Baptist Medical Center-Princeton

516 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Baptist Medical Center-Princeton ' and Hospital Em- ployees Local 1318 of Laborers International Union of North America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 10-RC-10135 February 7, 1975 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY ACTING CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS JENKINS 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 Donald E. Howard of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the close of the hearing, the Regional Director for Region 10 transferred this case to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the Employer filed a 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 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 is a nonprofit Alabama corpora- tion with its principal offices located in Birmingham, Alabama, where it owns and operates a 427-bed nonprofit hospital. The Employer's gross annual revenues exceed $500,000 and it also annually purchases and receives drugs and other supplies valued in excess of $50,000 directly from sources located outside the State of Alabama. The Employer concedes that it is subject to the jurisdiction of the Board and we find that it is an employer engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction in this proceeding. 2. The labor organization involved claims 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 Sections 9(cxl) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. At the hearing, the parties stipulated to include the following employees in the bargaining unit: licensed practical nurses, aides, orderlies, housekeep- I The names of the Employer and the Petitioner appear as amended at the hearing. 2 Despite this stipulation, the parties were in broad disagreement as to the inclusion or exclusion of the various clerical classifications , as discussed more fully below. ing employees, maintenance employees, dietary employees, clerical employees not in the business office,2 inhalation therapy employees, X-ray techni- cians and employees in the dark room, EKG technicians, EEG technicians, laundry employees, escort aides, receiving and purchasing clerks, labora- tory employees, pharmacy employees, surgical tech- nicians, transcribers, blood collectors, cardio-pulmo- nary technicians, anesthesia technicians, physical therapy employees, emergency medical technicians, central sterile technicians, pathology assistants and other non-professional technicians and technolo- glSts.3 The only area of disagreement between the parties with respect to the unit concerns the placement of various clerical employees. Some of the clerical employees, hereinafter referred to as hospital cleri- cals, work at the Princeton hospital, while other clerical employees, hereinafter referred to as business office clericals, work at a separate administrative building about 4-5 miles away. The Employer contends that all office clerical employees should be included in the bargaining unit, whereas the Petition- er maintains that only those clericals who perform functions strictly related to patient service should be included and all other clericals, who perform mainly business functions, should be excluded. The record establishes that the business office clericals perform clerical and administrative type functions in such areas as purchasing, receiving, inventory control, accounts payable and receivable, development and fund raising, public relations, personnel, payroll, and printing. Although their hours of work, wage rates, fringe benefits, and skills are similar to those of the clericals who work directly at the hospital, the business office clericals are separately supervised and have virtually no contact and/or interchange with hospital clericals or employ- ees included in the bargaining unit. The hospital clericals include stenographers, cash- iers, and admitting, coding, data control, financial, inventory, payroll, personnel, and insurance clerks, some of whom are attached to various hospital staffs and some of whom are not. For the most part, these clerical employees have daily contact with unit employees and share common supervision, wage rates, fringe benefits, hours of work, and facilities with employees. In addition, some hospital clericals have frequent contact with patients. Following the enactment of the health care amendments to the Act, the Board decided to hear 3 The parties agreed to exclude all registered dieticians, registered nurses, registered laboratory technologists ASCP and AMT, registered inhalation therapists, registered physical therapists, and all other professional employ- ees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act. 216 NLRB No. 110 BAPTIST MEDICAL CENTER-PRINCETON 517 oral argument on issues concerning the scope of appropriate bargaining units in hospitals. On Janu- ary 27, 1975, the Board heard oral arguments in various cases then pending before it as well as arguments from interested parties concerning the unit placement of different types of hospital employ- ees, including employees in various clerical categor- ies. Because issues concerning the inclusion or exclu- sion of clerical employees in broad hospital units were argued in connection with many of the cases before the Board for oral argument, the Board is preparing guidelines with respect to the unit place- ment of such employees. Rather than delay the instant case until after decisions in the above- mentioned cases have issued, and in view of the relatively small number of clerical employees and the large number of other types of employees in the bargaining unit whose unit placement is not disput- ed, we have decided not to resolve the issues with respect to the unit placement of either group of clericals at this time. Thus, we shall allow the business office clericals and the hospital clericals to vote subject to challenge and we shall direct the Regional Director to segregate the ballots of each group from one another and from the other unit employees. Thereafter, the issues with respect to the unit placement of these employees will be resolved. Accordingly, we find that the following unit is appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All full time and regular part time employees employed at Baptist Medical Center-Princeton hospital, 701 Princeton Avenue, Birmingham, Alabama, including licensed practical nurses, aides, orderlies, housekeeping employees, mainte- nance employees, dietary employees, inhalation therapy employees, X-ray technicians and em- ployees in the dark room, EKG technicians, EEG technicians, laundry employees, escort aides, receiving and purchasing clerks, laboratory em- ployees, pharmacy employees, surgical techni- cians, transcribers, blood collectors, cardiopul- monary technicians, anesthesia technicians, phys- ical therapy employees, emergency medical tech- nicians, central sterile technicians, pathology assistants and other non-professional technicians and technologists; but excluding all registered dieticians, registered nurses, registered laboratory technologists ASCP and AMT, registered inhala- tion therapists, registered physical therapists, and all other professional employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.4 5. At the hearing, the parties also raised an issue concerning the voting eligibility of certain individu- als who engaged in an economic strike against the Employer. The strike commenced on February _20, 1974, and continued until October 3, 1974. All of the strikers were notified prior to August 26, 1974, the effective date of the recent health care legislation, that they had been permanently replaced. The Employer contends that the strikers are no longer carried on its payroll and therefore are not employees eligible to vote in any election. In addition, the Employer maintains that these individ- uals are not entitled to participate in an election because the strike was unprotected activity in view of the Petitioner's failure to give the Employer statutory notice as required in Section 8(g) of the Act. On the other hand, the Petitioner raises issues concerning the nature of the Employer's termination of the strikers and additionally urges that the strikers retained their status as employees and therefore are eligible to vote in the election. After thoroughly reviewing the contentions of the parties in this regard, we are of the opinion that issues relating to the eligibility of the strikers to vote in the election can best be resolved through the challenge-procedure. Accordingly, we shall allow the individuals who engaged in the economic strike to vote in the election herein directed subject to challenge. [Direction of Elections and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] 4 As indicated above, the Board has not yet formulated its policy concerning the placement of clerical employees in units of hospital employees. Therefore, we have not included the designation of clericals in the description of the appropriate unit. If the challenged ballots of the clericals are determinative, we shall resolve them in accordance with our resolution as to their appropriate placement, and shall make the unit description more specific in this respect. 5 See Kingsport Press, Inc., 146 NLRB 260,146 NLRB 1111 (1964).