Pineville Community Hospital Association, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Apr 26, 1973

203 N.L.R.B. 243 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

PINEVILLE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL ASSN. 243
Pineville Community Hospital Association , Inc.' and
Service Employees International Union , AFL-CIO,
Local Union No. 557, Petitioner. Case 9-RC-9880
April 26, 1973
DECISION AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER 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 Earl L. Ledford. The
Employer and Petitioner have filed briefs in support
of their respective positions.
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 finds:
The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees in the
extended care facility of a hospital operated by Pine-
ville Community Hospital Association, Inc., herein
called Pineville, at Pineville, Kentucky. Pineville con-
tends that the petition should be dismissed on the
grounds that, as a charitable, nonprofit hospital cor-
poration, it is not an employer and is therefore exempt
from the Board's jurisdiction, under Section 2(2) of
the Act, as amended, and that its exemption applies
to the entire hospital, including the extended care
facility, alleged to be an integral part thereof.
Pineville is a nonprofit, nonstock Kentucky corpo-
ration. Its hospital, situated under one roof, provides
facilities and personnel for out-patient or ambulatory
care, acute care, intensive or coronary care, extended
care, and home care. The extended care facility, also
known as the nursing home, is a two-story wing of the
hospital, connected thereto by a corridor. The facility
handles recuperating patients, over 85 percent of
whom have been transferred from other hospital facil-
ities and who are subject to retransfer into any of
those facilities, should their medical condition so re-
quire.
At the time of the hearing on December 28 and 29,
1971, Pineville held two state licenses: a hospital li-
cense and a nursing home license for the extended
care section. The reason for the separate nursing
home license lies in the fact that before 1973 the state
licensing system provided no licenses for other forms
i The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing
of patient care such as that which pertained in the
extended care facility. Recently the state licensing
system was amended to provide various other licen-
ses, including the following: hospital, hospital-based
extended care facility, nursing home, freestanding ex-
tended care, and freestanding facility covering imme-
diate and personal care. Under the new statute,
Pineville has applied for a hospital license and a hos-
pital-based extended care facility license, both effec-
tive as of January 1, 1973.
Pineville has a single board of trustees and single
medical, nursing, housekeeping, and food service op-
erations which uniformly serve all facilities in the hos-
pital. There are a single pharmacy and kitchen for the
entire hospital. Administration,2 bookkeeping, pay-
rolls, medical records, utilities, and maintenance for
the entire hospital are all centralized. Nurses and
nurses aides are under single overall supervision, re-
ceive work assignments throughout the hospital, and
are subject to the same pay scales. The extended care
facility pays no rent to the hospital and has no sepa-
rate legal existence.
Section 2(2) of the Act, as amended, reads, in perti-
nent part:
Sec. 2. When used in this Act-
* * * *
(2) The term "employer" ... shall not include
... any corporation or association operating a
hospital, if no part of the net earnings inures to
the benefit of any private shareholder or individ-
ual... .
Inasmuch as none of Pineville's net earnings inures to
the benefit of any private shareholder or individual,
it is apparent that Pineville is not an employer as
defined in Section 2(2) of the Act, and that the hospi-
tal it operates is therefore exempt from the Board's
jurisdiction. Furthermore, we find that the extended
care wing of the hospital, which performs only serv-
ices which are closely related to, or inseparable from
the other hospital services, therefore falls within the
statutory exclusion of the hospital.3 Accordingly, we
shall dismiss the instant petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the instant petition be, and
the same hereby is, dismissed.
2 Pineville maintains two bank accounts, for the hospital and the extended
care facility, respectively, only for accounting purposes in aid of its participa-
tion in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
J The Wesleyan Foundation, 171 NLRB 124; United Hospital Services, Inc.,
172 NLRB 1663. Cf. Drexel Home, Inc., 182 NLRB 1045.