Henry M. Hald High School Association

512 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Henry M. Hald High School Association, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, and the Sisters of St. Joseph and Lay Faculty Association, Local 1261, American Federation of Teachers, AFL- CIO. Case 29-CA-3823 February 7, 1975 DECISION AND ORDER BY ACTING CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND PENELLO On September 24, 1974, Administrative Law Judge Benjamin K. Blackburn issued the attached Deci- sion I in this proceeding. Thereafter, Respondent Hald filed limited exceptions and a supporting brief. 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 considered the record and the attached Decision in light of the exceptions and brief and has decided to affirm the rulings, findings, and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge and to adopt his recommended Order. ORDER Pursuant to Section 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board adopts as its Order the recommend- ed Order of the Administrative Law Judge and hereby orders that the complaint be, and it hereby is, dismissed in its entirety. I This Decision was corrected by an Erratum issued September 25, 1974. The corrections have been incorporated in the attached Decision. DECISION STATEMENT OF THE CASE BENJAMIN K. BLACKBURN, Administrative Law Judge: The charge was filed on April 22, 1974.1 The complaint was issued on June 28. The hearing was held on August 14 in Brooklyn, New York. The only issue litigated 2 was the motive of Sister John Crucis, principal of Bishop Kearney High School, in failing to renew the contracts of Teachers Camille Botta, Anna DiMaria, and Jeffrey Murphy and Assistant Librari- I No representative of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn appeared at the hearing and no counsel entered an appearance on its behalf. Counsel for the Hald Association raised the issue of whether the charge had ever been served on the diocese . I find that it was, on June 17, 1974, by personal service on Brother Medard Shea, assistant superintendent for teacher personnel for the Catholic Schools Office of the Diocese of Brooklyn. 2 Whether the Hald Association and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn are affiliated organizations with common direction and labor relations policy and are joint employers are the only other issue posed in this record. The parties stipulated that it should be resolved on the basis of 216 NLRB No. 93 an Virginia Carew for the 1974-75 school year. For the reasons set forth below, I find the General Counsel has failed to prove that her motive was one proscribed by the Act and, therefore, has failed to prove Respondents violated Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. Upon the entire record, I make the following: FINDINGS OF FACT 1. JURISDICTION AND JOINT EMPLOYERS The circumstances under which the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn created the Hald Association and turned over to it the operation of certain diocesan high schools and the circumstances under which the Hald Association subsequently turned over operation of the particular high school involved in this case to the Sisters of St. Joseph are the substance of Henry M. Hald High School Association and The Sisters of St. Joseph, 213 NLRB No. 54, in which the Board issued its decision on September 23, 1974. In this case, the parties entered into the following stipulation: The findings and determination of the Board in Case Number 29-CA-3336 on the issue of, one , jurisdiction, and two, whether the Henry M. Hald Association and the Sisters of St. Joseph are joint employers shall be deemed to be the recommended findings and determi- nation of the Administrative Law Judge on those same issues in this proceeding. As to jurisdiction, the Board, in the absence of exceptions, accepted "pro forma the findings of the Administrative Law Judge that the operations of the Respondent affect commerce within the meaning of Sec. 2(2), (6), and (7) of the Act and his conclusion that the Board should assert jurisdiction here." As to the joint employers issue, the Board found that the Sisters of St . Joseph was a successor employer to and not a joint employer with the Henry M. Hald Association. Pursuant to the stipulation of the parties, I hereby make the same findings and conclusions. U. THE UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES A. Facts At the conclusion of the General Counsel's case, counsel for the Sisters of St. Joseph moved for dismissal. I indicated my willingness to grant the motion on the ground that the General Counsel had failed to make out a prima facie case as to motive. Following a discussion about the significance of such a step, with its concomitant probability designated portions of the record made before Administrative Law Judge Lowell Goerlich in Henry M. Hold High School Association and The Sisters of St. Joseph, Case 29-CA-3336, JD-699-73 (see sec. below entitled "Jurisdiction and Joint Employers"). On the basis of those portions of the record made before Judge Goerlich which have been incorporated into the record in this case, I make the same findings of fact as Judge Goencch and reach the same conclusion of law; i.e., the Hald Association "is clearly the alter ego of the Bishop of Brooklyn ." Judge Goerlich's findings of fact which underlie this conclusion of law are hereby incorporated into this Decision by reference. HENRY M. HALD HIGH SCHOOL ASSN. 513 that the Board would merely reverse and remand, counsel withdrew his motion and rested without introducing any further evidence. Consequently, there are no credibility conflicts in the record and the following facts are undisputed. 1. The union activities of the alleged discriminatees The high school involved in this case-Bishop Kearney in Brooklyn-was operated by the Hald Association in the 1972-73 school year, by the Sisters of St. Joseph in the 1973-74 school year. Sister John Crucis was and is principal, both before and after the change. Prior to September 1, 1973, the faculty consisted of 34 lay teachers and 33 religious. Twenty-two of the lay teachers were on checkoff and three others were members of Local 1261 who paid their dues directly to it. (Local 1261, as its name indicates, is limited to lay teachers. Teachers in Catholic high schools in its jurisdiction who are members of religious orders are not represented by it.) After September 1, 1973, the faculty at Bishop Kearney was made up of 36 lay teachers and 41 religious. Twenty-three of the former were holdovers from the preceding year. Of that group, 15 had been on checkoff and three had paid their dues directly to Local 1261. There was a 1-day strike on May 1, 1973, called by Local 1261 against the Hald Association. At Bishop Kearney all but approximately five of the lay employees stayed out. Among those who stayed out were Teachers Camille Botta and Anna DiMaria. Among those who stayed in was Jeffrey Murphy, a substitute English teacher at the time. The record does not indicate whether Assistant Librarian Virginia Carew stayed out or in. The Hald Association called another strike in September 1973. At Bishop Kearney, five teachers stayed out on the first day. They were Marianne Finn (Local 126 l's delegate at Bishop Kearney), Catherine Caulfield, Beatrice Maho- ney, Virginia Chappin, and Anna DiMaria. Virginia Carew stayed out on the second day and returned to work on the third day. Camille Botta joined the strikers on the third day and remained out until the strike ended. The strike lasted approximately 4 weeks. After approximately 2 weeks, Virginia Chappin resigned her position as a teacher and ceased to participate in the strike. The strike ended at Bishop Kearney on Monday morning, October 15, 1973, when the five teachers who were still on strike sought to return to work. Marianne Finn, Catherine Caulfield, Beatrice Mahoney, Anna DiMaria, and Camille Botta were interviewed separately by Sister John Crucis on the morning of October 15. Finn, DiMaria, and Botta were told that they had been permanently replaced and were asked to leave the building. Presumably, Catherine Caulfield and Beatrice Mahoney were permitted to return to work. Finn, DiMaria, and Botta went to another high school at which the president of Local 1261 teaches and told him what had happened to them. They returned to Bishop Kearney at the close of the schoolday and slipped into the auditorium where Sister John Crucis was conducting a faculty meeting. They made no effort to participate in the meeting. Sister John Crucis told the assembled faculty she had let Finn, DiMaria, and Botta go because of her concern for the students. She said that she had felt she could not have substitute teachers filling in for them throughout the strike, therefore she had hired permanent replacements for them. She asked for comments from the teachers. The first few who responded talked in terms of the morality of what she had done. Jeffrey Murphy introduced a new note when he spoke. He said he did not agree with what Sister John Crucis had said about being concerned with the students' education. He said he could not see how replacing teachers who were familiar to the students with new teachers was better for the students. He added that he thought Finn, DiMaria, and Botta were being punished for being in the Union. Sister John Crucis did not respond to his remarks nor, apparently, to any of the other teachers who spoke up. The teachers were divided on whether Finn, DiMaria, and Botta should be reinstated. Some spoke against them. Others in addition to Murphy spoke for them. There was some talk about forming a committee to study the question and names were taken of persons willing to serve on it. However, no committee was ever formed. The meeting broke up on this indecisive note. Finn, DiMaria, and Botta attended a meeting of Local 1261 that evening. During the meeting they were told by the president of the local that they were to return to work the next morning. They reported to Sister John Crucis on the morning of Tuesday, October 16, 1973. She told them she had changed her mind not because of anything the Union had done but because the board of trustees, i.e., her superior, had told her to. Finn, DiMaria, and Botta returned to their regular classes. Marie Maggiore, the third of three teachers who had taken over Anna DiMaria's classes during the strike, continued at Bishop Kearney for several weeks in a tutor's role, at which time she transferred to another high school. Felice Lofredo, who replaced Camille Botta during the strike, was still a teacher at Bishop Kearney at the time of the hearing. The record does not reveal the name of Marianne Finn's permanent replacement, what happened to him or her when Miss Finn was reinstated, or that anything of significance to this case happened to Miss Finn after her reinstatement. I presume that, unlike Anna DiMaria and Camille Botta, her contract was renewed for the 1974-75 school year. Jeffrey Murphy was not a member of Local 1261 at the time of the faculty meeting at which he spoke up for Finn, DiMaria, and Botta and suggested Sister John Crucis' motive for not taking them back was an antiunion one. He joined at a meeting of Local 1261 in January 1974. At that meeting an official of the local made a joke about the school being closed and Sister John Crucis being taken away by Federal marshals if she refused to comply with a Board order in Judge Goerlich's case. At a faculty meeting the next day, Sister John Crucis assured the teachers that the school was not about to close and she was not about to be taken away by marshals. She did not indicate she was aware of anything else that had transpired the night before, including Murphy's joining the Union. Local 1261 renewed its demand for recognition as bargaining representative for Bishop Kearney's lay faculty 514 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD in March 1974. The demand took the form of a letter dated March 14. It was received by the school sometime after March 14. 2. The termination of the alleged discriminatees Teachers and librarians at Bishop Kearney high school achieve tenure after 3 full years on the faculty; i.e., beginning with their fourth year they can only be discharged for cause. When the principal or a department head checks on the work of teachers by observing one of their classes, the report which is filled out is called an observation. a. Anna DiMaria Anna DiMaria teaches Italian. The 1973-74 school year was her third at Bishop Kearney . She was observed four times during her first 2 years, once by Sister John Crucis, the other three times by various department heads. The two observations from this period which are in evidence both date from the 1971-72 school year, her first. One, prepared on October 5, 1971, by Sister John Crucis, rates Miss DiMaria as generally above average and contains the following "Additional Remarks:" Thank you for an enjoyable lesson . I like particularly your voice tones, the rate at which you spoke allowing for clarity, and your very gentle manner both in explaining and correcting. Your classroom manage- ment is excellent. Even though it is early in the term, the girls seem to know your routine and what is expected of them. Another, prepared on December 17, 1971, by Miss DiMaria's department head is generally favorable. It contains the following "Specific recommendations or comments:" Class reacts well to your teaching. Try to use some audio-visual aids. During the brief period after October 16, 1973, when Miss DiMaria and Miss Maggiore were both teaching Italian at Bishop Kearney, Miss DiMana made a derogato- ry remark about Miss Maggiore which came to Sister John Crucis' attention. Sister John Crucis spoke to Miss DiMaria about her relationship with Miss Maggiore. She suggested the three of them should discuss the matter. The record does not indicate such a discussion was ever held. In late January the parents of one of Miss DiMaria's students complained to Sister John Crucis about an adverse progress report Miss DiMaria had made on their daughter. They argued that a teacher who had been out on strike for a month would not have had sufficient opportu- nity to observe the girl to render the sort of report sent them by Miss DiMaria. When Sister John Crucis relayed this complaint to Miss DiMaria as a matter of information, Miss DiMaria asked for the student's name. Sister John Crucis did not give it to her. Miss DiMaria said she thought her report had been justified. Sister John Crucis agreed with her. Miss DiMaria gave the usual midterm examination to her third-year Italian students in January. She used an old New York State Regents examination in order to give them a chance to practice the sort of examination they would face at the end of the school year when they would have to take a current regents examination . The regents examina- tion comes at the end of 3 years of study. Miss DiMaria's students had, at this point, been studying Italian for only 2- 1/2 years. Consequently, there was some material on the midterm examination which they had not yet studied. Approximately 15 out of her 54 third-year students flunked the midterm. At least one complanied to Sister John Crucis that the examination was unfair because it contained material not yet covered in class . In a conversation in early February, just a week or two after the conversation in which Sister John Crucis and Miss DiMaria had discussed the parental complaint about Miss DiMaria's progress report, they discussed this situation . Sister John Crucis questioned the wisdom of including material not yet covered in class on a midyear examination. Sister John Crucis observed one of Miss DiMaria's classes on March 6, 1974. Sister Teresa Collins, Miss DiMaria's department head, observed one the next day. The observation prepared by Sister John Crucis is not in the record. The one prepared by Sister Teresa Collins rates Miss DiMaria its average in seven different respects such as "professional attitudes" and "control of class," excellent in "personal appearance," and below average in "use of appropriate methods and techniques." There are also five numbered "specific recommendations or comments." Each is critical. For example: 1. It would be good if you were a little more insistent about students coming on time to class and not forgetting their books . This would be a great help to your getting started right away and in covering the work you have planned. 5. Grammar lesson - use the deductive method rather than the inductive . I think that you will find that the students will be better able to make applications (hopefully!). Miss DiMaria refused to sign the observation in the space provided on the front of the form . On the back she wrote: I decline to sign the observation at this time since I disagree with some of the ratings. I would like to be reevaluated. Anna DiMaria Miss DiMaria went to the office on March 14, 1974, to discuss the unfavorable observation Sister John Crucis had made out on her the week before. Miss DiMaria refused to sign this one also. Sister John Crucis wanted a witness to that fact. As she got up from her desk and went to the door to summon a vice principal, Miss DiMaria said she wanted a witness present also. Sister John Crucis said , "No, no, don't make it a union thing." The vice principal came into the room, nodded when Sister John Crucis said that Miss HENRY M. HALD HIGH SCHOOL ASSN. DiMaria was refusing to sign the observation , and left immediately. The main thrust of this conversation was a discussion of the criticisms Sister John Crucis had entered on her observation . At the conclusion, Sister John Crucis told Miss DiMaria she was not going to renew her contract for the 1974-75 school year. She did not give a specific reason although Miss DiMaria assumed she meant "it was just for my teaching ability." She offered to give Miss DiMaria a recommendation. Miss DiMaria's contract was not renewed for the 1974- 75 school year. b. Camille Botta Camille Botta teaches social studies. The 1973-74 school year was her second at Bishop Kearney . She was observed once by Sister John Crucis during the 1972-73 school year. The observation prepared at that time is not in the record. I presume it was generally favorable. Miss Botta was one of three teachers in the social studies department during the 1973-74 school year who taught freshman and sophomore classes exclusively. (Jeffrey Murphy was another. See below.) She failed approximately 15 of her students, out of a total of 140, at midyear. (Murphy flunked 3 or 4 more than she did out of a total of 130.) In early February, Sister John Crucis called her in to discuss what Sister John Crucis considered a high ratio of failures. Miss Botta did not agree that the number she had failed was inordinately high. (The midyear grade counts only one-fifth of the mark for the school year. Murphy flunked only 6 at the end of the year, all of them among the 15-20 he had failed at midyear. The record does not reveal how many Miss Botta failed at the end of the year.) Sister John Crucis observed one of Miss Botta's classes on March 6, 1974, as well as one of Miss DiMaria's. Like Miss DiMaria, Miss Botta went to the office on March 14 to discuss the observation Sister John Crucis prepared on her. (This one is not in the record either.) At the end of the discussion, Sister John Crucis said that she would not be rehiring Miss Botta for the next year. Miss Botta asked why. Sister John Crucis said it was not because of the observation per se, for it was not really a poor observation, just average. She said that she would not rehire Miss Botta because her attitude toward the students was not what Sister John Crucis expected - Miss Botta put the students down - and her ideas did not go along with the philosophy of the school. Miss Botta did not understand what the principal meant by "attitude" and "philosophy." She said she did not think those were the real reasons, she believed the decision had something to do with a "personality conflict" between them, not her teaching ability. She asked Sister John Crucis if her reason had anything to do with Miss Botta's affiliation with the Union. (Only Miss Botta testified about this conversation. The record does not indicate Sister John Crucis' reply. If it had been anything other than a firm denial , I am sure Miss Botta would not have neglected to mention it.) Miss Botta's contract was not renewed for the 1974-75 school year. 515 c. Virginia Carew Virginia Carew was an assistant librarian in charge of audiovisual equipment and materials at Bishop Kearney High School. The 1973-74 school year was her second there. Like Miss DiMana and Miss Botta, Miss Carew went into the office to speak to Sister John Crucis on March 14, 1974. She went on her own initiative in order to talk to the principal about her prospects for the 1974-75 school year, a custom among faculty members at that time of the year. Sister John Crucis said, "I guess you're here to discuss next year?" Miss Carew said, "Yes," Sister John Crucis said she was not going to rehire Miss Carew for budgetary reasons. Miss Carew asked if there was any problem with her work. Sister John Crucis said there was not, she would give Miss Carew a recommenda- tion. Sister John Crucis said that a religious who was not then working at Bishop Kearney had spoken to her about the assistant librarian position and was going to come to the school to talk to Sister Jean Timothy, the librarian. Religious faculty members cost less than lay faculty members. Miss Carew's contract was not renewed for the 1974-75 school year. In the event, the religious to whom Sister John Crucis referred has not been hired as assistant librarian for the 1974-75 school year. The record does not indicate whether she was, in fact, interviewed by Sister Jean Timothy. As Sister Jean Timothy discussed with Miss Carew between March 14 and the end of the 1973-74 school year, audiovisual materials have been decentralized from the library to the various departments in which they are used. Sister Jean Timothy's secretary has assumed Miss Carew's other duties as assistant librarian. d. Jeffrey Murphy Jeffrey Murphy teaches English and social studies. The 1973-74 school year was his first as a full-time faculty member at Bishop Kearney. His field is English, not social studies. He was hired as an English substitute in March 1973 and served in that capacity for the balance of the 1972-73 school year. When he was hired for the 1973-74 school year, Sister John Crucis told him that he would teach English if there were an opening in that department, otherwise social studies. There was no opening in the English department. Consequently, during the 1973-74 school year, Murphy, like Miss Botta, taught freshman and sophomore social studies. Murphy was also informed in mid-March that he would not be rehired for the 1974-75 school year . He was not as precise as Miss DiMaria, Miss Botta, and Miss Carew, about the date on which he spoke to Sister John Crucis. Since, like Miss DiMaria and Miss Botta , he went to see the principal in the week following receipt of an unfavora- ble observation by her, I find that he was, in effect, terminated so close to March 14, 1974 , as to make no difference. The observation which led to his termination was the only one ever prepared on him by Sister John Crucis. Two prior observations, one by the head of the English department (presumably during the 1972-73 515a DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD school year) and one by the head of the social studies department, are not in the record. Murphy went to the office one day in mid-March to discuss with Sister John Crucis an observation she had filled out on him the prior week. He said he was not satisfied with her appraisal and asked why she had rated him as she had. He asked her what would be considered average on the scale of 1 to 5, the lower number being the higher rating, on the form used. Sister John Crucis said 3. Murphy said, "Well, why did I get a number of 4's in different categories?" After a discussion of why, they concluded that the observation was not really a true reflection of Murphy's teaching abilities. Murphy said he did not want it to go into his permanent file. Sister John Crucis said he could do with it as he pleased. He tore it up. Murphy then said, "Well, it seems that I'm not wanted here next year, you won't need my services." Sister John Crucis said, "Yes, that's right." She said that she thought Murphy should teach English rather than social studies wherever he went. Murphy's contract was not renewed for the 1974-75 school year. b. Analysis and Conclusions The General Counsel finds Sister John Crucis' real motive for failing to rehire Miss DiMaria, Miss Botta, Miss Carew, and Murphy is their activities in connection with the September-October 1973 strike. He emphasizes, with respect to Miss DiMaria and Miss Botta, that Sister John Crucis initially sought to invoke the rule pertaining to permanent replacement of economic strikers without, however, attempting to explain why that incident has any significance in light of the fact that Miss DiMaria and Miss Botta were like Marianne Finn insofar as what happened to them in October 1973 was concerned or why Sister John Crucis singled out them and Miss Carew for retribution while not doing anything at any time to discriminate against Marianne Finn, Catherine Caulfield, and Beatrice Mahoney, the three other teachers who stayed out for extended periods of time. The General Counsel's principal argument is based on timing . He contends that the causal link between the events of October 1973 and the events of March 1974 is to be found in the fact that March 1974 was the first opportunity Sister John Crucis had to terminate all four alleged discnminatees following the union activities which she found objectionable. The Sisters of St. Joseph, the only Respondent which participated in the litigation of this issue, finds Sister John Crucis' real motive in her dissatisfaction with the teaching performances of Miss DiMana, Miss Botta, and Murphy and in economic pressures where Miss Carew is concerned. As already indicated, I ruled at the conclusion of the General Counsel's case on the basis of the facts set forth above that he had not made out a prima facie case. In view of the fact that counsel for the Sisters of St. Joseph elected to withdraw his motion to dismiss and stand on the record created by the General Counsel, the argument advanced by the General Counsel and counsel for the Charging Party that all the circumstances - for example, the fact that Miss DiMaria's 1973-74 observations were critical while those from prior years were not - created sufficient doubt as to Sister John Crucis' motive to require Respondents to go forward with the evidence does not apply. However, any distinction drawn at this stage between failure to make out a prima facie case and failure to establish discriminatory motive by a preponderance of the evidence is more technical than real since all the evidence in the record is the General Counsel's. I hereby reaffirm the ruling I made at the hearing. I find nothing in the facts set forth above to establish that Sister John Crucis was motivated in March 1974 by resentment over the union activities of any or all of the alleged discriminatees in the fall of 1973. Nothing about the events which led up to Sister John Crucis' decision not to renew each one's contract is inherently inconsistent with the nondiscriminatory reasons advanced by Respondents. Absent some evidence that Sister John Crucis was engaged in a deliberate plot to get rid of them, arguments of pretext based on changes of attitude or changes of method or importance of transgressions are founded on suspicion only and do not rise to the level of fact based on evidence. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the critical observations rendered on Miss DiMaria, Miss Botta, and Murphy just prior to the decision not to rehire them for the 1974-75 school year were not honest and fair. In Miss Carew's case, there is no evidence that the economic reason advanced by Respondents did not exist. On the contrary, the record shows that the Sisters of St. Joseph did reduce the budget at Bishop Kearney by getting rid of her. There is no evidence that Sister John Crucis' concern over parental complaints and the giving of a midyear examina- tion which included material not yet covered in class was not genuine. Reliance on the fact that the teacher involved felt these criticisms unjustified and her manner of doing her job right misses the point that the burden of proof is not on Respondents to prove a good reason for discharge but on the General Counsel to prove a bad one. None of these alleged discnminatees had been at Bishop Kearney long enough to acquire tenure. Even by standards applied in other forums the issue of good cause over bad cause would not arise. Here, the maxim that, under the Act, an employer may discharge for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all so long as his motive is not one of the narrow causes proscribed by the Act is peculiarly applicable. In my view, all that the General Counsel has proved is that employees who engaged in union activities of varying magnitude were, in effect, discharged some 5 months later under circumstances which, viewed objectively, were totally consistent with the nondiscriminatory motives claimed by Respondents. Whether couched in terms of prima facie case or preponderance of the evidence, it is not enough. I find, therefore, the General Counsel has failed to prove Respondents violated Section 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act by, on or about March 14, 1974, discharging Camille Botta, Anna DiMaria, Jeffrey Murphy, and Virginia Carew, effective August 31, 1974. Upon the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire record in this case, I make the following: HENRY M. HALD HIGH SCHOOL ASSN. 515b CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 1. Henry M. Hald High School Association, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, and the Sisters of St. Joseph are employers engaged in commerce within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 2. Lay Faculty Association, Local 1261, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, is a labor organization within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act. 3. The allegations of the complaint that Respondents violated Section 8(aX3) and (1) of the Act, on or about March 14, 1974, by discharging Camille Botta, Anna DiMaria, Jeffrey Murphy, and Virginia Carew, effective August 31 , 1974, have not been sustained. 4. Henry M. Hald High School Association and the Sisters of St. Joseph are not affiliated organizations with common direction and labor relations policy and are not joint employers of employees at Bishop Kearney High School. 5. Henry M. Hald High School Association and Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn are affiliated organizations with common direction and labor relations policy and are not joint employers of employees at Bishop Kearney High School. Upon the foregoing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and the entire record in this case , and pursuant to Section 10(c) of the Act, I hereby issue the following recommend- ed- The complaint is dismissed in its entirety. 3 In the event no exceptions are filed as provided by Sec. 102.46 of the Rules and Regulations of the National Labor Relations Board, the findings, conclusions, and recommended Order herein shall, as provided in Sec. 102.48 of the Rules and Regulations, be adopted by the Board and become its findings, conclusions, and order, and all objections thereto shall be deemed waived for all purposes.