Local Union No. 669 v. NLRB, 789 F.2d 9, 16 n. 22 (D.C.Cir.1986) (reaffirming the principle that the diversion of bargaining unit work is a mandatory subject of bargaining). 33 Most recently, in Rock-Tenn, we upheld the Board's application of Fibreboard to an employer's decision to permanently subcontract its trucking operations to a third party, thereby eliminating the unit work previously performed by the employer's union-represented drivers. Rock-Tenn, 101 F.3d at 1446. Concluding that the Board permissibly distinguishe[d] what it calls a Fibreboard subcontract from a relocation decision, i.e., the type of decision at issue in Dubuque Packing, we held that it is a permissible reading of the [NLRA] in light of the Supreme Court opinions to hold that when a subcontracting decision turns on labor cost considerations and involves `the same work under similar conditions of employment,' it is a prototype Fibreboard case regardless of the alleged futility of bargaining. Id. (quoting Fibreboard, 379 U.S. at 213, 85 S.Ct. at 404). 34 Although the instant case involves a transfer of unit work to managers and assistant managers, and not a transfer of unit work to an outside subcontractor, we find this distinction to be irrelevant. What matters, in our view, is that Regal, like the employer in Rock-Tenn, transferred `the same work' performed by the union-represented projectionists to its managers and assistant managers `under similar conditions of employment,' and did so, not because of technological change but, instead, to reduce its labor costs. Id. Given our conclusion that substantial evidence supports the finding that Regal's conversion to manager-operated theaters resulted in a transfer of bargaining unit work, we find the ALJ's legal approach, adopted by the Board, to be reasonably defensible. Ford Motor Co., 441 U.S. at 497, 99 S.Ct. at 1849.