Mount Sinai Hospital

MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL Mount Sinai Hospital and District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, RWDSU, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 1-RC- 14932 November 15, 1977 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 hearing was held before Hearing Officer Kathleen F. McCarthy. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Regional Director for Region I issued an order transferring the case to the Board for decision. Subsequent to the hearing the Employer filed its brief with the Board. 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 case, the Board finds: I. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The Petitioner is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. 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 Petitioner, which currently represents a unit of the Employer's service and maintenance employees who work 20 hours or more a week, herein seeks to represent a separate unit of those employees who work less than 20 hours a week. Alternatively, the Petitioner requests that the Board direct a self- determination election for these hitherto unrepre- sented employees to determine their desires as to their inclusion in the currently represented bargain- ing unit. The Employer contends that the unit sought is inappropriate and, if any unit is found appropriate, that high school and college students, nursing students, and employees with full-time positions elsewhere should be excluded as casual employees. I Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc.. 175 NLRB 966, 99 (1969); Simon Bros. Co., Inc., 173 NLRB 906, 912 (1968). 233 NLRB No. 79 Petitioner has represented the currently recognized unit since its certification 7 years ago by the Connecticut State Labor Relations Board following a consent election. At the time of the certification, representation of employees who worked less than 20 hours a week was precluded by a provision of state law, now no longer in effect, with the result that they have remained unrepresented during this entire period. The 27 employees herein sought to be represented have been in the Employer's employ for periods ranging from I month to 7 years. They regularly work a stated number of hours each week which varies between 8 and 19 hours per individual employee. They are variously assigned to the Employer's six departments, known as the dietary, environmental services, laundry, operating room, ambulatory and community medicine, and nursing service departments, each under separate supervi- sion. They perform work similar to that of the other service and maintenance employees and work with them under the same departmental supervision. They lack the fringe benefits of those employees and are in the lowest service and maintenance pay classifica- tion. In these circumstances, we find that the part-time service and maintenance employees herein sought possess no significant group homogeneity, apart from the represented service and maintenance employees, which would warrant their establishment in a separate appropriate unit. On the other hand, we find that the unrepresented employees share a sufficiently strong community of interest with those employees, as evidenced by their similar work functions, employee contacts, common supervision, and regu- larity and substantiality of their working hours per week, to entitle them to be represented by the Petitioner in the currently established collective- bargaining unit, if they so desire.' Accordingly, we shall direct an election 2 in the following voting group for this purpose: All regular part-time service and maintenance employees at the Employer's Hartford, Connecti- cut, hospital who work less than 20 hours a week, excluding all other employees and supervisors as defined in the Act. If a majority of the valid ballots in the election are cast for the Petitioner, the employees will be deemed to have indicated the desire to be included in the existing service and maintenance unit currently represented by the Petitioner, and it may bargain for those employees as part of that unit. If a majority of 2 Photype, Inc., 145 NLRB 1268 (1964). 507 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD the valid ballots are cast against representation, the employees will be deemed to have indicated the desire to remain unrepresented. In that event, a certification of results of election will be issued. 5. Questions remain as to inclusion in the voting group of the employees whom the Employer would exclude as casual employees. The 11 high school and college students receive no educational credits for the hours they work at the hospital. Upon their gradua- tion the majority of them expect to seek full employment elsewhere or to move out of the area. On the other hand, they have been in the Employer's employ for periods of up to 7 years and work 8 to 19 hours a week at the hospital. The four nurses aides study nursing elsewhere and are regularly employed at the hospital on weekends. They are hired through regular channels at the hospital, like other employ- ees, and there is no evidence that their hospital work 3 Allied Stores of Ohio. Inc., supra. is credited toward their education. Upon graduation it appears that at least some of those nurses aides will be offered and accept positions as professors and nurses at the hospital. Three of them work 8 hours a week and the fourth works 16 hours a week at the hospital. In addition, the hospital employs two individuals who work full time as a policeman and U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer but regularly work 16 hours a week, after hours, at the hospital. We find all these employees eligible to vote in the election herein directed in view of their community of interest with the other voting group employees as evidenced by the regularity and substantiality of the hours they work and their other conditions of employment.3 [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] 508