Howard University d/b/a WHUT-TV

Case Number: 05-UC-204647

Date Filed: 08/18/2017

Status: Closed

No. of Employees: 4

Location: Washington, DC

Region Assigned: Region 05, Baltimore, Maryland

Unit Description: Attachment A Petitioner, Howard University is a private University operating in Washington, D.C. In 1982, the National Labor Relations Board certified the National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians ("the Union") as the exclusive bargaining-representative of the following unit of the Petitioner's television station (WHUT) employees: All full-time and regular part-time employees of the employer at WHMM-TV as operations technicians, studio supervisor associates, and senior studio supervisors, but excluding all other employees, casual employees, guards, students employment as a requirement of their course of study or education program and supervisors as defined in the Act. The Certification of Representative is attached hereto as Exhibit 1. At all material times, the Petitioner has employed temporary employees and the number of temporary employees engaged by Petitioner has varied, but in the last 6 years has been around 10-14. Those employees were not included in the certified unit. Following the NLRB certification in 1982, the Petitioner and the Union executed their first collective-bargaining agreement and were parties to several successive collective-bargaining agreements thereafter. Upon information and belief, those collective-bargaining agreements did not, by their terms, include the Petitioner's temporary employees in the bargaining unit until the Parties' 1993 agreement. However, the agreements following the 1993 agreement were inconsistent and wavering with respect to language purporting to recognize the Union as the representative of certain temporary employees and the applicability of said agreements to the temporary employees. Specifically: In the Parties' 1993-1997 and 1997 -2000 agreements, casual employees are expressly excluded from the provision recognizing the Union as the exclusive bargaining representative for the certified unit of employees. However, the Job Classification provision in those agreements provides that "casual employees" includes temporary employees and that the agreement shall not apply to such employees "until they have accumulated forty-five (45) days of work in a calendar year." On the 46th day, the agreement states, those employees would be covered by the Recognition clause and "the employer's work rules consistent with past practice." A copy of the Parties' 1993-1997 and 1997-2000 collective-bargaining agreements are attached hereto as Exhibit 2 and 3 respectively. Based on the Petitioner's information and belief, the Parties never implemented nor enforced the provisions of those agreements concerning the inclusion of the temporary employees in the bargaining-unit (namely, Art. 7, Section 7.2). In the Parties' 2005 agreement, neither temporary nor casual employees are referenced in the Recognition clause (Art. 1). The previous provision on including temporary employees in the bargaining-unit is totally absent, and the Article which contained that provision in the 1993-1997 and 1997-2000 collective-bargaining agreements became a No Strike and No Lockout provision. While Article 4 of that agreement contains a provision requiring the Petitioner to convert temporary employees to full-time employees once they worked six months, there is nothing in that article which purports to include temporary employees themselves in the bargaining-unit. The 2005-2008 collective-bargaining agreement is attached hereto as Exhibit 4. In about 2009, the Petitioner and the Union executed their 2008-2011 collective-bargaining agreement. That agreement included a reference to the Petitioner's temporary employees in the Recognition clause (Art. 1) and included other language stating that upon working 30 days and 240 hours, the Petitioner's temporary employees would be "required to become a member of the Union and remain in good standing by remitting either the required service charge or union dues" (Art. 4, Section 4.2 (a)). In 2011, Petitioner and the Union entered into a successor one-year (2011-2012) collective-bargaining agreement which continued the provisions of the 2008 agreement which purported to include temporary employees in the bargaining unit. It is the Petitioner's understanding and belief that following the Parties 2011-2012 agreement, the Parties did not execute a successor agreement until 2013. That agreement (2013-2016) also carried over the Recognition language and the Art. 4, Section 4.2 (a) language contained in the Parties' 2008 and 2011 agreements. The Parties' collective-bargaining agreements for the period of 2008-2016 are attached hereto as Exhibits 5, 6, and 7 respectively. At no time did the Parties implement or enforce the provisions (Art. 4, Section 4.2 (a)) adding temporary employees to the bargaining unit. At present, and for at least the past 6 years, the number of employees in the certified bargaining unit has been no more than 7. Thus, the Petitioner's 10-14 temporary employees would comprise the majority of employees in the unit if actually included in the unit. At no time have any of the Petitioner's temporary employees expressed a desire to be represented by the Union or included in the bargaining-unit or otherwise had the opportunity to self-determine whether they wished to be included in a unit of full-time employees. During contract negotiations presently underway, the Petitioner and the Union have disagreed as to whether the temporary employees should have been and should be included in the unit, and the Union has refused these employees the opportunity to self-determine whether they wish to be represented by the Union. Since the temporary employees have never indicated whether they wish to be included in the bargaining unit and be subject to the terms of the Parties' collective-bargaining agreements, including the union security provision therein, the Petitioner requests that the Board issues a clarification excluding temporary employees form the bargaining unit.