Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health Center & Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsApr 29, 1976

223 N.L.R.B. 1158 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

1158 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health Center & Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital and Pennsylvania Social Services Union , Local 668, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 4-RC-11866 April 29, 1976 DECISION AND ORDER BY MEMBERS FANNING, PENELLO, AND WALTHER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer David R. Keller. Following the hearing, and pursuant to Sec- tion 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, the case was transferred to the Board for decision by direction of the Regional Di- rector for Region 4. Briefs were filed by the Pennsyl- vania Social Services Union, Local 668, SEIU, AFL- CIO, hereinafter referred to as the Petitioner, and Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital, hereinaf- ter referred to as Pennsylvania Hospital. 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 case, the Board makes the following findings: 1. Petitioner seeks to represent certain employees working in the Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health Center.' It contends that Hall-Mercer is the employer within the meaning of Section 2(2) of the Act of the employees it seeks to represent, who share a community of interest separate from the employees of Pennsylvania Hospital. Pennsylvania Hospital contends that Hall-Mercer is an operating division of Pennsylvania Hospital and that the employees peti- tioned for are hospital employees. It contends that the only appropriate unit would be hospitalwide in scope to include other hospital employees with simi- lar job functions and employment interests.2 1 The parties stipulated that if a unit limited to the Hall Mercer facility is found to be appropriate the following units would be appropriate: Unit A: All professional employees , excluding registered nurses, medical doctors, confidential employees, guards . and supervisors as de- fined in the Act. Unit B: All nonprofessional employees , excluding all other employ- ees including confidential employees , managerial employees, guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act. Employees in Unit A would vote on whether they wish to be included with nonprofessional employees in a single unit. Hall-Mercer is a community mental health center for southeast Philadelphia and is primarily located within the Pennsylvania Hospital building complex. In 1966, the Hospital entered into an agreement with the Office of Mental Health and Mental Retardation of the City of Philadelphia to obtain funds to operate Hall-Mercer. As grantee of the funds, Pennsylvania Hospital is responsible for the program's administra- tive and fiscal management. Hall-Mercer's budget is included in the Hospital's overall budget and is ap- proved by the Hospital's board of managers. Its di- rector reports to an associate vice president of the Hospital and occasionally appears before the Hospital's board of managers to report on Hall- Mercer's operations. Like every hospital department, Hall-Mercer's purchasing, accounting, and data processing are pro- vided by the Hospital's administrative offices. The Hospital's engineering, housekeeping, fire, personnel, and maintenance departments are also centralized and service Hall-Mercer. Employees working at Hall-Mercer receive a Pennsylvania Hospital payroll check and pay based on a wage plan formulated in part by the Hospital's director of employee relations. They also utilize the Hospital-operated employee clinic and pharmacy and other hospital facilities such as parking lots, auditoriums, conference rooms, and cafeterias. All fringe benefits are approved by the Hospital's administrative staff and are set out in the Hospital's employee handbook received by all Hall- Mercer employees. Both Hall-Mercer and the Hospi- tal are held out as a single entity on funding con- tracts, in annual reports, and in publications describ- ing the health center's programs. On this record, we see no merit to the Petitioner's contention that Hall-Mercer is an employer separate and apart from the Hospital. Rather, we believe that Pennsylvania Hospital exerts significant administra- tive and fiscal control over Hall-Mercer's operations and that both entities are significantly integrated; sharing common support services, facilities, and la- bor relations policies. In these circumstances, we find that the Hospital and Hall-Mercer are a single em- ployer engaged in commerce for the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act' and that it would ef- fectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The Petitioner is a labor organization and claims to represent certain employees of the Employ- er. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concern- 2 The Hospital contends there are four operating divisions : Hall-Mercer Community Mental Health Center ; the Department of Sick and Injured: the Institute of Mental Health ; and the Neighborhood Health Center. 3 North Dade Hospital, Inc. and Arnold A. Oper, d/b/a North Dade Medical Center, both d/b/a North Dade Medical Complex, 210 NLRB 588 (1974). 223 NLRB No. 180 HALL-MERCER COMMUNITY CENTER 1159 ing the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons: The Petitioner seeks a unit limited to certain em- ployees of Hall-Mercer. We do not believe that the record supports finding such a narrowly defined unit appropriate. Hall-Mercer provides only part of the psychiatric care offered by Pennsylvania Hospital. The Hospital 's Institute of Mental Health is, like Hall-Mercer , engaged in offering psychiatric services. The only significant difference between the two serv- ices is that Hall-Mercer is primarily funded by public sources to provide care free of charge to needy recip- ients , a service once provided by the Institute prior to Hall-Mercer 's creation in 1966 . The Hospital's De- partment of Psychiatry services both the Institute and Hall-Mercer and its head maintains an office at both . Likewise , the Hospital's Department of Nurs- ing provides certain personnel for inpatient care. While both services offer inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care , the Institute also offers certain spe- cialized services not provided by Hall -Mercer but utilized by its staff for treating patients , such as a special treatment program for alcoholics . At times Hall-Mercer will transfer a patient to the Institute for certain specialized programs. The complementary nature of these services and similarity between them results in the two staffs involved being similar in makeup . Both services employ nurses , therapists, and other personnel required for providing psychiatric services and we see no appreciable difference in the job functions being performed. This similarity of staff makeup and duties extend to the Hospital's medical departments , particularly with respect to other employees sought by Petitioner such as secre- taries, messengers , cooks, and receptionists , all per- forming duties that out of necessity must be per- formed in the other departments of the Hospital. The record shows no identifiable difference in em- ployment interests between these employees that would make a separate unit appropriate and particu- larly with respect to those providing psychiatric serv- ices at either the Institute or Hall-Mercer . All hospi- tal employees, including those at Hall-Mercer, receive the same fringe benefits . Hospitalwide poli- cies govern matters such as holidays , vacations, over- time, insurance , and retirement plans . Wages are also similar . While Hall-Mercer has its own pay plan, it tracks by job classification the pay rates in other hos- pital departments and there is no significant differ- ence in the timing of wage increases given. Contact between these employee groups is in our view signifi- cant. Nurses working at Hall-Mercer's inpatient fa- cility are a good illustration. Although assigned to the nursing department and, therefore, not included in the requested unit with Hall-Mercer's nurses, they regularly work with the Hall-Mercer staff providing inpatient care. Other contacts occur when the Hall- Mercer staff utilize the services of the Hospital's medical departments, such as the laboratory, in training programs, during staff meetings, in the com- mon use of cafeterias, parking lots, and auditoriums, and on several hospitalwide committees concerned with training, quality of treatment, and personnel. The practice of posting Hall-Mercer's job openings at 36 different locations throughout the Hospital, and the employee transfers between Hall-Mercer and the Hospital are additionally persuasive in this re- gard. Petitioner's contention that a unit of Hall-Mercer employees is appropriate apart from all other hospi- tal employees rests primarily on the fact that Hall- Mercer is supported by governmental sources such as the city of Philadelphia, and that hiring and supervi- sion is primarily handled at the departmental level. We see nothing in either circumstance that affects the common interest for collective-bargaining pur poses evidenced here by integrated operations, the contact between these employee groups, and the sim- ilarity in job functions, wages, and fringe benefits. Although the city requires that certain operating re- ports and budgets be filed with it, it is quite clear that these and other conditions of funding have not caused a difference in employment interests. The policy of hiring and supervising at the departmental level reflects a hospitalwide policy and fails to reveal any hiring or supervisory practice that would in these circumstances support a separate unit finding. Per- sonnel policies concerning hiring, orientation, discip- lining, and grievances are standardized throughout the Hospital and may only be varied with the ap- proval of the Hospital's central personnel office. Hospitalwide policies on sick leave, leaves of ab- sence , holidays, vacations, emergency leave, time- cards, and timeclocks evidence additional limitations on a supervisor's discretion to affect working condi- tions. In these circumstances, and in the absence of any 1160 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD history of collective bargaining supporting a different the Petitioner has expressed its lack of interest in rep- result, we think that Hall-Mercer employees do not resenting a more inclusive unit, we will dismiss the have an identifiable employment interest separate petition. from other hospital employees, particularly those working in the Institute of Mental Health, and that such a unit would fragment a larger group of em- ORDER ployees sharing the same community of interest 4 As Yale University. 184 NLRB 860 (1970). It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed.