Seton Hill College

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 27, 1973

201 N.L.R.B. 1026 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

1026 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Seton Hill College and Seton Hill Professional
Association , Pennsylvania State Education Associ-
ation, Petitioner. Case 6-RC-6217
February 27, 1973
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS
FANNING, JENKINS, AND PENELLO
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer William R.
Wollett of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the close of the hearing the Acting
Regional Director for Region 6 transferred this case
to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer
and the Petitioner filed briefs with the Board.
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 affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the
purpose of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization i involved claims to
represent 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 Sections 9(c)(1) and
2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all
full-time and regular part-time faculty, including
professors, associate professors, assistant professors,
instructors, and professional administrative person-
nel having faculty status employed by Seton Hill
College, but excluding all members of the Order of
the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill,2 all other
employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the
Act. The Employer agrees that the proposed unit is
appropriate except that, contrary to the Petitioner, it
would include the members of the Order. The parties
agreed to include in the unit a nun from another
order and two priests. There is no history of
collective bargaining.
The Employer is engaged in operating a liberal arts
college for women in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
The Order, which is incorporated, holds legal title
to the buildings and grounds of the College. The
College, which is also incorporated, has a 99-year
lease on the college property. The rental is $1 per
year. The government and corporate powers of the
1 The Employer would not concede that the Petitioner is a labor
organization However, it is clear from the record that the Petitioner meets
College are vested in, and exercised by, a board of
trustees consisting of not fewer than 20 nor more
than 30 persons . Fifty percent of the membership of
the board of trustees are perpetually professed Sisters
of the Order, and 50 percent are persons other than
members of the Order. The Mother General of the
Order and an alumna, elected or appointed by the
alumnae association, are also trustees . The Bishop of
Greensburg diocese is the honorary chairman of the
trustees.
There are about 95 persons on the faculty, of whom
58 are members of the Order , 1 is a nun from another
order , 2 are priests , and the remaining 34 are lay
persons.
The Mother General of the Order, upon request
from the College , refers sisters to the College as
prospective faculty members . If the president of the
College, a member of the Order, who has charge of
hiring all the faculty, is satisfied with a sister's
qualifications, that sister is hired in the same manner
and under the same standards that apply to the lay
faculty. The College has a uniform salary scale
which, on its face , applies to all members of the
faculty. All faculty members sign a standard form
employment contract and work the same number of
hours . They have similar teaching assignments in all
the departments , under the supervision of the various
department heads. All departments of the College,
except one, are staffed by lay and religious faculty.
All faculty members enjoy academic freedom,
tenure , and faculty status . The number of sisters with
tenure is probably greater than those of the lay
faculty. There is a larger percentage of lay faculty
resignations each year which is probably due to the
fact that "sisters don't have the same kind of
mobility as the lay person as to bettering them-
selves."
Unlike members of the lay faculty, members of the
Order take vows of poverty and obedience. The vow
of poverty requires that a sister shall relinquish her
right to ownership of temporal goods. The vow of
obedience is obedience to the Mother General of the
Order and is a "basic obedience [which] relates to [a
sister's] assignment for the year." Moreover, faculty
members of the Order, unlike the lay faculty, do not
receive remuneration directly from the College. In
this respect, pursuant to the vow of poverty under-
taken by each sister, her wages , less living expenses, .
are paid directly to the Order. The Order gives each
sister $25 per month. The Order has agreed to return
the balance of the salaries to the College in the form
of an "annual gift . . . of a percentage of the salaries
earned by the sisters . . . such percentage to be
agreed upon by the governing Boards of the
the definition of "labor organization " set forth in Sec. 2(5) of the Act.
2 Hereinafter referred to as the Order.
201 NLRB No. 155
SETON HILL COLLEGE 1027
respective corporations." In 1971 the Order returned
approximately $484,000 to the College.
The Order pays the premiums for life and medical
insurance coverage for the sisters whereas the
College pays the premiums for coverage of the lay
faculty. Unlike the lay faculty, the sisters are not
eligible for social security and do not participate in
the teachers' insurance and annuity program. At the
time of the hearing the Order had adopted a separate
pension plan to cover the sisters. The plan is financed
by deducting a certain percentage from the gross
wages earned by the sisters.
The Order also provides housing for the sisters.
About 29 of the sisters at the College live in one
building and the remainder live in various dormito-
ries with the students. If a sister lives apart from the
community the treasurer general of the Order pays
her living expenses before her earnings are trans-
ferred to the Order.
The Petitioner argues that the sisters lack a
community of interest with the lay faculty and
therefore should be excluded from the unit. The
thrust of its argument for exclusion is set forth in the
following excerpt from its brief to the Board.
The guts of collective bargaining is negotiating
for wages and Fringe Benefits. The sisters are not
interested in wages since they take a vow of
poverty, which includes wages. They also return
their wages to the college by a contractual
agreement. To enforce demands for wages and
Fringe Benefits, a strike is often necessary. The
Sisters own the college and would not strike
themselves. They serve on the college's Board of
Directors. The Mother General is in charge of the
order and also serves on the college's Board of
Directors. The Sisters of Charity, therefore, as a
group, own and manage the college. It would be
untenable to have them in the same bargaining
unit as the Lay Teachers, who do not own or
manage the college, and must rely upon collective
bargaining to obtain wages, fringes, as well as
other terms and conditions of employment.
The Employer argues that the vow of poverty does
not preclude the religious from having a definite
interest in wages, and sisters receive the same
monetary wage as lay faculty; sisters are hired on the
same basis and according to the same standards as
the lay faculty; sisters work the same hours as lay
faculty and perform similar assignments in all
departments; sisters belong to the same campus
groups, sign employment contracts identical to those
signed by lay faculty, have the same supervision, and
enjoy the same conditions of employment as the lay
faculty.3
Under the circumstances of this case , we believe
that the members of the Order should not be
included in the same bargaining unit with the lay
faculty. Although the work and working conditions
of the two groups may be identical, their interests are
divergent. The lay faculty member's relation to the
College is simply that of an employee to employer.
The relationship of the sister who is a faculty
member to the College is more complex. She is an
employee, but also is in a sense part of the employer
since the Order owns and administers the College.
She has ties of allegiance to other members of the
Order and owes obedience to the Mother General of
the Order who is a member of the board of trustees.
As a member of the bargaining unit , a sister would
therefore be subject to a conflict of loyalties.
Moreover, the economic interests of the lay faculty
and the sisters do not coincide. The lay faculty are
particularly interested in wages since they are
dependent on their earnings for the support of
themselves and their families . The sisters, however,
are not similarly interested in the economic rewards
of their employment since they have taken vows of
poverty and by contractual agreement they return to
the College a substantial part of their nominal wages.
Moreover, the fringe benefits of the two groups
differ. The College pays the cost of social security,
pension program, and life and health insurance for
the lay faculty, whereas the Order makes separate
provision in these fields for those of the faculty who
are its members. The fact that the College has
unilaterally established separate programs of fringe
benefits for lay faculty and sisters indicates recogni-
tion on its part that the two groups have different
interests . Accordingly, we find that a separate unit of
lay faculty is appropriate.4
We find the following unit is appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning
of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All full-time and regular part-time faculty, includ-
ing professors, associate professors, assistant
professors, instructors, and professional adminis-
trative personnel having faculty status, at Seton
Hill College, Greensburg Pennsylvania, but ex-
cluding all members of the Order of the Sisters of
Charity of Seton Hill, all other employees, guards
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
3 We are not persuaded by the Employer's contention that if the negotiation between the parties.
Petitioner were certified as the bargaining agent for a unit limited to the lay 4 To the extent that Fordham University, 193 NLRB No. 23, may be
faculty, the unit found appropnate herein, Petitioner could refuse to permit deemed inconsistent with this Decision, it is hereby overruled.
members of the Order to perform bargaining unit work This is a matter for