Cite as: 511 U. S. 571 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
an employee who in the course of employment uses independent judgment to engage in 1 of the 12 listed activities, including responsible direction of other employees, is a supervisor. Under the Board's test, however, a nurse who in the course of employment uses independent judgment to engage in responsible direction of other employees is not a supervisor. Only a nurse who in the course of employment uses independent judgment to engage in one of the activities related to another employee's job status or pay can qualify as a supervisor under the Board's test. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 4 (filed July 23, 1993) (nurses are supervisors when they affect "job status or pay of employees working under them"). The Board provides no plausible justification, however, for reading the responsible direction portion of § 2(11) out of the statute in nurse cases, and we can perceive none.
The Board defends its test by arguing that phrases in § 2(11) such as "independent judgment" and "responsibly to direct" are ambiguous, so the Board needs to be given ample room to apply them to different categories of employees. That is no doubt true, but it is irrelevant in this particular case because interpretation of those phrases is not the underpinning of the Board's test. The Board instead has placed exclusive reliance on the "in the interest of the employer" language in § 2(11). With respect to that particular phrase, we find no ambiguity supporting the Board's position. It should go without saying, moreover, that ambiguity in one portion of a statute does not give the Board license to distort other provisions of the statute. Yet that is what the Board seeks us to sanction in this case.
The interpretation of the "in the interest of the employer" language mandated by our precedents and by the ordinary meaning of the phrase does not render the phrase meaningless in the statutory definition. The language ensures, for example, that union stewards who adjust grievances are not considered supervisory employees and deprived of the Act's protections. But the language cannot support the Board's
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