07/29/2026: Regional Director Rejects Effort to Decertify Part of a Unit of a Tricky Single Employer
Board rejects request to review supervisory status.
Ethyl Corporation, 16-RD-374495 (Regional Election Decision)
A regional director for the NLRB dismissed a decertification petition seeking to remove a union as the bargaining representative for a group of terminal operators at Ethyl Corporation's Houston-area facility, finding that Ethyl and a related company, Afton Chemical Corporation, operate as a single integrated employer rather than as separate entities in a multi-employer bargaining arrangement.
The petition, filed by an individual employee, sought to decertify United Steelworkers Local 227 as the representative of Ethyl's terminal operations production operators only, a narrower group than the combined Ethyl-Afton unit the union has represented for roughly 70 years. Ethyl and Afton are both owned by NewMarket Services Corporation and share a single industrial site, with Ethyl handling one end of transloading operations and Afton supplying chemical products and providing lab, maintenance, and warehouse services from the other end. Ethyl, the petitioner, and Afton argued that when Afton became a separate corporate entity in 2015, the bargaining relationship shifted to a multi-employer structure, and that Ethyl's June 2025 letter announcing its withdrawal from that arrangement justified a standalone unit for Ethyl employees.
The regional director rejected that argument, applying the Board's traditional test for single-employer status, which weighs interrelation of operations, common management, centralized control of labor relations, and common ownership. He found common ownership through NewMarket, only modest separation in day-to-day management, and strong centralized control of labor relations, since NewMarket's human resources staff administers the same collective bargaining agreement, wage scales, grievance procedures, and personnel policies for both companies' operators. He also found the two companies' operations closely interrelated, given shared infrastructure, mutual servicing arrangements, and a lack of evidence of genuine arm's-length dealings between them.
Because the parties historically bargained as a single unit and the record showed no true multi-employer relationship, the decision concluded that Ethyl could not have effectively withdrawn from an arrangement that never existed in the form the petitioner claimed. The director also found that even if a multi-employer relationship had existed, Ethyl failed to withdraw from it unequivocally, since the same NewMarket representative continued bargaining on behalf of both companies and reached a tentative agreement covering both as "the Company" after the purported withdrawal. The director further rejected arguments that Ethyl operators constituted a separate craft unit eligible for severance under the Mallinckrodt doctrine, finding insufficient evidence of a distinct craft. Because the petition sought to decertify only part of the longstanding combined unit and no valid basis existed to treat Ethyl as a separate employer, the petition was dismissed.
Significant Cases Cited
Campbell Soup Co., 111 NLRB 234 (1955): In decertification elections, the petitioned-for unit must be coextensive with the existing recognized or certified unit, absent limited exceptions.
Arrow Uniform Rental, 300 NLRB 246 (1990): A petition covering only a single employer's employees will not be dismissed as non-coextensive if filed after that employer's timely withdrawal from a multiemployer unit.
Bolivar-Tees, Inc., 349 NLRB 720 (2007): Sets out the four-factor test for single-employer status: interrelation of operations, common management, centralized control of labor relations, and common ownership.
Dodge of Naperville, Inc. & Burke Automotive Group, Inc., 357 NLRB 2252 (2012): The Board gives significant weight to bargaining history and requires compelling circumstances to overcome it when evaluating withdrawal of recognition.
Sheet Metal Workers' International Association Local 19 v. Herre Bros., Inc., 201 F.3d 231 (3rd Cir. 1999): An employer must unequivocally and timely withdraw from a multiemployer bargaining unit before contract negotiations begin, and cannot try to secure advantages of both individual and group bargaining.
CounterPulse, 20-UC-362338 (Unpublished Board Decision)
The Board denied the union's request for review of an Acting Regional Director's decision that clarified the bargaining unit to exclude a Producing Technical Director position at CounterPulse, a San Francisco performing arts venue. The Board found the request raised no substantial issues warranting review.
In a footnote, the Board explained its reasoning for agreeing with the Acting Regional Director's conclusion that the Producing Technical Director exercises supervisory authority through the power to effectively recommend hiring decisions. The Board noted that the Producing Technical Director has broad discretion to identify and independently interview job candidates, assessing their technical skills in the process. Based on those assessments, the Producing Technical Director makes hiring recommendations, and the Executive Director has approved every one of those recommendations without reviewing supporting documentation or conducting further inquiry. The Board found this pattern consistent with precedent establishing that a recommendation is "effective" when it is routinely followed without independent investigation, supporting the conclusion that the position holds supervisory status and should be excluded from the unit.
Significant Cases Cited
Union Square Theatre Management, Inc., 326 NLRB 70 (1998): Addressed the standard for determining when an employee's authority to interview and assess candidates supports a finding of supervisory status.
Arc of South Norfolk, 368 NLRB No. 32 (2019): Held that a putative supervisor engages in "effective recommendation" where recommendations are routinely or usually followed without independent investigation.
Fred Meyer Alaska, Inc., 334 NLRB 646 (2001): Applied the effective recommendation standard in evaluating supervisory status based on hiring input.