United Hospital, Inc.

562 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD United Hospitals, Incorporated and the Children's Hospital, Inc., Employer-Petitioners and Hospi- tal and Nursing Home Employees, Local 113, AFL-CIO. Case 18-RM-1053 May 16, 1980 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY MEMBERS JENKINS, PENELLO, AND TRUESDALE On May 31, 1979, the Acting Regional Director for Region 18 issued a Decision and Clarification of Bargaining Unit in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found that no question affecting com- merce existed with regard to the representation of admitting clerks and interviewers' employed by the Employers at their facilities in St. Paul, Minne- sota, within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the National Labor Rela- tions Acts, as amended. Additionally, the Acting Regional Director treated the Employers' petition as a motion for clarification with respect to unit placement of their unrepresented admitting inter- viewers and found that these employees constituted an accretion to the multiemployer service and maintenance bargaining unit represented by the Union. Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Employers filed a timely request for review of the Acting Regional Director's decision on the grounds, inter alia, that the Acting Regional Direc- tor's finding on a substantial factual issue is clearly erroneous, and that a substantial question of law is raised by the absence of officially reported Board precedent applicable to the instant proceeding. By telegraphic order dated August 30, 1979, the Board granted the request for review. 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 the entire record in this proceeding with respect to the issues under review and makes the following findings: United Hospitals, Incorporated (United), is a Minnesota corporation, formed in 1972 by the merger of Charles T. Miller Hospital and St. Lukes Hospital, that owns and operates two hospital facil- I The record reveals that the duties of the unionized admitting clerks and the nonunionized admitting interviewers employed by the Employers are basically similar, and that the terms "admitting clerks" and "admitting interviewers" are used interchangeably to describe the same job func- tions. 249 NLRB No. 63 ities 2 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Children's Hospi- tal, Inc. (Children's), is also a Minnesota corpora- tion located in St. Paul and since 1974 has been party to a management agreement with United whereby United furnishes certain administrative, executive, staff, and operational functions to Chil- dren's, which retains its separate corporate identity together with its own assets and board of directors. Both United and Children's are members of Health Manpower Management, Inc. (HMMI), which ne- gotiates and administers collective-bargaining agreements for approximately 21 health care insti- tutions in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. Approximately 5,500 service and maintenance employees, of which 500-600 are employed by United and 100-150 are employed by Children's, are members of an HMMI multiemployer bargain- ing unit represented by the Union. Of the 21 em- ployers represented by HMMI, only the admitting clerks employed by Mercy Hospital and the St. Lukes Division of United are included in the mul- tiemployer service and maintenance bargaining unit, while the admitting clerks and interviewers of the remaining 19 employers are excluded therefrom and, indeed, are unrepresented. United and Children's are currently implement- ing plans to consolidate their operations at a new facility in St. Paul. Children's and the St. Lukes Division of United were scheduled to move into the new facility during the late spring of 1979, while the Miller Division of United is supposed to transfer to the new facility in mid-1980. Previously, the 13 unionized admitting clerks of the St. Lukes Division, the 13 unrepresented admitting interview- ers of the Miller Division, and the 14 unrepresent- ed admitting interviewers of Children's worked in separate offices in their respective hospitals. Upon completion of the consolidated new facility, how- ever, the unrepresented admitting interviewers of the Miller Division and the unionized admitting clerks of the St. Lukes Division will be united into a single department and work in the same offices. Further, all of the unrepresented admitting inter- viewers of Children's scheduled for transfer to the new facility are to become employees of United and will be placed on United's payroll. Some of Children's admitting interviewers will work in a combined United and Children's emergency room, while others will be assigned to the admitting office located in the Children's wing of the new fa- cility. The record reveals that United plans to use all admitting clerks and interviewers interchange- ably, regardless of their past divisional assignments z The former St. Lukes Hospital and Charles T. Miller Hospital are now known as the St. Lukes Division and Miller Division of United Hos- pitals, respectively. --- UNITED HOSPITALS, INCORPORATED 563 or representational status, according to its staffing needs. During collective-bargaining sessions conducted in late 1978 and early 1979, the Union took the po- sition that, upon consolidation of the admitting de- partments at the new facility, the unrepresented ad- mitting interviewers would constitute an accretion to the HMMI multiemployer service and mainte- nance employees unit. The Employers seek a self- determination election conducted by the Board among the 40 admitting department employees scheduled to work at United's new facility. They contend, inter alia, that a question concerning rep- resentation exists because of the consolidation of the previously separate admitting departments into a new integrated operation at United's new facility. They further assert that the accretion finding of the Acting Regional Director is inappropriate, and that "fairness" demands that the Board direct an elec- tion in which the admitting clerks and interviewers at United's new facility be given a choice between joining the multiemployer service and maintenance unit or being unrepresented. The Acting Regional Director found that no question concerning representation exists because the Employers' petition seeks an election in a unit of all admitting clerks and interviewers employed by United and Children's, a unit "narrower than the unit sought and claimed appropriate by the Union herein which claims to represent a multi-em- ployer unit of service and maintenance employees at 21 area hospitals which are members of HMMI." The Acting Regional Director reasoned that to find the petition raises a question concerning repre- sentation would permit the Employers "to carve out at will a small portion of the long-established bargaining unit" and, thus, to test the Union's con- tinued majority status. The Acting Regional Direc- tor noted that in the circumstances of this case such a result would appear at odds with the Board's holdings under Section 9(c)(l)(B) of the Act. While we agree with the Acting Regional Direc- tor's conclusion that no question concerning repre- sentation exists with respect to the employees of the Employers involved here, we do not rely on his finding that the Employers' petition attempts to "carve out at will a small portion of the long-estab- lished bargaining unit herein and thereby test the Union's otherwise unquestioned continued majority status." Rather, we note that the Union, in de- manding recognition as bargaining representative for the admitting interviewers at United's new fa- cility, requested only that they be accreted to the HMMI multiemployer service and maintenance unit, and did not and does not now seek to repre- sent the admitting department employees in a sepa- rate bargaining unit. There being no request to rep- resent these employees as a separate unit, we find no question concerning representation has been raised within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and 2(7) of the Act.3 Accordingly, we shall dismiss the RM petition. With respect to the unit clarification issue, the Acting Regional Director found that the admitting interviewers employed by Children's and the Miller Division of United constituted an accretion to the multiemployer service and maintenance bar- gaining unit represented by the Union. In so find- ing, the Acting Regional Director relied on the fact that after the move to the new facility all ad- mitting clerks and interviewers will be on United's payroll and work in a single admitting department, they will perform similar job functions under common supervision, and the admitting operation will be integrated fully into the operation of the new facility. We disagree with the Acting Regional Director's accretion finding. In so doing, we espe- cially note that the admitting interviewers em- ployed by Children's and the Miller Division of United have traditionally been excluded from the multiemployer unit by the parties thereto and, indeed, have been unrepresented, and that only the admitting clerks of 2 of the 21 health care facilities represented by HMMI in the multiemployer unit are included in that unit. As the overwhelming ma- jority of admitting clerks and interviewers em- ployed by the HMMI-represented employers are excluded from the multiemployer service and main- tenance unit and are unrepresented, we will not, on a piecemeal basis, accrete to that unit the unrepre- sented admitting interviewers of the Employers herein. Rather, we find that the admitting inter- viewers employed by Children's and the Miller Di- vision of United may not be added to the multiem- ployer unit without a self-determination election held among the admitting clerks and interviewers of the other HMMI-represented employers histori- cally excluded from the multiemployer service and maintenance unit represented by the Union, assum- ing that those employees would otherwise belong in that unit.4 Accordingly, we shall dismiss the pe- tition and vacate the Acting Regional Director's order adding the admitting interviewers of Chil- dren's and the Miller Division of United to the multiemployer service and maintenance unit repre- sented by the Union. 3 Woolwich, Inc., 185 NLRB 783 (1970); Bowman Building Products Di- vision and Allegheny Strapping Division of Cyclops Corporation, 170 NLRB 312 (1968). ' Roper Corporation Newark Division. 186 NLRB 437 (1970). 564 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition be, and it hereby is, dismissed. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Acting Region- al Director's order be, and it hereby is, vacated.