The union and the employer agreed on the following set of facts.

Lucky Resort operates a casino, a golf course, a hotel, and four restaurants at its facility, which is open year-round. The operations of all the facilities are overseen by a single chief executive officer, a general manager, and a centralized human resources department. The payroll function is also centralized, as is the occupational health and safety committee. The operational offices are all located in the facility’s hotel building.

All employees of the resort wear similar uniforms, and all wear name tags that identify them as employees of Lucky Golf Resort and Casino. The resort trains all staff members together, regardless of where in the facility they work. The common training includes orientation, customer service training, leadership training, and seminars on harassment and discrimination.

The resort’s marketing focuses on all the services at the facility. Marketing campaigns to potential customers such as corporations, leisure travellers, wedding parties, and golfers all emphasize the wide range of activities available to the resort’s guests. The resort also conducts promotions that link activities within the facility. For example, it might offer a package deal that includes a coupon for casino play, a room booking in the hotel, and vouchers for meals in the restaurants. 

The casino building and the hotel building are connected, so customers can go from the hotel to the casino and back again without going outside. Many customers come to the resort to gamble in the casino, but then also play the golf course or have a meal at one of the restaurants during their visit. There are also food and beverage services available in the casino itself.

There are four restaurants at the casino. One is a seasonal facility that is open only when the golf course is open.

The restaurants are served by three kitchens. The main kitchen provides catering for special events and meetings, and also services the buffet in the casino. Staff from the main kitchen work at any special events or “theme nights” in any of the restaurants. The resort has one set of suppliers, whose contracts are based on the amount of business they conduct with all of the resort’s facilities.

In the casino, a “drop team” is responsible for collecting cash and drop boxes (the secure boxes holding cash and chips) from slot machines and gaming tables. Every morning, the drop team collects money from the slot machines and the tables, and takes the money to a counting room.

The contents of each box are counted and verified by a supervisor, and then placed in a vault. If the casino cashiers need money during the day, they complete a form and give it to their supervisor. The cashier supervisor contacts the drop team supervisor, who then delivers the money to the cashiers. The cashiers also exchange money with the food and beverage employees who work on the casino fl oor, and with employees at the other restaurants if needed.

All employees in the casino are expected to participate in meeting the casino’s “Service Standards,” which include removing dirty glasses and bottles left at slot machines, and cleaning up any garbage or discarded items left in the casino. Slot machine attendants may serve non-alcoholic drinks to customers; they may take customer orders for alcohol or food, but they pass those along to a server who then completes the order.

The Union’s Position Prior to making this application for certification, the union had filed an application involving a proposed bargaining unit of casino employees and hotel housekeepers, with the exception of surveillance workers, maintenance workers, and supervisors. It withdrew that application and subsequently filed the current application.

The union argues that its proposed bargaining unit is intended to maximize its representation in the casino without drawing arbitrary differences between units. Thus, for example, housekeepers are included in the proposed bargaining unit because they also clean the casino area as well as the hotel. However, casino servers and slot machine attendants are not included in the proposed bargaining unit because, while they share some job duties with employees in other parts of the resort, the connections are not often enough or strong enough to create a viable collective bargaining relationship involving all those employees.

The union also argues that the employer is confusing “functional integration” and “functional relationships between job classifications” in proposing a larger bargaining unit. It argues that while there is a community of interest among all the jobs at the resort, there is also a community of interest within the jobs in the proposed bargaining unit.

The union acknowledges that there are many potential bargaining units that could be created within the resort, but argues that a bargaining unit including all the resort employees is not the only appropriate unit.

The Employer’s Position 

The employer argues that the bargaining unit should include all the resort’s employees, and alleges that the union’s proposed bargaining unit is “cherry picking” the areas of the resort where the union’s certification application seems to have the most support. The employer argues that the union’s proposed bargaining unit includes some casino staff, but not all of them, and suggests that at a minimum the bargaining unit should include all casino staff.

If a bargaining unit of all resort employees is not feasible, the employer suggests that an appropriate bargaining unit would be all employees who work in the casino – with the exception of supervisors, security staff, and surveillance staff.

The employer specifically objects to the casino’s slot machine attendants and food and beverage servers being excluded from the union’s proposed bargaining unit. It argues that these employees have overlapping duties with employees included in the proposed unit.