St. Francis Hospital-Medical Center

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 13, 1976

223 N.L.R.B. 1451 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL-MEDICAL CENTER 1451
St. Francis Hospital -Medical Center and Joint Coun-
cil, I.B .E.W. Local No. 34, Painters Local Union
No. 157, Carpenters Local Union No. 183, Plumb-
ers Local Union No. 63, and Firemen and Oilers
Local Union No. 8, Petitioner. Case 38-RC-1660
May 13, 1976
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Donald M.
Glynn. Following the close of the hearing, the Re-
gional Director for Region 13 transferred this pro-
ceeding to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the
Employer and Petitioner filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free
from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board finds:
1. The parties stipulated that the Employer, St.
Francis Hospital-Medical Center, "is a non-profit re-
ligiously affiliated health care institution operating in
the city of Peoria [Illinois] and that during the calen-
dar year 1974, its gross receipts were in excess of
$500,000 and that during the same period, it pur-
chased and received goods which were shipped to it
from outside the State of Illinois valued in excess of
$50,000." We find that the Employer is engaged in
commerce within the meaning of the Act to assert
jurisdiction herein.
2. The Employer has filed a motion to dismiss the
petition wherein it contends, inter alia, that Petitioner
exists "only as . . . words on the petition" and is not
a labor organization within the meaning of the Act
because, in essence, it lacks monetary and physical
assets and structural formality.
Petitioner is a recently formed unaffiliated trade
union council composed of five local craft labor or-
ganizations in the Peoria, Illinois , area. It was creat-
ed as an instrument to facilitate and expedite bar-
gaining negotiations with employers by engaging in
bargaining for and on behalf of the membership of
its constituent locals. Its present membership consists
of representatives from each of its constituent locals,
and its duly elected officers have been chosen from
those representatives. While the evidence shows that
employee-members of each of Petitioner's consti-
tuent locals are permitted to attend meetings of Peti-
tioner, the record does not establish the extent of
their participation in Petitoner through such meet-
ings, or whether they may be admitted to direct
membership in Petitioner. Petitioner's clearly ex-
pressed intent, however, is to bargain for and on be-
half of the membership of its constituent locals, each
of whom will represent its respective membership
"jointly through a central spokeman."
Petitioner also has declared that the Employer's
responses to its proposals will determine whether it
will seek to execute a single bargaining agreement
embracing all of its constituent locals, or separate
bargaining agreements on behalf of each of the lo-
cals.
Inasmuch as Petitioner was established to repre-
sent employees in collective bargaining, and since
employee-members of each of the constituent locals
participate in the affairs of Petitioner through their
respective representatives, we find that Petitioner is a
labor organization within the meaning of the Act,'
notwithstanding its organizational incompleteness?
We further find that, in view of Petitioner's stated
objectives, its inchoate position with regard to the
possible execution of separate contracts does not
constitute a per se rejection of collective-bargaining
principles, and that it may attempt to secure such
agreements so long as it is willing to bargain for and
represent all unit employees, and the separate agree-
ments would not, in force or effect, differ from a
master agreement which may contain appropriate
differentials pertaining to the various employees and
crafts.
3. A question concerning representation exists
concerning the representation of certain employees
of the Employer within the meaning of Sections
9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit: Petitioner seeks to repre-
sent a unit composed of all (42 or 43) of the
Employer's full-time maintenance and repair em-
ployees; excluding the 2 secretaries assigned to the
maintenance department, all part-time maintenance
and repair employees, all other part-time employees,
office clerical employees, professional employees,
guards, supervisors, and all other employees (approx-
imately 2,150) employed by the Employer. Alterna-
tively, it will represent such unit or units as the Board
1 San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO (ITO Packing Co., Inc. and Ar-
den-Mayfair, Inc.), 191 NLRB 261 (1971); Washoe Investment Co. Inc.,
d/b/a Crystal Boy Club, 169 NLRB 838 (1968): Halliburton Company, 142
NLRB 644 (1963).
2 Cf. General Dynamics Corporation, Convair Aerospace Division, San Die-
go Operations, 213 NLRB 851 (1974); Alto Plastics Manufacturing Corpora-
tion, 136 NLRB 850 (1962).
223 NLRB No. 213
1452 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
deems appropriate.' Petitioner contends that the peti-
tioned-for employees constitute a readily identifiable
group whose similarity of function and skills, wages,
housing, supervision, and working conditions creates
a community of interest not enjoyed by the employ-
ees it seeks to exclude and, therefore, warrant sepa-
rate representation.
Petitioner also argues, in substance, that the con-
gressional concern with undue proliferation of bar-
gaining units in the health care field does not relieve
the Board of its obligations to consider the appropri-
ateness of the unit sought and to determine the unit
to be appropriate, if the evidence so warrants, since
"an analysis of the legislative history of the [1974]
amendments [to the National Labor Relations Act]
does not disclose that Congress intended to prohibit
units that have been traditionally found by the Board
to be appropriate" merely because the Employer is in
the health care field.
The Employer disagrees, contending, inter alia,
that the unit sought "controverts the legislative direc-
tive" against unit proliferation in the health care
field, thereby mandating dismissal of the petition or,
at the very least , precluding the Board from finding
appropriate "any unit consisting of anything less
than all non-professional employees." In this latter
vein , the Employer argues , more specifically, that
such a broad unit is required because the petitioned-
for, and many of the excluded, employees share a
high degree of functional and operational integration
and possess the same or similar skills and perform
the same or similar work under common supervision,
working conditions, and benefits and, in general,
"share no separate unity of interest distinct from the
broader one shared by all hospital employees."
Section 9(b) of the Act directs the Board to make
unit determinations which "assure employees the
fullest freedom in exercising the rights guaranteed by
this Act." It is obvious, therefore, that such freedom
cannot be achieved by a per se policy of rejecting
units which otherwise are appropriate, particularly
when there is no congressional or legal mandate to
do so, or by achieving this result indirectly by declar-
ing that an otherwise appropriate unit cannot be ap-
propriate without the placement therein of employ-
ees who do not seek representation and whom a
union does not seek to represent, which a union may
not be qualified to represent adequately, and where
such additional employees may constitute an appro-
priate unit or units. It also is fairly clear that all em-
3 Consistent with this position , Petitioner will represent the two secretaries
assigned to the maintenance department if the Board finds them to be plant
ployees in the health care field are involved in "pa-
tient care" to a greater or lesser, direct or indirect,
degree. This conformity of general purpose, however,
does not per se establish a singularity of employee
interests where, in fact, separate interests may exist.
While we are mindful of the congressional concern
pertaining to an unnecessary proliferation of bar-
gaining units in the health care field, we find nothing
in the recent amendments to the National Labor Re-
lations Act which has undermined the Board's well-
established unit-determination principles, or which
dictates that a single "wall-to-wall" unit is appropri-
ate even when there are substantial and diverse com-
munities of interest." We find, therefore, contrary to
the Employer, that we are not precluded from find-
ing appropriate a unit which may be less than wall-
to-wall in scope, or even the unit sought if, indeed,
the employees therein enjoy communities of interest
which are separate, distinct, and disparate from those.
enjoyed by the employees not sought. We proceed to
this issue.5
All of the Employer's employees, including the pe-
titioned-for maintenance employees, share the same
basic working conditions and benefits such as hours
of work and number of hours worked daily and
weekly, the number and duration of daily rest peri-
ods, payday and method of payment, annual perfor-
mance evaluation, grievance procedure, reduced
prices on cafeteria food, tax annuity program, sav-
ings and pension plans, and educational, health, and
other fringe benefits. This broad commonality, how-
ever, cannot, and does not, in and of itself, either
fashion an appropriate overall unit or compel the
conclusion that a separate maintenance unit is not
appropriate since , among a myriad of other reasons,
these conditions and benefits are shared by profes-
sional as well as nonprofessional employees, and by
certain classifications in groups of nonprofessional
The congressional latitude allowed the Board in determining the compo-
sition of appropriate units in the health care industry on the basis of tradi-
tionally employed standards is established by Senator Williams' statement
that:
... the National Labor Relations Board has shown good judgment in
establishing appropriate units for the purposes of collective bargaining,
particularly in wrestling with units in newly covered industries. While
the Board has, as a rule, tended to avoid an unnecessary proliferation
of collective bargaining units, sometimes circumstances require that
there be a number of bargaining units among nonsupervisory employ-
ees, particularly where there is such a history in the area or a notable
disparity of interests between employees in different job classifications.
While the committee clearly intends that the Board give due consider-
ation to its admonition to avoid an undue proliferation of units in the
health care industry, it did not within this framework intend to pre-
clude the Board acting in the public interest from exercising its special-
ized experience and expert knowledge in determining appropriate bar-
gaining experience and expert knowledge in determining appropriate
bargaining units . . . . 120 Cong. Rec. 512104 (Daily) (July 10, 1974).
clerical employees, as the Employer contends, although Petitioner would 5 The Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati. d/b/a/ Jewish Hospital of
exclude them as office clericals . Cincinnati, 223 NLRB 614 (1976).
ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL-MEDICAL CENTER 1453
employees whose interests differ markedly from each
other .6
The record further shows that all of the
Employer's employees, including those sought, were
considered for employment and hired on the basis of
their past experience in the jobs applied for. Whatev-
er effect this job selectivity may have had on interde-
partmental interchange generally, the record shows
that there is virtually no employee interchange and,
at best, a minimal degree of functional and/or opera-
tional integration between the maintenance depart-
ment and any of the Employer's other departments.
The disparity, or separability, which exists between
maintenance and other departments is further evi-
denced by the employee transfer record which shows
that since 1954 only seven employees from other de-
partments have transferred into maintenance-al-
ways at its lowest classification within the section to
which the transfer was made-and even fewer have
transferred out.
More specifically, the maintenance department
consists of the employees sought, 11 supervisors, and
2 secretaries, all of whom, along with their respective
craft and functional shops, are located in mainte-
nance areas which are separate and apart from those
populated by nonmaintenance employees. They are
paid on the basis of area rates which, on the average,
are higher than wage rates paid in other departments.
They wear uniforms which are distinct from those
worn by other employees, and their timecards are
departmentally separated from the cards of those
with whom they share a timeclock. A majority (29) of
the employees sought are assigned to the plumbing,
electrical, refrigeration and air conditioning, carpen-
try, and painting (which includes masons) sections of
the maintenance department. These craftsmen, who
possess different degrees of skills within their re-
spective classifications, spend approximately 90 per-
cent of their time throughout the hospital performing
their specialities, usually on one-man jobs, complete-
ly free from any work assignment, work direction,
disciplinary action, or supervision by any but their
own respective maintenance department supervisors.
Basically, they perform all of the Employer's mainte-
nance and repair work, except laundry department
equipment maintenance work, discussed infra, and
some minor maintenance and repair work on techni-
cal machines and equipment, which is performed by
the technicians concerned as a normal technical
function. All major maintenance and repair work on
technical machines and equipment, however, is either
contracted out or handled by trained specialists em-
ployed by the Employer. In short, nonmaintenance
employees generally do not perform any mainte-
nance or repair work on the Employer's technical or
nontechnical equipment.
Inasmuch as each department operates pursuant to
well-defined functions, there is some operational in-
termix between these craftsmen and employees as-
signed to other departments, but virtually no func-
tional integration. For example, housekeeping
department employees clean light bulbs which elec-
tricians change and replace when necessary; remove
or rearrange furniture and, if necessary, clean walls
to be painted by painters and thereafter replace the
furniture and clean the room; clean the outside of
induction units whose inside coils are cleaned by an
induction unit man in the refrigeration and air-con-
ditioning section; and clean trash compactors on
which minor repairs are made by the craftsmen and
major repairs by outside contractors.
In addition, maintenance department employees
also are responsible for repairing and replacing tile
which housekeeping strips and waxes; maintaining
and repairing the dietary department's food carts
and cooking and refrigeration equipment; the opera-
tion of compressors, which insures the proper func-
tioning of vacuum suction equipment used in anes-
thesiology work; construction of equipment designed
by therapists; monitoring and maintaining the refrig-
eration unit in the pharmacy department; and insur-
ing that oxygen and nitrous oxide supplies are avail-
able in sufficient amounts for surgery and emergency
rooms.
While the foregoing summary of operations may
not cover every operation involving the employees
sought, it covers a substantial portion of them and,
moreover, is representative. In any event, it appears
that since the craftsmen sought spend 90 percent of
their time performing their specialities in tasks which
usually are one-man jobs, such functional and/or op-
erational integration as may exist between them and
nonmaintenance employees is, at best, very limited
and insubstantial in nature?
As to the laundry department equipment, the rec-
ord shows that two mechanics and one helper are
assigned to the laundry department, where, under the
supervision of the laundry department manager, they
are scheduled to "perform all maintenance tasks on
laundry equipment." Unfortunately, however, they
6 For example , the Board has found, in health care operations similar to
the Employer's herein , separate appropriate units of service and mainte-
nance employees , Newington Children's Hospital, 217 NLRB 793 (1975);
business office clerical employees , Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, 217 NLRB
797 (1975); technical employees , Nathan and Miriam Barnert Memorial Hos-
pital Association d/b/a Barnert Memorial Hospital Center, 217 NLRB 775
(1975).
7 Contrary to the Employer, the unit sought is not rendered inappropriate
because "it would include employees who spend 80-90% of their time per-
forming tasks less in contact with each other , than with excluded employ-
ees." Such evidence does not establish either the presence of functional
and/or operational integration between these and nonmaintenance employ-
ees, or the absence of such integration within the maintenance department.
1454 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
are unable to keep up with the breakdown of laundry
equipment, thereby requiring and receiving assis-
tance from maintenance department employees in
the laborer, machine shop, and powerhouse sections.
As to the remaining employees sought, i.e., the
noncraft maintenance department employees,' the
one laborer's principal tasks consist of cleaning
rooms and areas throughout the hospital, assisting
the housekeeping department "in some duties of
cleanup," and assisting "with moving items around
[and performing] jobs like that wherever he's need-
ed."
The primary functions of the four yardsmen in the
grounds section of maintenance consist of keeping
the grounds clean, cutting grass, planting flowers,
landscaping, and removing snow throughout the
Employer's premises except around doorways, en-
trances, and sidewalks, where that function is per-
formed by housekeeping. In the event of an excep-
tionally heavy snowfall, "then Housekeeping and the
Maintenance Departments get involved in snow re-
moval . . . all over the grounds."
The one machine shop mechanic spends virtually
all of his time in the machine shop repairing beds,
furniture, food carts, and "anything that needs . . .
to get fixed," which are delivered to, and removed
from, his shop by employees assigned to the
Employer's general storeroom. He also assists the
laundry department mechanics whenever necessary.
The truckdriver, who is housed in the machine
shop, spends approximately 70 percent of his time
picking up parts and material for the maintenance
department in a one-half ton pickup truck which he
drives. When not so engaged, he assists the machine
shop mechanic, for whose job he is being trained,
and also assists the laundry department mechanics.
The maintenance department stores section also is
operated by one employee, and services the mainte-
nance department only, save for light bulbs and bat-
teries which it supplies on special requisition to nurs-
ing service department employees. It receives its
supplies from the Employer's general stores depart-
ment which receives and dispenses supplies for the
entire hospital. In furtherance of their basic func-
tions, appropriate classifications from among the em-
ployees sought assemble and install, or disassemble,
as the case may require, equipment received by gen-
eral stores. The record also contains the enigmatic
excerpt that a general stores storekeeper performs re-
pair work of an unidentified nature on stethoscopes
and blood pressure machines. ("I don't know to what
extent" and "if they cannot repair them, they send
them out.")
s Laborers, yardsmen. machine shop mechanic, truckdriver, and mainte-
nance department stores and powerhouse employees
The powerhouse section of maintenance is main-
tained on a 7-day per week, 24-hour per day basis by
six or seven employees, two or three of whom work
the day shift, two or three the night shift, and one the
lobster shift. Five of the employees are licensed as
first class engineers, and the sixth as a first class boil-
er tender. Except for the second or third man on a
shift, who assists the laundry department mechanics
when necessary, these employees spend all of their
time in the powerhouse performing powerhouse
work.
It is clear, then, that except for the laborer, such
functional and/or operational integration as may ex-
ist between the noncraft classifications of yardsmen
and maintenance department storekeeper and the
nonmaintenance classifications also is meager in na-
ture and separate in occurrence. It also is clear that
there is no such integration with regard to the other
noncraft employees sought.
Further, while some maintenance employees may
possess some skills similar to those possessed by
some nonmaintenance employees, the record does
not support the Employer's contention that non-
maintenance employees generally, or in substantial
numbers, possess the same or similar skills and per-
form the same or similar work as maintenance em-
ployees.
This leaves the two secretaries whom the Employer
would include as plant clerical employees, and whom
Petitioner would exclude as office clericals but will
represent if so required. In contrast to the mainte-
nance employees, who receive higher wages on the
average than the wages paid in other departments,
both secretaries not only are the lowest paid employ-
ees assigned to the maintenance department, but
their wage rate "is lower than the rate being paid to
other classifications of employees in other depart-
ments of the hospital." The secretary to the chief en-
gineer is located in the chief engineer's office where
she performs the usual secretarial duties such as tak-
ing shorthand, typing, filing, answering the phone,
etc. She also receives all of the work requests, or or-
ders, issued by the heads of the various departments
concerned, which she registers, stamps, numbers, and
places in the proper "pigeonhole" for the appropriate
maintenance department supervisor. In addition, she
maintains a daily record of the time spent on mainte-
nance and repair work by maintenance department
employees, and prepares a monthly report on the
number of maintenance hours spent in various of the
Employer's departments. The record does not indi-
cate clearly the amount of time spent in such work
vis-a-vis the time spent on nonmaintenance secre-
tarial work.
The other secretary is assigned to the office of the
ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL-MEDICAL CENTER 1455
overseer of hospital construction, which is located in
a different maintenance area from that in which the
employees sought are located. The record defines her
duties only as those usually associated with secre-
tarial work. It further shows that the office in which
she works deals only with construction work which is
performed only by outside contractors, that none of
the maintenance department employees sought is in-
volved in said construction work, that she does not
receive work requests for maintenance work within
the hospital, and that, in substance, she has no con-
tact either with the employees sought or the area to
which they are assigned.
In view of the above, we are persuaded that, except
for the laborer classification, the maintenance and
repair employees, including part-time employees,9
sought possess a community of interest sufficiently
separate and distinct from the broader community of
interest which they share with all other nonprofes-
sional employees, or with other departments of the
Employer, as to warrant their conclusion in a sepa-
rate unit. Based on the record and Petitioner's will-
ingness to represent such unit as the Board deems
appropriate, we shall include in the unit the two
laundry department mechanics and one helper, since
their work function is identical to the type of work
performed by certain of the classifications sought,
and their functional and operational intergration
with other of the unit employees sought, who actual-
ly assist them in their work, is extremely high. We
shall exclude, however, the two secretaries, neither of
9 The Union desired to exclude part -time employees , but the record dis-
closes no reason for doing so. In accordance with our usual practice. we
shall include them . See Bachmann Uxbridge Worsted Corp., 109 NLRB 868,
In. 9.
whom Petitioner sought, as office clerical employees;
the secretary to the overseer of hospital construction
because she apparently has no contact or involve-
ment with either the employees sought or their de-
partment in the performance of her duties, which ap-
pear to be purely secretarial in nature; and the
secretary to the chief engineer because she apparent-
ly has no contact with any maintenance department
employees other than supervisors, and because such
community of interest she may have with such em-
ployees is extremely limited in nature, particularly
her wage rate. Moreover, the record does not indi-
cate whether her "plant clerical" duties are substan-
tial or substantially insignificant vis-a-vis her "office
clerical" duties, i.e., whether her work and working
conditions are materially and substantially related to
unit work.
We also shall exclude the laborer classification
since the duties performed by this classification are
housekeeping, rather than maintenance, in nature.
Accordingly, we find, on the basis of the foregoing,
that the following employees of the Employer consti-
tute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act, and we shall direct an election therein:
All full-time and part-time maintenance and re-
pair employees employed by the Employer; ex-
cluding the maintenance department laborer,
the secretary to the maintenance department
chief engineer, the secretary to the overseer of
hospital construction, office clerical employees,
professional employees, guards, supervisors, and
all other employees employed by the Employer.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit-
ted from publication.]