Eskaton American River Healthcare Center

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 27, 1976

225 N.L.R.B. 755 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

ESKATON AMERICAN RIVER HEALTHCARE CENTER 755
Eskaton, d/b/a Eskaton American River Healthcare
Center and Hospital and Institutional Workers Lo-
cal 250, Service Employees International Union,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner
Eskaton , d/b/a Eskaton American River Healthcare
Center , Employer-Petitioner and International
Union of Operating Engineers , Stationary Local 39,
AFL-CIO. Cases 20-RC-12455 and 20-RM-1820
July 27, 1976
DECISION ON REVIEW, ORDER, AND
DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND JENKINS
The instant request for review by Local 39 1 in-
volves Case 20-RC-12455, in which SEIU 2 seeks to
represent, at the Employer's hospital, a unit of ser-
vice and maintenance employees, including mainte-
nance department employees, and Case 20-RM-
1820, in which Local 39 seeks to represent a separate
unit of the Employer's maintenance department em-
ployees. These cases were originally part of a broader
proceeding which also included Case 20-RC-12332,
in which CAMLT 3 petitioned for a unit of the
Employer's medical laboratory technicians, and Case
20-RC-12463, in which CNA ° petitioned for a unit
of the Employer's nurses.
On May 23, 1975, the Regional Director for Re-
gion 20 issued her Decision, Order and Direction of
Elections, in which she directed elections in units of
professional employees, including medical laboratory
technicians, in Case 20-RC-12332, of service and
maintenance employees in Case 20-RC-12455, and
of nurses in Case 20-RC-12463, but found inappro-
priate the separate maintenance department unit
urged by Local 39 in Case 20-RM-1820 and ordered
dismissal of the petition. Thereafter, in accordance
with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations
Board's Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended,
Local 39 filed a request for review of the Regional
Director's Decision in Cases 20-RC-12455 and 20-
RM-1820, asserting that her finding as to the inap-
propriateness of the maintenance department unit in
Case 20-RM-1820 was clearly erroneous and depart-
1 International Union of Operating Engineers, Stationary Local 39, AFL-
CIO
2 Hospital and Institutional Workers Local 250, Service Employees Inter-
national Union, AFL-CIO
3 California Association for Medical Laboratory Technology Engineers
and Scientists of California (MEBA, AFL-CIO)
California Nurses Association
ed from officially reported Board precedent. The
Employer filed a reply brief.
On June 19, 1975, the National Labor Relations
Board, by telegraphic order, denied separately filed
requests for review in Cases 20-RC-12332 and 20-
RC-12463, but granted Local 39's request for review
in Cases 20-RC-12455 and 20-RM-1820 and stayed
the election directed by the Regional Director in
Case 20-RC-12455, pending the outcome of the in-
stant Decision on Review. Thereafter the Employer
and Local 39 filed supplemental 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 considered Local 39's request for
review, the briefs, and the entire record in this case
with respect to the issues under review and makes the
following findings: I
The Employer is a nonprofit California corpora-
tion engaged in the operation of a 250-bed acute care
hospital in Carmichael, California, with approxi-
mately 400 employees. The hospital is centrally ad-
ministered and has uniform policies covering labor
relations, wages, benefits, and conditions of employ-
ment. It comprises four administrative units known
as fiscal services, nursing services, hospital services,
and professional services.
The maintenance department, under hospital serv-
ices, is responsible for the repair, servicing, and
maintenance of hospital equipment, including heat-
ing, air-conditioning, medical gas, oxygen, pneumat-
ic communication, and various other types of hospi-
tal equipment. It also engages in general remodeling,
gardening, cleaning, service, and other maintenance
functions. The maintenance department includes a
plant operations division and a plant maintenance
division.6 These divisions have six mechanics each; in
addition, the plant maintenance division has a paint-
er and a storekeeper. The six plant operations divi-
sion maintenance mechanics are primarily responsi-
ble for maintaining the operation of boilers and
allied steam equipment in the boilerroom. The six
plant maintenance division mechanics may work in
the boilerroom, but appear to spend more of their
time in other hospital areas performing a variety of
maintenance duties. Plant operations division main-
tenance mechanics, however, may also perform du-
ties throughout the hospital which may or may not
5 Our Decision herein directing an election renders it unnecessary to pass
upon the Employer's motion for an expedited election in the maintenance
department unit sought in Case 20-RM-1820
It also includes a security division and a grounds division The security
division is a contract service For the past year and a half the grounds
division work has been performed by a contract service Although the Em-
ployer represents that it intends to hire groundsmen, none were involved in
this proceeding
225 NLRB No. 97
756 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
be directly related to their boilerroom work, provid-
ed only that the boilerroom, a 24-hour-a-day opera-
tion, is continuously manned by at least one plant
operations division maintenance mechanic. These
duties include boilerroom-related functions such as
taking hourly temperature readings, but may also in-
clude functions which are not more related to the
general maintenance of the hospital's physical plant,
such as bed repair, changing lights, and preparing
signs.
In hiring maintenance mechanics, the Employer
seeks persons with 3 or more years of general experi-
ence in operating physical plant equipment such as
steam boilers, air-conditioning systems, related con-
trols, and basic building trades skills pertaining
thereto, as well as skills in the fields of carpentry,
plumbing, mechanical, and electrical work.
Qualifications for maintenance mechanics' jobs do
not include the completion of an apprenticeship pro-
gram in boiler maintenance, journeyman status, or
licensure. Yet the Employer is desirous of hiring em-
ployees with such credentials. Two of the mainte-
nance department employees are journeyman sta-
tionary engineers, two are journeyman carpenters,
and one is a journeyman electrician; the remainder,
though skilled and with varying backgrounds of for-
mal technical education and job experience, are not
skilled in any particular trades.
Most of the major repair work is contracted out,
due to the relatively small size of the maintenance
mechanics force, equipment warranties, lack of li-
censing, or lack of suitable repair equipment. Items
so repaired include business machinery, defibrilla-
tors, electronic and nuclear equipment, respiratory
equipment, boiler equipment, air-conditioning, and
generator equipment. Respiratory services personnel
calibrate some electrical equipment, and nurses cal-
ibrate other equipment.
The maintenance department employees are under
separate immediate supervision. They alone are re-
sponsible for the operation and maintenance of the
high-pressure steam boilers and related equipment,
and servicing complex and sophisticated equipment
such as medical oxygen equipment, the medical gas
system, the air-conditioning system, and the heating
system. They also engage in general building remo-
deling. On other hospital equipment they share the
repair work with other service employees as, for in-
stance, in the cardio-pulmonary laboratory, where
they perform certain minor repairs while the cardio-
pulmonary technicians perform other repairs; major
repairs therein are contracted out. The same situa-
tion obtains as to repairs in the clinical laboratory
and the radiology department.
In performing less skilled tasks, the maintenance
mechanics may also contact and work with other em-
ployees. For example, they may assist nurse techi-
cians in repair work and the storeroom clerk in as-
sembling new furniture. Together with the house-
keeping employees in the hospital services unit, they
move heavy equipment, replace light bulbs, hang pic-
tures, fabricate signs, repair beds, and perform clean-
ing operations. Together with purchasing personnel,
they unload supplies. Although, as noted above, they
are separately supervised, they may on occasion be
subject to the call of individuals in the nursing de-
partment and in administration.
In 1968, the Employer voluntarily recognized Sac-
ramento County Hospital Workers Union, herein
called SCHWU, as the exclusive bargaining repre-
sentative of the Employer's maintenance mechanics,
excluding the painter and the storekeeper. This rec-
ognition has been continuous and the latest contract
between the Employer and SCHWU was effective
from December 16, 1973, to December 15, 1974. On
August 22, 1974, SCHWU notified the Employer in
writing that it was merging its assets with those of
Local 39, that a majority of the employees sought
membership in Local 39, and that Local 39 intended
to assume the contract. Local 39 continues to claim
representation for the maintenance mechanics not-
withstanding the Employer's assertion that since Au-
gust 22, 1974, there have been no collective-bargain-
ing negotiations between it and SCHWU.
A maintenance unit may be appropriate if an ap-
plication of the Board's traditional standards estab-
lishes that the employees have a sufficiently separate
community of interest to warrant such a finding. In
determining whether a sufficiently separate commu-
nity of interest exists, the Board looks to such factors
as mutuality of interests in wages and hours, com-
monality of supervision, skills and functions, infre-
quency of contact with other employees, lack of in-
terchange and functional integration, and area
practice and patterns of bargaining.'
Weighing these factors, Chairman Murphy and
Member Fanning conclude that the maintenance
mechanics herein sought possess a sufficiently sepa-
rate community of interest to warrant their represen-
tation in a separate bargaining unit. In so doing, they
rely on the maintenance mechanics' separate supervi-
sion; their sole responsibility for operating and main-
taining the boilerroom on a 24-hour-a-day basis;
their craftlike skills; the fact that they are among the
7 Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati d/b/a Jewish Hospital of Cincin-
nati , 223 NLRB 614 (1976) (Chairman Murphy and Member Fanning dis-
senting as to the application of the traditional unit criteria), Riverside Meth-
odist Hospital, 223 NLRB 1084 (1976) (Chairman Murphy and Member
Fanning dissenting as to the application of the traditional unit criteria) St
Vincent's Hospital, 223 NLRB 638 (1976)
ESKATON AMERICAN RIVER HEALTHCARE CENTER
highest paid service employees at the Employer's
hospital ; their work on certain of the complex and
specialized hospital machines , which they alone
maintain , using their own tools;' and an uninterrupt-
ed 6-year bargaining history for maintenance me-
chanics at the Employer 's hospital.
In weighing the factors to be considered in de-
termining whether or not an employee group possess-
es a sufficient community of interest to justify its sep-
arate representation , Member Jenkins notes that
although a nucleus of the maintenance mechanics is
primarily engaged in powerhouse -type operations,
both they and the other maintenance employees per-
form functions throughout the hospital in the course
of which they have numerous work contacts with
other similarly or lesser skilled hospital personnel
and perform many functions together with other ser-
vice employees or similar to the functions performed
by them. These circumstances , for reasons set forth
in his opinion in Jewish Hospital, supra, and Shriners
Hospitals for Crippled Children, 217 NLRB 806
(1975), would ordinarily persuade him to deny sepa-
rate representation .9 However , in view of the bar-
gaining history involving a separate unit of mainte-
nance mechanics not being a factor in those cases,10
he concurs in the result reached by Chairman Mur-
phy and Member Fanning.
8 See dissents of Chairman Murphy and Member Fanning in St Joseph
Hospital, 224 NLRB No. 47 ( 1976), and Riverside Methodist Hospital, 223
NLRB 1084 ( 1976).
9 See also The Baptist Memorial Hospital, 224 NLRB No 51 (1976), St
Joseph Hospital, supra, and Riverside Methodist Hospital, supra
"The Board has long held that it will not disturb an established bargain-
ing relationship unless required to do so by the dictates of the Act or other
compelling circumstances The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc,
153 NLRB 1549, 1550 (1965)
757
Accordingly, we find that the following employees
of the Employer constitute an appropriate unit for
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All maintenance department employees at the
Employer's Carmichael, California, hospital, in-
cluding the painter and the storekeeper," but ex-
cluding office clericals, managerial employees,
guards, watchmen, all other employees, and su-
pervisors as defined in the Act.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case 20-
RM-1820, be, and the same hereby is, reinstated.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that in Case 20-RC-12455
Unit C, as set forth in the Regional Director's Deci-
sion of May 23, 1975, be, and the same hereby is,
amended by deleting the words "maintenance me-
chanics."
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Direction of Elec-
tions, as set forth in the Regional Director's Decision
on May 23, 1975, be, and the same hereby is, amend-
ed so as to provide that the election in Unit C, as
amended, in Case 20-RC-12455 be conducted as
early as possible, but not later than 30 days from the
date of this Decision on Review, Order, and Direc-
tion of Election.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit-
ted from publication.]
ii We include the painter and the storekeeper , in view of Local 39's will-
ingness to represent them and the fact that their inclusion in the mainte-
nance department unit is more appropriate than in the overall maintenance
and service unit