Mayo Clinic

MAYO CLINIC Mayo Clinic and Hotel, Hospital , Restaurant and Tavern Employees Local No. 21. Case AO-102. June 5, 1967 ORDER DISMISSING PETITION FOR ADVISORY OPINION On May 1, 1967, Mayo Clinic, herein called the Petitioner, filed a petition pursuant to Section 102.98 and 102.99 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, requesting an Advisory Opinion to the effect that the Board would assert jurisdiction with respect to a representation proceeding involving the Petitioner's employees. There is presently pending before the Minnesota State Labor Conciliator, herein called State Conciliator, a petition for the investigation and certification of a bargaining representative of employees of the Petitioner filed by Hotel, Hospital, Restaurant and Tavern Employees Local No. 21, herein called the Union, having Docket No., Notice No. 67-R-1409. Thereafter, the Union filed a response with a copy of its brief to the State Conciliator urging him to accept jurisdiction. The Board has duly considered the allegations of I Walker Butler, Presiding Judge (Upper Lakes Shipping, Ltd), 138 NLRB 221, Mt. Pleasant Public Utilities , 156 NLRB 79 2 See The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 97 NLRB 424, University of Miami, Institute of Marine 165 NLRB No. 29 181 the petition and response. The Board's Advisory Opinion proceedings "are designed primarily to determine questions of jurisdiction by application of the Board's discretionary standards to the `commerce' operations of an employer."' The petition details commerce data allegedly pertinent to the Board's discretionary standards. But the entire submission raises the basic underlying issue whether the Petitioner, a nonprofit voluntary association of physicians and surgeons, the major activity of which is providing medical care for patients , is through all its activities and relationships a nonprofit hospital excluded from the definition of "employer" in Section 2(2) of the Act. Also involved may be a question of the status of Mayo Clinic as an educational and research institution.2 The former issue does not fall within the intendment of the Board's Advisory Opinion rules,3 and the latter issue has not been presented with sufficient clarity or detail to permit its resolution. Since each is a threshold question which must be determined before consideration of the applicability of the Board's discretionary commerce standards, the petition herein will be dismissed. Accordingly, it is hereby ordered that, for the reasons set forth above, the petition for an Advisory Opinion herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. Science Division, 146 NLRB 1448, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution , 143 NLRB 568 ' Mt Pleasant Public Utilities, supra, Upper Lakes Shipping, Ltd, supra, Interlake Steamship Company and Pickands Mather &Co,138NLRB576 299-352 0-70-13