Butler Hospital

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsAug 1, 1980

250 N.L.R.B. 1310 (N.L.R.B. 1980)

DFICISIONS OF NATIONAL I.ABOR RELATIONS BOARD Butler Hospital and New England Health Care Em- ployees Union, District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees Union, RWDSU, AFL-CIO,' Petitioner. Case l-RC- 16729 August 1, 1980 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND PENEI. O Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Wendy M. Bittner of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the close of the hearing the Regional Director for Region I transferred this case to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the 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 rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby af- firmed. Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the Board finds: I. The parties stipulated that the Employer is a nonbusiness or nonprofit Rhode Island corporation with its sole place of business in Providence, Rhode Island, where it is engaged in providing psychiatric and mental health services. The parties further stipulated that the Employer's gross annual revenue is in excess of $1 million, that annually it receives goods valued in excess of $50,000 directly from points located outside the State of Rhode Island, and that the Employer is engaged in com- merce within the meaning of the Act. Accordingly, on the basis of the foregoing, we find that the Em- ployer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The Petitioner is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act and we find that the labor organization involved claims to rep- resent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all technical employees of the Employer, including i The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing. 250 NLRB No. 165 mental health workers and licensed practical nurses. The Employer contends that mental health workers are not technical employees and should be excluded from the unit. There is no bargaining his- tory for these employees, and the parties are in agreement that the sole issue in this case is whether mental health workers are technical employees and, therefore, appropriately included in the requested technical unit.2 At the hearing the parties stipulat- ed that employees in the following job classifica- tions are technical employees and should therefore be included in the requested technical unit: EEG technicians, radiology technicians, and licensed practical nurses. There are approximately 62 mental health work- ers at Butler Hospital and they are considered to be part of the nursing staff. The requirement for employees in this position is high school gradua- tion, interest in developing skill in working in a therapeutic community, and excellent communica- tion skills. A bachelor's degree is preferred but not required, and 65 percent of the employees current- ly in this position have bachelor's degrees in con- trast to 1973 when only 25 percent had some post- secondary school training. There are no state li- censing or certification requirements. The mental health workers are given extensive training. When hired, they receive a 3- to 4-month orientation. Thereafter, as an ongoing part of their training, they receive videotaped instruction and attend weekly case conferences with the hospital's professional and technical staff. Within their as- signed unit, they attend staff meetings three times a week in which the treatment plan for a specific pa- tient is discussed. Each mental health worker is as- signed up to four patients during a shift and partici- pates in the daily staff conferences with the treat- ing attending physicians assigned to each case and, as a member of the treatment team, helps to devel- op and evaluate a treatment plan for each patient and to determine which activities best meet a pa- tient's needs. The duties of the mental health worker are to observe, report, and record the patient's behavior, activity, and his physical and emotional condition. The worker takes measures to prevent destructive action by patients and to insure group safety and also develops therapeutic interpersonal relation- ships with patients by engaging the patient in I In a previous proceeding involving this Employer, Case I-RC- 15265, the United Employees Health Care Employees Union on July 7, 1977, petitioned for a service and maintenance unit, including mental health workers The Employer, without a hearing, stipulated to the pro- posed unit The Regional Director approved the stipulation and an elec- tion was held on May 14, 1976. That Union, however, lost the election and, hence, no bargaining ensued 1310 BUTL .IR HOSPIFAt therapeutic discussion.3 These conversations are designed to relate the patient to reality by discuss- ing such mundane matters as sports, music, and movies, and to encourage the patient to express matters which may be troubling him. On some oc- casions a mental health worker will be directed by the physician to question the patient about certain matters and to report these findings to the treat- ment team. In Barnert Memorial Hospital Center,4 the Board decided that a separate unit of technical employees in a hospital may constitute an appropriate unit. There, the Board also defined in the following terms the type of employee it would include in a technical unit: Thus, the kinds of employees we would in- clude in the technical unit are those whose specialized training, skills, education and job requirements establish a community of interest not shared by other service and maintenance employees. This separate community of inter- est is frequently evidenced by the fact that such employees are certified, registered, or li- censed. However, we also find employees may meet such standards without having been certi- 3 The mental health worker does not engage In psychotherapy .as this treatment is the responsibility of the professional staff. Â· Nathan and Miriam Barnerl Memorial lospital Aswtiattion d/ba Bar- nert Memorial Hlospital Center, 217 NLRB 775, 776 (1975) fled, registered, or licensed, and, if they do, we shall include them in the technical unit. In our view the mental health workers here clearly meet the test set forth in Barnert and thus qualify as technical employees. Although the em- ployees in question are not certified, registered, or licensed, the majority have a bachelor's degree or more and they receive from the professional staff intensive on-the-job training which is of a special- ized nature. The mental health workers are consid- ered to be part of the nursing staff and their job function requires daily consultation with the pro- fessional staff and the regular exercise of independ- ent judgment. Accordingly, we find the mental health workers at Butler Hospital to be technical employees and we shall include them in the unit. We find that the following employees constitute an appropriate unit for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All technical employees at Butler Hospital in- cluding EEG technicians, radiology techni- cians, licensed practical nurses and mental health workers, but excluding all other em- ployees, guards and all supervisors within the meaning of the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] I' 1I