Georgetown University

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 215 The President and Directors of Georgetown College for Georgetown University and Local 1199DC, affiliated with the National Union of Hospital and Nursing Home Employees, a Division of RWDSU/AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 5-RC-8033 November 10, 1972 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS FANNING 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 I. Shooer. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, by direction of the Acting Regional Director for Region 5, this case was transferred to the National Labor Relations Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs. 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. The rulings are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.' 2. The Petitioner and Service Employees Interna- tional Union, Local 82, AFL-CIO (Intervenor herein), claim 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 Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The petition, as amended, seeks a unit of all full-time and regular part-time service and mainte- nance employees, including students, employed by Georgetown University, excluding all academic, faculty, professional, technical, confidential, clerical, and hospital employees, and all other employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.2 The Employer takes the position that the appropriate unit should consist of all nonacademic employees at the University including clerical, technical, and hospital employees, but excluding students. Further, the Employer would define part-time employees as employees working 20 or more hours per week or, alternatively, employees working a regular schedule on a year-round basis regardless of the number of hours worked per week. The Intervenor took no position at the hearing with respect to the unit designated on the amended petition. There is no bargaining history. Georgetown University, a private nonprofit educa- tional institution incorporated by an act of Congress in 1789, has an enrollment of approximately 8,000 students in nine schools. The majority of the University's buildings are located on the main campus in Georgetown, a part of Washington, D.C. A board of directors exercises overall authority over the University, with the president as the chief administrative officer. Reporting to the president are six vice presidents who are responsible for major administrative areas. The University's annual budget is approximately $74 million, of which $38 million is allocated to the University's medical center complex comprised of the schools of medicine, dentistry, and nursing and the hospital. Neither the medical center nor the hospital is separately incorporated. The budget is assembled annually by requests from divisions and departments within the six major administrative areas. The requests are channelled up to the appropriate vice president and the university budget office for review. Upon approval, they are first submitted to the president, and then to the board of directors. The budget for the hospital is approved or rejected as part of the entire budget for medical center affairs. Various universitywide services are centralized. The six administrative areas of the University are charged a proportionate amount of their budget for these functions. Illustrative of those services are purchasing, switchboard, payroll, electronic data processing, and maintenance. Personnel policy is also centrally administered. A personnel program for all nonacademic employees is conducted by the central personnel office which includes recruitment, employment, wages and sala- ries, certain aspects of benefits, and employee activities. Although there are approximately 300 job I Cornell University, 183 NLRB No. 41; Rules and Regulations, Series 8, are technical employees, and 750 are service and maintenance employees as amended, Section 103. 1. There are 40-50 maintenance employees and approximately 300 service 2 The Employer employs approximately 2,900 nonacademic employees . employees who are charged to the hospital in excess of 50 percent of their Approximately 1,400 are supervisors , professionals, confidential employees, worktime. The remaining 410 to 420 service and maintenance employees or guards Of the remaining 1,500, approximately 500 are clericals and 250 constitute the unit Petitioner seeks to represent. 200 NLRB No. 14 216 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD titles and classifications, the University maintains a universitywide wage and salary program and, all employees share common personnel policies, wage scales, and fringe benefits.3 There is a uniform policy with respect to recruit- ment of employees from sources outside the Univer- sity. All applicants are given a standard application form and an introductory pamphlet. Each new employee is provided with a "Welcome" brochure which sets forth virtually all aspects of employment at the University. As for promotions and recruitment through intrauniversity transfers, employees are provided with a list of vacant jobs which is posted in 25 places throughout the University. Any employee, regardless of the place or category he works in, may apply for the vacant jobs. There is considerable movement within the nonacademic work force consisting of transfers between departments, and promotion or advancement in all classifications. The central personnel office maintains a training program for improvement of skills, and another program of on-the-job training, resulting in opportunities for promotions. In view of these factors, it is the Employer's position that only an overall unit of nonacademic personnel is appropriate, including clerical, technical, and hospital employees. However, the record shows that the great majority of the employees who the Petitioner seeks are under the ultimate responsibility of the vice president for planning and physical plant. According to the Employer's occupational list, employees sought are in service classifications whose nomenclature reveals they are engaged in custodial and housekeeping functions considered to be essen- tially "blue collar" work. Included are maintenance crafts and custodial workers, similar to the "house- keeping" employees in Duke University, 4 or manual laborers. Such a unit in a university or college environment can be said to be analogous to the usual production and maintenance unit in the industrial sphere, and is a classic appropriate unit. We find a unit of service and maintenance employees to be appropriate herein. Such a unit does not normally include office clerical or technical employees. Since it is the Board's long-established policy to exclude office clericals from units of manual workers,5 we shall exclude the office clericals here. As for the technical employees, the record indicates that they have a community of interest separate and distinct from other nonacademic employees. Thus, it appears they have a separate line of supervision, are trained 3 There is a slight variation in the number of holidays and vacation days between hospital employees and other nonacademic employees. 4 Duke University, 194 NLRB No. 31. 5 John H Harland Co, 127 NLRB 588, Westinghouse Electric Co., IIS NLRB 1043. 6 Duke University, supra,- Loyola University Medical Center, 194 NLRB to become proficient in a technical line, and receive close supervision by other technicians, and the nature of their work is substantially different from service and maintenance employees here found appropriate. Consequently, we shall exclude the technical employees from the unit. Further, in accord with our decision in Duke University and Section 2(2) of the Act, which precludes us from asserting jurisdiction over hospitals operated and maintained by nonprofit entities, we shall exclude from the unit employees who are employed over 50 percent of their working time within the hospital .6 The Employer would exclude all students and would define regular part-time employees as employ- ees working 20 or more hours per week, or employees working a regular schedule on a year-round basis regardless of the number of hours worked per week. We find merit in the Employer's contentions. The record shows that the student employees are paid differently from other regular part-time employees. Their pay is diminished by the amount of financial aid each may receive from academic grants and the Federal Government. Some students fill positions that are casual in nature and are not classified. Because in most instances their employment is for less than an academic year of 9 months, they are considered temporary employees. Also, there is a restriction on the number of hours' per week a student may work, i.e., only in cases where the student has the dean's permission are undergraduate students permitted to work more than 20 hours per week. Accordingly, since students have many facts peculiar to themselves, and do not appear to have a community of interest with other regular part-time employees, we shall exclude them from the unit.? With respect to regular part-time employees, the Employer would include those who work 20 or more hours a week and the Petitioner would include those who work 16 or more hours a week. Under university policy, regular part-time employees are those who work 20 or more hours a week. They are then classified as regular part-time employees and begin to share the same fringe benefits available to the full- time employees. Since the Petitioner has not ad- vanced any basis for its formula defining regular part-time employees, and as the Employer's pro- posed formula is not substantially different from the Petitioner's and does not appear unreasonable, we will accept the Employer's classification. According- ly, we shall include as regular part-time employees No. 30, and cases cited at fn.5 therein For the reasons stated in his dissent in Duke, Member Fanning would not exclude hospital employee from the unit. r Cf. National Cash Register Company, 95 NLRB 27; Scope Associates d/b/a Westbridge, 172 NLRB No. 208. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 217 any employees who regularly work 20 or more hours per week.8 This holding is, however, based on the facts of this case and is not to be construed as a standard definition of regular part-time employees applicable to all universities or colleges. Accordingly, as the record shows that the service and maintenance employees share a separate com- munity of interest from other nonacademic employ- ees, we find that a unit of all full-time and regular part-time service and maintenance employees who work 20 or more hours a week, excluding students, clericals, technicals, all academic, faculty, profession- al, confidential, and hospital employees, and all other employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act, is appropriate .9 The parties are in disagreement on the placement of the glass blower, laboratory assistants, and autopsy assistants in the unit. The record shows that the glass blower is highly skilled in the blowing of various glass instruments and configurations that are used for special project type work. He works alone, may be salaried, and reports to the vice president for academic affairs. The laboratory assistants receive on-the-job training by other technical employees, are hourly paid at a rate higher than the custodial employees, and normal advancement is progression to senior laboratory assistant. Autopsy assistants assist in the performance of autopsies, receive on- the-job training, are also hourly paid at a rate higher than custodial employees, normally advance to chief autopsy assistant, and report to the vice president for medical center affairs. We find that the glass blower, laboratory assistants, and autopsy assistants are technical employees and for this reason their com- munity of interest is separate from that of the service and maintenance employees, and we shall exclude them from the unit. The parties are in disagreement as to the placement of library assistants in the unit. The record shows that library assistants work in the library performing clerical work which involves recording information concerning the receipt of old and new books. We find that the library assistants are clerical employees and that their community of interest is separate from that of the service and maintenance employees, and we shall exclude them from the unit. The Petitioner would exclude as clericals the library aides and messenger clerks. The record shows that most of the employees in these classifications are students. Library aides devote their worktime to the 8 Leland Stanford Jr. University, 194 NLRB No. 187. Where the parties disagree as to the formula for defining regular part-time employees, Chairman Miller would apply the Board's usual standard that all regular part-time employees should be included in the unit regardless of the number of hours worked per week. 8 We shall also include the six or seven off-campus "service" employees whom Petitioner seeks, and whose employer is Georgetown University. The physical movement of books about the library which involves the proper placement of new and returned books on the library racks. Messenger clerks perform only light clerical work and function mainly as messengers between buildings within the university complex. As library aides and messenger clerks perform manual duties, we conclude that they are essentially "blue collar" workers and have the same community of interest as other service and mainte- nance employees. Accordingly, except for the student library aides we shall include them in the unit.'° The parties were also in disagreement on the unit placement of the following classifications found in the print shop: printing estimator, printing planner, stripping production coordinator, and production coordinator. As the record testimony is inadequate to determine whether these employees are supervisory or whether the Board traditionally includes them in a departmental unit, we shall allow employees in these classifications to vote subject to challenge. The classifications of physical plant trainee and patient transporter were not discussed in the record testimony. In view of the absence of record testimo- ny, we shall allow employees in these classifications to vote subject to challenge. The Petitioner would include the classification of parking attendant in the unit. The record shows that the parking attendants do not actually park cars but attend the University's various parking lots. Some are employees of the hospital; they are stationed at the hospital parking lot underneath the hospital and are under the supervision of the hospital administra- tor. Since other parking attendants are assigned to nonhospital facilities, we shall not apply the 50- percent test to the parking attendant classification." If 50 percent or more of the parking attendants, as a group, are assigned to the hospital, then we shall exclude them from the unit. However, if 50 percent or more are assigned to nonhospital functions, then we shall include them in the unit. We shall, therefore, permit them to vote subject to challenge. We find the following employees of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for purposes of collec- tive bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All full-time and regular part-time service and maintenance employees working 20 hours or more per week, including library aides, messenger clerks, printing estimator, printing planner, strip- ping production coordinator, printing production parties agree that academic, faculty, and professional employees should be excluded from any unit found appropriate herein. 10 The Petitioner also seeks to include communications aides as employees in this classification carry messages and apparently perform manual duties, we shall also include them in the unit. 11 Duke University, 200 NLRB No. 13. Member Fanning would include parking lot attendants. 218 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD coordinator, physical plant trainee, patient trans- porter and parking attendant, but excluding the glass blower, laboratory assistants, autopsy assist- ants, library assistants, students, academic, facul- ty, professional, technical, confidential, office, clerical, hospital employees, and all other employ- ees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.]