Day 137 - 19 Jun 95 - Page 04
1 appropriate unit ---
2
3 Q. We will come back to appropriate unit in a moment.
4 A. -- before they can file the petition -- in order for
5 the NLRB to be willing to receive this petition to start
6 the process leading to an election, signed authorisation
7 cards need to be attached to the petition. Then the
8 National Labour Relation Board gets a list of employees
9 from the employer and checks off whether or not there is at
10 least 30 per cent of the employees have signed these
11 authorisation cards.
12
13 Q. Explain what is meant by a "unit"?
14 A. A unit is when the NLRB takes a look at whether or not
15 an election should take place; they try to determine the
16 scope of the number of employees and in what locations of a
17 particular employer should be involved. They go through an
18 administrative process, often at times a hearing process,
19 to determine whether it should be one location, if an
20 employer has one location, it should be two locations, it
21 should be three locations.
22
23 The government is looking at the rights of the employees
24 and the community of interest that all employees would have
25 in the proceeding.
26
27 Q. Pause there. We are going to come to a specific example of
28 this later on, but suppose that a McDonald's licensee in
29 the United States has not one but, let us say, six
30 restaurants?
31 A. Yes.
32
33 Q. The employees in one of those six restaurants shows signs
34 of wanting to be organised, if I can use the American term,
35 what would happen in such a case before the union could be
36 recognised?
37 A. OK. If you want me to go through the whole process,
38 the union would obtain signatures from the unit they think
39 is appropriate, if you will. That might be, they may
40 contend that is one location, and they would obtain the
41 signatures from that location 30 per cent, they would file
42 their petition. Then it is the obligation of the National
43 Labour Relations Board to determine whether or not, in the
44 example that you used, whether or not the appropriate unit
45 would be one location or would be all six locations or it
46 could be something less than six.
47
48 Q. This could be a contested hearing, could it, before the
49 Board?
50 A. Yes, by the rules of the National Labour Relations
51 Board -- these are non-adversarial proceedings -- employers
52 are called upon to provide evidence and information and the
53 union does the same. Then the NLRB hearing officer,
54 administrative law judge, then writes a report that goes
55 all the way up the line of the regional office of the
56 National Labour Relations Board before a decision is
57 rendered.
58
59 Q. In the example we have raised, suppose that in that case
60 the National Labour Relations Board said: "Well, no, one
