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🗞️ In the Alaska Wilderness, Two Superintendents Win the Right to Unionize

An NLRB regional director ruled that two power utility superintendents at Alaska Power and Telephone are employees, not supervisors, expanding a newly certified union's bargaining unit on Prince of Wales Island.

A federal labor ruling issued June 10, 2026, expanded the scope of a recently certified union at Alaska Power and Telephone Company (AP&T), a remote utility serving communities from the Alaska interior to above the Arctic Circle. The National Labor Relations Board's Region 19 director determined that two mid-level positions, the Power Operations Superintendent and the Power Plant Superintendent, do not qualify as supervisors under federal labor law and must be included in the bargaining unit represented by IBEW Local 1547.

The case turned on a precise application of Section 2(11) of the National Labor Relations Act, which defines a supervisor as any individual with authority, in the employer's interest, to hire, discipline, assign, or direct employees using independent judgment. Under established Board precedent, the employer bears the burden of proving supervisory status by a preponderance of the evidence, and any gaps or conflicts in the record are resolved against the party making that claim.

AP&T had argued that both positions exercised meaningful supervisory functions over their respective crews on Prince of Wales Island, a geographically isolated region with its own power grid and ten powerhouses. The union contended that neither role involved the kind of independent judgment the law requires. Regional Director Ronald K. Hooks agreed with the union on every supervisory factor he examined.

Hooks found that Power Operations Superintendent Clair Nelson spent roughly 90% of his time on non-field tasks, including responding to emails, meeting with customers, ordering supplies, and approving timesheets. Rather than directing his crew, Nelson typically asked workers which jobs they wanted and allowed them to self-assign tasks from the company's scheduling software. On overtime, he let crew members decide whether to start early or stay late. Nelson testified that he had never issued discipline in his three years in the role and did not believe he had authority to do so. That account was corroborated by his predecessor, Journeyman Lineman Jacob Hoppe, who held the Power Operations Superintendent position from 2018 to 2024 and similarly testified that he had not disciplined anyone and did not believe he had that authority.

Power Plant Superintendent Lloyd Crookes, who had been in his role for approximately six months at the time of the hearing, presented a more layered record. Crookes testified that, based on his job description, he believed he had authority to issue discipline, suspend employees, and terminate workers for particularly poor conduct. Hooks found those beliefs unsubstantiated by actual practice: Crookes had never exercised any of those authorities. Testimony from a counterpart in AP&T's Interior region, Superintendent Ben Grzyb, showed that he had issued writeups without prior approval and ultimately recommended the termination of an apprentice, which HR carried out. Even so, Hooks found that Grzyb's termination recommendation did not meet the Board's standard for effective recommendation because upper management and HR conducted their own independent review before acting on it.

Hooks also found that neither superintendent had authority to make meaningful work assignments. Crookes testified that he rarely assigned tasks directly because his two-person crew, one with expertise in mechanical systems and the other in electrical work, already knew what to do. When he did direct work, the assignment was self-evident given their distinct skill sets. Approvals for overtime and leave were subject to review by the company's payroll specialist, who had the authority to override Crookes's decisions when they conflicted with existing policy.

Applying the framework established by the Board in Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., 348 NLRB 686 (2006), Hooks concluded that neither superintendent possessed authority to hire, assign, reward, discipline, responsibly direct, or adjust the grievances of employees in a manner requiring genuine independent judgment. Because neither position cleared any of the primary supervisory thresholds, Hooks declined to consider secondary indicia of supervisory status.

IBEW Local 1547, which represents close to 5,000 workers in Alaska across utility, telecommunications, and related trades, had been certified as the bargaining representative of AP&T's Prince of Wales Island power division in March 2026. The two superintendent classifications had voted in that election subject to challenge, leaving their unit placement unresolved until this proceeding.

AP&T, founded in 1957 and employee-owned, has until June 25, 2026, to file a request for review with the NLRB's Board in Washington, D.C.

Key Points

Regional Director Ronald K. Hooks ruled that neither the Power Operations Superintendent nor the Power Plant Superintendent qualifies as a statutory supervisor under Section 2(11) of the NLRA, and both must be included in the IBEW Local 1547 bargaining unit.
The employer bore the burden of proving supervisory status by a preponderance of the evidence; gaps in the record and conflicting testimony were resolved against it.
Power Operations Superintendent Clair Nelson spent approximately 90% of his time on non-field administrative tasks, allowed crew members to self-assign work, and had never issued discipline in three years on the job.
Power Plant Superintendent Lloyd Crookes believed he held disciplinary and termination authority based on his job description, but had been in the role only six months and had never exercised those powers.
Testimony from an Interior region counterpart who had issued writeups and recommended a termination still fell short of the Board's standard because management and HR independently reviewed those actions before acting on them.
Overtime and leave approvals by Crookes were subject to override by the company's payroll specialist when they did not conform to established policy, further undermining any claim of independent supervisory judgment.
The ruling applies the Oakwood Healthcare standard, under which supervisory authority must involve discretion rising above the routine or clerical, and the Board is obligated not to construe supervisory status so broadly as to deprive employees of NLRA protections.
AP&T may seek review before the NLRB Board in Washington by close of business on June 25, 2026.