Casa Italiana Language School

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 11, 1998

326 N.L.R.B. 40 (N.L.R.B. 1998)

DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 40
Casa Italiana Language School and Washington Ital-
ian Teachers Association, Petitioner. Case 5–
RC–14348.
August 11, 1998
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN GOULD AND MEMBERS FOX
AND LIEBMAN
On July 15, 1996, the Regional Director for Region 5
issued his Decision and Order in which he dismissed the
petition in the above-captioned proceeding. The Re-
gional Director found that under NLRB v. Catholic
Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490 (1979), asserting juris-
diction over the Employer (or the School) would inextri-
cably intertwine the Board in church matters that do not
impact commerce within the meaning of the Act. The
Regional Director found that the service provided by the
School, while commercial in the generally accepted
sense, is nevertheless an integral part of the mission of
the Church. Thereafter, in accordance with Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board’s Rules
and Regulations, the Petitioner filed a timely request for
review of the Regional Director’s Decision and Order,
asserting that the Board was not precluded from asserting
jurisdiction under Catholic Bishop. The Employer filed
a brief in opposition. By Order dated September 10,
1996, the Board granted the Petitioner’s request for re-
view.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
Having carefully considered the entire record, includ-
ing the Employer’s brief on review, we conclude, con-
trary to the Regional Director, that jurisdiction is prop-
erly asserted in this matter.
The material facts in this case are not in dispute. The
Petitioner seeks to represent all of the Employer’s ap-
proximately 14 Italian language teachers. The School is
located within the Casa Italiana Social and Cultural Cen-
ter (the Center), which is adjacent to Holy Rosary Roman
Catholic Church (the Church) in Washington, D.C. Holy
Rosary Church is part of the Catholic Archdiocese of
Washington, D.C., and is under the jurisdiction of the
Cardinal of the Archdiocese of Washington. The
Scalabrini Order, established at the end of the last cen-
tury for the purpose of assisting Italian immigrants to the
United States, established the Holy Rosary Church in
order to serve the Italian-American religious community
and to perpetuate Italian culture and traditions. In accor-
dance with its mission, Sunday Mass at Holy Rosary
Church is regularly conducted in Italian.
As the community surrounding the Church changed
from an Italian enclave to a multicultural community, the
Church, recognizing the need to attract people from
greater distances, created the Center.1 The activities at
the Center consist of coffee after Mass, cultural events,
lectures, dinners, dances, receptions after baptisms and
weddings, and catechism classes.
In 1981, the parishioners of the Church established the
School as a lessee of the Center. As such, the Employer
is physically located on Church property. The Employer
offers instruction in the Italian language to the general
public through the School. Indeed, the majority of its
students come from the surrounding suburbs in Southern
Maryland and Northern Virginia who cross into the Dis-
trict of Columbia to attend the School.
The constitution of the School provides that it shall be
an integral part of Holy Rosary Church and its goal is to
preserve and enhance the spiritual and cultural values of
Italian-Americans, mainly through offering courses on
the Italian language. The constitution also provides that
responsibility for the School shall be vested in the pastor
of the Holy Rosary Church, who will be assisted by an
executive committee comprising persons who have ex-
perience in teaching the Italian language and who are
steeped in the history and culture of Italy.
The Employer makes no inquiry regarding the appli-
cants’ or teachers’ religious affiliations and does not re-
quire attendance at the Church or practice of the Catholic
religion by the teachers or the students. Indeed, the
School’s recruiting brochures contain no reference to the
Church. A lay coordinator hired by the pastor runs the
day-to-day administration, management and supervision
of the teachers at the School. The teachers are selected
by the coordinator and approved by the pastor. Prospec-
tive teachers are not questioned about their religious be-
liefs or practices, and they provide instruction only in the
Italian language. The coordinator explicitly told the
teachers that their conversation classes should avoid any
discussion of religion. None of the priests or nuns as-
signed to the Church has ever taught at the School and
teachers of the School are not required to participate in
any religious services or training. All teachers are part-
time employees, and they work less than 20 hours per
week.
The School’s bank account and records, as well as its
computers, are kept separate from both Church and Cul-
tural Center records and accounts. The Pastor signs the
teachers’ paychecks but the funds for the teacher’s pay
come out of the School’s budget, which is separate from
the Church’s and Center’s budgets. The School is
funded through tuition paid by its 300–350 students,
which in 1995–1996 came to approximately $145,000,
and a subsidy of approximately $70,000, which it re-
ceives from the Italian government as part of that coun-
try’s efforts to promote the study of Italian language and
culture. The Italian government requires that 90 percent

1 The Center was established in 1981 on property owned by the
Archdiocese and its deed is held by the Archdiocese of Washington.
326 NLRB No. 14
CASA ITALIANA LANGUAGE SCHOOL 41
of its subsidy, which constitutes 30 percent of the
School’s funding, must be spent on teaching and educa-
tional equipment. The School is not accredited by any
governmental or educational accrediting body.
In determining whether to decline jurisdiction under
Catholic Bishop, the Board has considered whether a
school’s purpose and function in substantial part are to
propagate a religious faith. Jewish Day School of
Greater Washington, 283 NLRB 757, 761 (1987). In
analyzing a “religious purpose,” in a school setting, the
Board considers whether religious principles are effectu-
ated by the “substantial suffusion of religion into the
curriculum.”2 We find, given the evidence described
above, that the School’s mission is to teach Italian.
There is no evidence that the School proselytizes, or in-
culcates by instruction, any religious doctrine or belief.
Thus, the sensitive First Amendment issues surrounding
the dispute over Board jurisdiction in Catholic Bishop
are not present in the assertion of jurisdiction over the
teachers in the instant case.
The instant issue, however, falls more appropriately
under the line of cases where the Board has historically
and routinely asserted jurisdiction over retail operations
operated by religious institutions. See, e.g., First Church
of Christ, Scientist, 194 NLRB 1006 (1972); World
Evangelism, 248 NLRB 909 (1980), enfd. 656 F.2d 1349
(9th Cir. 1981).3 The purpose of the school is not the
promulgation of the Roman Catholic faith but the provi-
sion of Italian language instruction on a nondenomina-
tional and commercial basis. The Employer’s staff at
issue here consists of Italian language teachers who are
not required to have any particular religious background
or training. There is no showing that any employee is
directly or indirectly involved in the teaching of a reli-
gious philosophy. Accordingly, we conclude that the
Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act and that assertion of jurisdiction, if otherwise
appropriate, is not foreclosed by religious considerations.
The Employer here contends that this case is con-
trolled by the Board’s decisions in Motherhouse of the
Sisters of Charity, 232 NLRB 318 (1977), and Riverside
Church, 309 NLRB 806 (1992). However, contrary to
the Employer, these cases do not support its contention
that jurisdiction should be denied.
In Motherhouse, the Board found that a nursing home
run by the Sisters of Charity, a religious Order, would
not have existed but for the fact that its sole occupants
were sisters belonging to the Order. The nursing home’s
mission was to enable sisters of the Order in need of
nursing home facilities the use of such facilities in close
proximity to their church, and thereby enabling them to

2 Id. at 761 (fn. omitted).
3 The Board has not applied its jurisdictional standards for educa-
tional institutions over schools without accreditation or generally rec-
ognized diplomas, as is the case here. See College of English Lan-
guage, 277 NLRB 1065, 1068 (1985).
continue to attend to their religious duties. The Board
found the purpose of the nursing home was thus religious
in nature and asserting jurisdiction would inextricably
intertwine the Board in the religious matters of the
Church.
The Employer argues that learning the Italian language
enhances a parishioner’s religious participation in Italian
language-led Masses and attracts members to the Church.
Thus, as in Motherhouse, the Employer argues that the
Board’s asserting jurisdiction over the School would
interfere with the Church’s religious purpose.
There is, however, no indication that enhancing parish-
ioners’ participation in Italian language-led Masses or
attracting membership to the Church are missions of the
School. No evidence was presented that students or
teachers are asked or encouraged to participate in the
Church’s religious affairs; indeed, the school’s brochure
does not even mention the Church. Furthermore, the
employer does not exist for the purpose of enabling the
students to participate in or practice their religion. The
evidence presented shows that the students come from
many religious backgrounds and that they typically have
secular rather than religious reasons for wanting to take
courses in the Italian language, e.g., they are planning to
travel to Italy.4 The School’s activity is thus not a reli-
gious activity to which the Board would deny jurisdic-
tion. Instead, the School is more in line with commercial
activity in the generally accepted sense as found by the
Regional Director.
In Riverside, the Regional Director reasoned, and the
Board agreed, that jurisdiction over maintenance em-
ployees was warranted only if the unit employees con-
tributed a substantial amount of their time performing the
Church’s commercial activities compared to their time
spent on the Church’s noncommercial activities. In the
instant case, the teachers spend 100 percent of their time
in the Employer’s employ performing the Employer’s
commercial work—teaching Italian. Their performance
is thereby substantial.5
Based on the above, we therefore find, contrary to the
Regional Director, that the Employer is not an exempt
religious entity, and that Board jurisdiction need not be
declined on that basis.6 We further find that assertion of
jurisdiction over the School is warranted. The Board has
4 The Employer also argues that the Italian Language classes allow
the Church and the Order to continue their religious mission of caring
for the spiritual, cultural, and social needs of the parishioners by pro-
viding them with classes in the Italian language. However, the Board
has found such facts are not enough to preclude jurisdiction. See Har-
borcreek School for Boys, 249 NLRB 1226 (1980) (“Thus, while the
work of the school is in accord with the charitable aims and purposes of
the diocese, the school is not a religious institution with a sectarian
philosophy or mission”).
5 Chairman Gould and Member Fox agree that Riverside is distin-
guishable from this case, but note that they would overrule it. See
Ecclesiastical Maintenance Services, 325 NLRB 629 (1998).
6 We take judicial notice that the Employer is listed among “lan-
guage schools” in the Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages.
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 42
plenary jurisdiction over employers engaged in com-
merce in the District of Columbia under Section 2(6) of
the Act, and we assert such jurisdiction in this case. See
M.S. Ginn & Co., 114 NLRB 112 (1956). Accordingly,
the Regional Director’s decision is reversed, the petition
is reinstated, and the case is remanded to the Regional
Director for further appropriate action consistent with the
findings here.