McLean Hospital

DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD McLean Hospital and Maintenance Trades Council of New England, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 1-RC- 15171 January 25, 1978 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND MURPHY Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hear- ing was held before Hearing Officer Jeffrey P. Jankot of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the close of the hearing, the Regional Director for Region I transferred this case to the Board for decision. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. 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, McLean Hospital, is a division of Massachusetts General Hospital and a Massachu- setts corporation engaged in psychiatric patient care with its principal place of business in Belmont, Massachusetts. The hospital has a gross annual income in excess of $250,000. The parties stipulated and we find that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The parties stipulated and we find that the Petitioner, which claims to represent certain employ- ees of the Employer, is a labor organization as defined in the Act. 3. A question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of 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 approximately 48 craftsmen and their related helpers and apprentices in the plant and operations depart- ment of the Employer's mental health facility. The petitioned-for unit includes employees in the follow- ing classifications: powerhouse engineer; fireman; carpenter foreman; carpenter A; carpenter B/apprentice; roofer; electrician foreman; electri- cian A; electrician B/apprentice; painter foreman; I The Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati, d/b/a Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati, 223 NLRB 614 (1976). 234 NLRB No. 54 painter; upholsterer; pipe shop foreman; plumber A; plumber B/apprentice; steam fitter A; mechanic foreman; mechanic A; mechanic B/apprentice; and mason/plasterer A. In the alternative, the Petitioner expressed its willingness to represent a unit com- posed of all nonsupervisory maintenance employees in the Employer's plant and operations department. Such a unit would include employees in the afore- mentioned job classifications and approximately 15 additional employees in the classifications of public works foreman, groundsman, labor supervisor, utility mechanic, laborer, and vehicle mechanic. The Peti- tioner would, however, exclude from this overall maintenance unit those plant and operations employ- ees classified as draftsman A, draftsman B, typist, and clerk typist. The Employer contends that the unit sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate because the employees therein do not share a community of interest suffi- ciently separate and distinct from numerous other employees at the hospital. The Employer further contends that nothing less than a unit including all of its service and maintenance employees would be appropriate. The Petitioner stated it would not seek an election for such a unit. In determining the appropriateness of a separate maintenance department unit in health care institu- tions, the Board considers both its traditional com- munity of interest unit criteria-i.e., mutuality of interest in wages, benefits, and working conditions; commonality of skills and supervision; frequency of contact with other employees; lack of interchange and functional integration; and area practice and patterns of bargaining-and the congressional admo- nition against proliferation of bargaining units in the health care industry.1 Guided by those consider- ations in the evaluation of evidence in this case, we find, for reasons set forth below, that a separate unit comprised of employees in the Employer's plant and operations department is appropriate for collective bargaining. The Employer employs approximately 1,400 per- sons at its mental health care facility, a complex of 45 buildings situated on 240 acres in Belmont, Massa- chusetts. Service and maintenance personnel at the hospital are organized into 10 departments, including the plant and operations department. The superviso- ry chiefs of each department report to and meet regularly with the hospital administrator. The hospital's personnel department functions as the centralized authority in the administration of the Employer's personnel programs for all of its employ- ees. In addition to the senior supervisory officials within this department, there are four personnel 424 McLEAN HOSPITAL representatives, each of whom bears primary respon- sibility for specific sections of the hospital employee complement. In the current organizational format, one individual is the personnel representative for hourly paid employees in all of the Employer's service and maintenance departments, with the exception of the medical library and medical records departments. All hourly paid service and maintenance employ- ees, including those in the petitioned-for unit, have numerous basic working conditions and benefits in common. These employees are hired, evaluated, and terminated according to standardized procedures administered by the personnel department. They are subject to the same policies of the Employer with respect to salary schedule, shift differential, overtime, vacations, holidays, sick leave, paid absence for jury duty, bereavement leave, coffeebreaks, insurance, pensions, and annuity plans. Moreover, all service and maintenance employees use a common entry gate to the mental health complex and have equal access to the same cafeteria, coffeeshop, unreserved parking areas, and recreational facilities. Notwithstanding the above, maintenance employ- ees in the Employer's plant and operations 2 depart- ment share certain working conditions and benefits which distinguish them from service employees in other departments. For instance, all P & O employ- ees except painters and office staff wear identical green uniforms which bear the department's title. (Painters wear the traditional white uniforms of their trade; office employees do not wear uniforms.) In addition, a majority of these employees report for work to and spend substantial time in a cluster of four buildings which house their craft shops, the department's administrative offices, and a lounge/locker room area. The powerhouse engineer and firemen report to the powerhouse building, located approximately 100 yards from the shops. The public works foreman, utility mechanic, vehicle mechanic, and groundsmen report daily to the garage, located about 1/4 mile from the shops. Nondepartmental employees do not report for work to the aforementioned P & O buildings, nor do they frequent these locations except to pick up and deliver items or to perform housekeeping services in areas off the shop floors. Supervision in the P & O department is separate from the supervision imposed on service employees in the Employer's nine other administrative depart- ments. All P & O employees are subject to common 2 Hereafter referred to as "P & 0." 3 Although the Petitioner did not seek to include the utility or vehicle mechanics in its unit as members of the skilled trades, the degree of skill and expenence required by the Employer and possessed by the incumbents for these positions is not significantly less than for crafts personnel previously daily overall supervision by the chief of the depart- ment, John B. Larson, and his assistant, Donald E. Megliola. There is evidence that certain P & O employees may have received incidental directions from supervisors in other service departments during the course of certain work assignments, but the only instance of significant interdepartmental supervision has occurred during the infrequent temporary reas- signment of laborers to work in the laundry depart- ment. Over two-thirds of the P & O department employ- ees are craftsmen, helpers, and apprentices-the unit sought by the Petitioner. These employees are more highly skilled than employees in the Employer's service departments, and they consequently enjoy the highest minimum and maximum pay grades among service and maintenance employees at the hospital. The degree of experience and skill in the P & O department's nuclear crafts group is evidenced by the fact that there are approximately 10 journeymen currently employed in senior electrician, powerhouse, or plumbing classifications who hold licenses pursu- ant to requirements of the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts. The Employer's written job descriptions further reveal that even unlicensed senior craftsmen must have served a 3- to 4-year formal apprentice- ship or the equivalent in on-the-job training. In accord with these skill qualifications, the Employer has established and maintained a state-sanctioned formal apprenticeship program. While the Employer does contract out some major maintenance projects, P & O craftsmen are responsi- ble for the considerable preventive maintenance, renovation, and repair work remaining. With the exception of powerhouse employees and the vehicle mechanic,3 they spend approximately 80 to 95 percent of their time exercising the skills of their trade throughout the hospital complex. They work alone, inter se, or with the assistance of P & O department laborers and groundsmen. Service em- ployees in other departments rarely assist P & O craftsmen in the performance of their duties, nor do they perform any but the most utilitarian, least skilled maintenance jobs in which craftsmen are also occasionally engaged, i.e., installing carpeting, re- placing light bulbs, unclogging sinks and toilets, and making minor repairs on service machines. Groundsmen and laborers in the P & O depart- ment exhibit greater commonality of skills with service employees than the skilled trades employees, because they and certain service employees have discussed. The utility mechanic, in fact, holds a safety hoisting lcense from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Accordingly, we shall not hereafter refer to the utility and vehicle mechanics separately from our general discussion of P & 0 craftsmen unless the record warrants such a distinction. 425 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD spent time performing the simple manual chores of shoveling snow, moving furniture and equipment, and clearing debris where it represents a fire hazard. On the other hand, the record indicates that laborers spend approximately 80-85 percent of their time assisting skilled P & O employees in the exercise of their skills. Groundsmen spend approximately 30-40 percent of their time assisting P & O craftsmen. There is scant evidence of employee interchange on either a permanent or temporary basis between the P & O department and the Employer's service depart- ments. The P & O department maintains a policy of intradepartmental job progression. Laborers and groundsmen are therefore the principal candidates for promotion to apprenticeship and helper positions in the skilled trades. The effect of this P & O department policy on permanent interdepartmental interchange is clear from the Employer's own exhibit, which shows that only two service employees have transferred into the P & O department and only one P & O employee has transferred to a service department in the past 4 years. In contrast, there were 16 permanent transfers between various service departments during the same period. Moreover, the aforementioned infrequent temporary reassignment of a laborer to the laundry department is the only significant instance of temporary interchange be- tween service and maintenance employee classifica- tions. P & O employees do have frequent daily contacts with service employees while performing preventive maintenance, renovation, and repair work through- out the hospital grounds. Such contacts do not, however, constitute integration of the Employer's service and maintenance operations. P & O employ- ees, service employees, and other employees have all worked together three times in the past 2 years to combat flood or fire emergencies at the Employer's facility, but instances of nonemergency functional integration between the P & O and service depart- ments are limited to: (1) the preoperational coordina- tion of planning and scheduling for the independent execution of service and maintenance functions in renovation projects; (2) the occasional sharing of various departmental vehicles, all of which are maintained by the vehicle mechanic; and (3) the occasional joint participation by laborers, grounds- men, and service employees in performing certain simple manual chores, previously discussed herein, or by carpenters and service employees in performing the similarly routine task of installing carpeting. With respect to all but those few nonemergency duties, P & O employees have been exclusively engaged in the independent, intradepartmentally 4 Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Age. 230 NLRB 255 (1977); Sinai Hospital of Detroit, Inc., 226 NLRB 425 (1976); St. Francis Hospital-Medical Center, 223 NLRB 1451 (1976). integrated performance of maintenance functions which necessitate the use of trade skills familiar to these employees but alien to service employees. Under the circumstances detailed above, we find that the Employer's P & O department constitutes a homogeneous unit whose employees share a commu- nity of interest sufficiently separate and distinct from the broader community of interest which they share with service employees in other departments of the Employer as to warrant their representation as a separate bargaining unit.4 In making this finding, we note particularly: the generally greater skills, experi- ence, and wage rates of P & O employees compared to service employees; their common supervision by a separate departmental chief and his assistant; and their lack of interchange and functional integration with other employees. Based on the record and the Petitioner's express willingness to represent them in an enlarged unit, we shall include in the unit found appropriate those P & O employees in the job classifications of vehicle mechanic, utility mechanic, laborer, and grounds- man. The record conclusively demonstrates the functional and operational integration of these em- ployees with those in skilled trades employee classifi- cations in the unit originally sought by the Petitioner. The Petitioner would exclude the two individuals employed as draftsman A and draftsman B from an overall P & O department unit. These employees work in the P & O administrative office directly above the carpentry shop. They produce blueprint drawings used by craftsmen in their work. They also communicate with other P & O employees on a daily basis and make several visits per week to P & O jobsites throughout the hospital complex. We find that draftsman A and draftsman B have a sufficient community of interest with other P & O employees to justify their inclusion in the unit. The Petitioner would further exclude the typist and clerk-typist from the unit as business office clericals. These two employees also work in the P & O administrative office above the carpentry shop. The record indicates that they have daily contact with other P & O employees who come into the office for requisitions, work assignments, and keys. They share the same overall supervision as these other employees and appear to function primarily as conduits for work requisitions to the various shops. We find the typist and clerk-typist to be hospital clericals, not business office clericals, who are closely related to 426 McLEAN HOSPITAL the functions served by P & O maintenance employ- ees and share a community of interest with them.5 We shall therefore include them in the unit. The Employer would exclude as supervisors from any unit found appropriate the seven individuals within the P & O department who are employed as powerhouse engineer, carpenter foreman, electrician foreman, painter foreman, pipe shop foreman, me- chanic foreman, public works foreman, and labor supervisor. The Petitioner contends that these indi- viduals are only working foremen and should be included in the unit. The present record is insuffi- cient to enable us to make a determination as to the alleged supervisory status of these individuals. Ac- 5 St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, 222 NLRB 674 (1976); Mercy Hospitals of Sacramento, Inc., 217 NLRB 765 (1975). cordingly, we shall permit them to vote subject to challenge. In conclusion, we find that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All plant and operations department employees employed by the Employer at its Belmont, Massa- chusetts, mental health facility, excluding office clerical employees, guards, supervisors, and all other employees employed by the Employer. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit- ted from publication.] 427