St. John's Hospital

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

May 29, 1992

307 N.L.R.B. 767 (N.L.R.B. 1992)

767
307 NLRB No. 120
ST. JOHN’S HOSPITAL
1 284 NLRB 1596–1597.
2 The Regional Director found that the Employer is an acute care
hospital within the meaning of Sec. 103.30 of the Board’s Rules and
Regulations.
St. John’s Hospital and United Association of Jour-
neymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and
Piping Industry of the United States and Can-
ada, Plumbers’ Local No. 137, Petitioner. Case
33–RC–3610
May 29, 1992
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN STEPHENS AND MEMBERS OVIATT
AND RAUDABAUGH
On December 4, 1991, the Board granted the Em-
ployer’s request for review of the Regional Director’s
Decision and Direction of Election, and its request for
stay of election, as it raises substantial issues war-
ranting review.
The National Labor Relations Board has delegated
its authority in this proceeding to a three-member
panel.
Based on a careful review of the record, the Board
concludes that the Regional Director erred in finding
that a residual unit consisting of all unrepresented
skilled maintenance employees, i.e., maintenance me-
chanics, power plant operators, and incinerator opera-
tors, is an appropriate unit for collective bargaining.
The Regional Director found that the unit sought by
the Petitioner, consisting of all regular full-time and
part-time maintenance mechanics of the Employer, is
not appropriate under the Board’s newly promulgated
Health Care Rule (Rule)1 because it might cause undue
proliferation of units at the Employer’s acute care hos-
pital.2 Instead, the Regional Director found that the
only appropriate unit under the Board’s Rule is a resid-
ual unit of maintenance mechanics, power plant opera-
tors, and incinerator operators.
Since the 1940s, for employees in its maintenance
and repair department, the Employer has voluntarily
recognized five units represented by five separate labor
organizations. Carpenters’ Local No. 16 represents 1
foreman and approximately 5 carpenters and 10 tem-
porary carpenters. Painters’ Local 90 represents one
foreman painter and approximately three painters and
two temporary painters. IBEW Local No. 193 rep-
resents one foreman electrician, approximately seven
electricians, one senior biomedical technician, and five
biomedical technicians. IBEW Local No. 399 rep-
resents approximately two communications technicians.
Petitioner represents one plumber foreman, one plumb-
er, and two refrigeration people. The collective-bar-
gaining agreement between the Employer and Peti-
tioner commenced April 1, 1990, and expires March
31, 1993. None of the other labor organizations seeks
to represent the maintenance mechanics, and there is
no history of collective bargaining within the peti-
tioned-for unit of maintenance mechanics. All employ-
ees in the Employer’s maintenance and repair depart-
ment are represented in the aforementioned five units,
except for approximately 4 power plant operators and
2 incinerator operators and the petitioned-for unit of
approximately 12 maintenance mechanics.
The Board’s Health Care Rule provides that, except
in extraordinary circumstances or where there are ex-
isting nonconforming units, the following units are ap-
propriate:
1. All registered nurses.
2. All physicians.
3. All professionals except registered nurses
and physicians.
4. All technical employees.
5. All skilled maintenance employees.
6. All business office clerical employees.
7. All guards.
8. All nonprofessional employees except for
technical employees, skilled maintenance employ-
ees, business office clerical employees, and
guards.
Where there are existing nonconforming units, the
Rule provides that the Board will find appropriate only
units which comport, insofar as practicable, with these
units.
The Regional Director found that the maintenance
mechanics as well as the power plant operators and in-
cinerator operators are skilled maintenance employees.
Because the Employer has already recognized five sep-
arate units of skilled maintenance employees, the Re-
gional Director found that a sixth nonconforming unit
consisting only of maintenance mechanics might cause
undue proliferation of units because the remaining
skilled maintenance employees—power plant operators,
and incinerator operators—might seek representation in
a seventh noncomforming unit. Accordingly, the Re-
gional Director found that the only appropriate unit
which comports with the Rules, so far as is practicable,
is a residual unit of all remaining unrepresented skilled
maintenance employees—maintenance mechanics,
power plant operators, and incinerator operators. In
doing so, the Regional Director found that the unrepre-
sented employees share a community of interest shared
by all skilled maintenance employees.
The Employer, in its request for review, contends
that the petition should be dismissed to avoid unit pro-
liferation. Relying on Levine Hospital of Hayward, 219
NLRB 327 (1975), the Employer argues that because
there is a close community of interest between the pe-
titioned-for employees and employees in the existing
plumbers’ unit, i.e., the one represented by Petitioner,
it is inappropriate to create a sixth unit of skilled main-
768 DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
3 Armstrong Rubber Co., 144 NLRB 1115, 1119 fn. 11 (1963);
American Radiator Corp., 114 NLRB 1151, 1154–1155 (1955).
tenance employees, although the Board could entertain
a timely petition seeking to add the unrepresented
skilled maintenance employees to the Petitioner’s ex-
isting skilled maintenance unit through a representation
election or accept a petition to represent these employ-
ees as part of an overall skilled maintenance unit.
We agree with the Regional Director that the peti-
tioned-for unit which includes only a portion of the re-
maining unrepresented skilled maintenance employees
is inappropriate inasmuch as the Board requires that all
unrepresented employees residual to the existing unit
or units be included in an election to represent them.3
However, we also find that in the circumstances pre-
sented here, because the Petitioner already represents a
nonconforming unit of skilled maintenance employees,
if the Petitioner seeks to represent any of the remain-
ing unrepresented skilled maintenance employees, the
Petitioner must represent all the remaining skilled
maintenance employees as part of its existing unit of
plumbers and refrigeration employees. Even in rep-
resentation cases which do not involve health care fa-
cilities, the Board has long held that it will not enter-
tain an incumbent’s petition for a separate residual
unit. Budd Co., 154 NLRB 421, 428 (1965). See also
McKeesport Hospital, 220 NLRB 1141 (1975). Rather,
an incumbent wishing to represent employees residual
to those in its existing unit must do so by adding them
to the existing unit, usually by means of a self-deter-
mination election. We see no reason to depart from
this precedent in the face of the intervening Rule, par-
ticularly because the Rule explicitly seeks to avoid
undue proliferation of units. We find that here, in the
face of existing nonconforming units, the conformance,
‘‘insofar as practicable,’’ to the units set forth in the
Rule means adding employees to an existing unit rath-
er than creating a sixth unit.
Accordingly, we will remand this case to the Re-
gional Director for direction of a self-determination
election, if Petitioner desires, to have the maintenance
mechanics, power plant operators, and incinerator op-
erators vote on whether or not they wish to be a part
of the unit of plumbers and refrigeration employees the
Petitioner already represents.
ORDER
The decision of the Regional Director is reversed
and the matter remanded to him for further appropriate
action in accord with this decision.