Levine Hospital of Hayward, Inc.

LEVINE HOSPITAL OF HAYWARD, INC. 327 Levine Hospital of Hayward , Inc. and Professional and Clerical Employees Division, Freight Checkers, Clerical Employees and Helpers, Local Union No. 856, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of Ameri- ca,' Petitioner. Case 20-RC-12556 July 21, 1975 DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS KENNEDY 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 Gretchen S. Owens of the National Labor Relations Board. On February 24, 1975, the Regional Director for Region 20 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in which he found that the Employer's medical records clerks and transcribers constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act. Thereafter, the Employer, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula- tions, Series 8, as amended, filed a Request for Re- view of the decision of the Regional Director on the ground that he erred in directing an election in the unit of all medical records clerks and transcribers. By telegraphic order dated April 29, 1975, the Board granted the Employer's Request for Review and stayed the election pending decision on review. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended , the Na- tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au- thority in this proceeding to a three -member panel. The Board has considered the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review, and makes the following findings: The Employer operates a proprietary acute care hospital in Hayward, California. The Employer has collective-bargaining relationships with two labor or- ganizations which currently represent almost all of its approximately 150 employees. Thus, the Employer and Hospital and Institutional Workers Union, Lo- cal 250 (hereinafter referred to as Local 250) have entered into successive collective-bargaining agree- ments for the past 12 years covering a broad service and maintenance unit which includes LVN's, aides, housekeepers and dietary employees , and laboratory clerks .' In addition, Local 250 represents the Employer's business office clerical employees in a separate bargaining unit. The Employer is also a par- ty to a collective-bargaining agreement with Interna- tional Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union Local 6 (hereinafter referred to as Local 6) covering a unit of x-ray technicians. Both Local 250 and Local 6 were given notice of the instant petition but neither union chose to participate in any of the proceedings herein. In the instant case, the Petitioner seeks to repre- sent a separate unit of seven medical records clerks and transcribers on the basis that these employees constitute a residual unit of the Employer's unrepre- sented nonprofessional employees 3 and that the Em- ployer has specifically excluded them from all of the previously recognized units. The Union further ar- gues that the medical records clerks and transcribers have a separate community of interest from the cur- rently represented employees. On the other hand, the Employer contends that the instant petition should be dismissed because the medical records clerks and transcribers properly belong in one of the currently existing bargaining units and that a finding that the petitioned-for employees constitute a separate appro- priate unit would unduly proliferate the number of units at the Employer's facility. In the somewhat un- usual circumstances of this case, we agree with the Employer's contentions. In our opinion, the medical records clerks and transcribers, if they are to be represented at all, should properly be part of the currently existing broad service and maintenance unit. Thus, the record establishes, first, that they are very few in number: seven.4 Moreover, their work is functionally related to the work performed by the service and mainte- nance employees in general and, more specifically, is virtually identical to the work performed by other hospital clerical employees, nonbusiness office cleri- cal employees who are included in the service and maintenance unit. While the medical records clerks and transcribers work primarily in a separate area within the Employer's facility, their work regularly brings them into physical and/or telephonic contact with other service and maintenance employees. Thus, medical records clerks and transcribers deliver pa- tients' records to nursing service employees and make up and distribute surgical schedules through- out the hospital. Furthermore, contrary to the Re- gional Director's finding that medical records clerks tnc representative in a Board-conducted election. The only other unrepresented employees of the Employer are registered nurses and laboratory technicians, whom the parties stipulated are profes- sional employees. The Employer does not contend that these professional employees should be included in the same unit as the petitioned-for employ- The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing. ees 2 The laboratory clerks were added to the broad service and maintenance ° Compare, a g., Mt. Airy Foundation, d/b/a Mount Airy Psychiatric Center, unit about 2 years ago after they chose Local 250 as their collective-bargain- 217 No. 137 (1975) 219 NLRB No. 81 328 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD and transcribers possess special skills, the record in- dicates, and we find, that the medical records clerks' and transcribers' skills are primarily clerical in na- ture, obtained by on-the-job training or a short 9- month training program, coupled with a general knowledge of medical terminology, which the majori- ty of hospital employees would be required to know.' In addition, all of the Employer's employees, includ- ing medical records clerks and transcribers, work the same hours, enjoy the same fringe benefits, are paid at essentially comparable rates, and share other terms and conditions of employment which are out- lined in the collective-bargaining agreement between the Employer and Local 250 and are applied to all employees throughout the Employer's facility. Based on the above evidence, we find that the medical re- cords clerks and transcribers share a very close com- munity of interest with the employees in the current- ly existing service and maintenance unit and, if they desire representation, should properly be included in that bargaining unit. We are not persuaded by the Petitioner's argument that the Employer is somehow estopped at this point, by its voluntary exclusions of medical records clerks and transcribers from previously established bargain- ing units, from insisting that medical records clerks and transcribers be included in one of the existing bargaining units. The fact that the several medical records clerks and transcribers have historically been excluded from the various bargaining units at the Employer's hospital means, of course, that they are entitled at this point to a voice in whether or not they desire to be represented by a labor organization. However, their prior exclusions were made without the benefit of the Board's guidelines for appropriate units in the health care industry and, under the cir- cumstances herein, we do not consider ourselves bound to give this small group all the options nor- mally available to a true "residual" unit. We find merit in the Employer's contention that the creation at this point of a separate bargaining unit for medical records clerks and transcribers would result in an undue proliferation of bargaining units at its facility contrary to congressional intent. Thus, we find pertinent the following comments of ' While it appears from the record that the medical records clerks' and transcribers' specific duties are different from the specific duties performed by other individuals in the service and maintenance unit, we note that a service and maintenance unit in the health care industry is analogous to a plantwide production and maintenance unit in the industrial sector and, as such, includes employees who perform many diversified tasks who neverthe- less share a community of interest with one another. See Newington Children's Center, 217 NLRB No. 134 (1975). Senator Taft:6 The issue of proliferation of bargaining units in health care institutions has also greatly con- cerned me during consideration of legislation in this area. Hospitals and other types of health care institutions are particularly vulnerable to a multiplicity of bargaining units due to the diver- sified nature of the medical services provided patients. If each professional interest and job classification is permitted to form a separate bar- gaining unit, numerous administrative and labor relations problems become involved in the deliv- ery of health care. . . . the Board should be per- mitted some flexibility in unit determination cases. I cannot stress enough, however, the im- portance of great caution being exercised by the Board in reviewing unit cases in the area. Un- warranted unit fragmentation leading to juris- dictional disputes and work stoppages must be prevented. [Emphasis supplied.] We therefore find that the establishment, at this point, of a separate bargaining unit for the few medi- cal records clerks and transcribers here involved is unwarranted. Accordingly, for the above-stated reasons, we con- clude that there is no basis either on the facts of this case or in the law to find that the medical records clerks and transcribers constitute a separate appro- priate bargaining unit. We note that our decision herein does not relegate the medical records clerks and transcribers to a state of perpetual unrepresentation. In view of our finding herein that the medical records clerks and transcri- bers share a community of interest with the service and maintenance employees, we would entertain a timely petition which seeks to represent all of the Employer's service and maintenance employees, in- cluding the medical records clerks and transcribers; or, we would entertain a petition by the representa- tive of the service and maintenance employees to add the medical records clerks and transcribers to the ex- isting unit, by means of a representation election.' Accordingly, for the above-stated reasons, we find that the petitioned-for separate unit of medical re- cords clerks and transcribers is inappropriate and we shall therefore dismiss the petition herein. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition be, and it hereby is, dismissed. 6 120 Cong. Rec. S. 6940 (1974). 7 See, e.g., the petition filed earlier for the laboratory clerks Fn. 2, supra