Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine

KANSAS CITY COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine i and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 6-6A-6B, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 17-RC-7713 September 10, 1975 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING AND JENKINS Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Jill F. Brown. Pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Di- rector for Region 17, this case was transferred to the National Labor Relations Board for decision. There- after, the Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs.' 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 reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul- ings 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 parties stipulated that the Employer, Kan- sas City College of Osteopathic Medicine, operates a nonprofit hospital in the State of Missouri, that the Employer's gross annual revenue exceeds $250,000, and that the Employer annually purchases goods and services valued in excess of $50,000 directly from sources located outside of the State of Missouri. We find that the Employer is engaged in commerce with- in the meaning of the Act, and that it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organization involved claims to rep- resent 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(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of shift engi- neers, utility men, and engineer mechanics, but ex- cluding office clerical employees, professional em- ployees, all other employees, guards and supervisors 1 The Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing 2 Upon application of the Employer, the Board, on June 30 , 1975, granted the parties special permission to file supplemental briefs . On July 14, 1975, the Employer filed a supplemental brief The Employer's request for oral argument is hereby denied, as the record, including the briefs, adequately presents the issues and the positions of the parties. 181 as defined in the Act. In support of its position, the Petitioner asserts that the employees sought consti- tute a traditionally appropriate powerhouse unit. The Employer contends that the petitioned-for unit is in- appropriate because it would lead to fragmentation of the Employer's work force and would create a multiplicity of bargaining units in a health care insti- tution. The Employer further contends that the pro- posed unit is not appropriate for collective bargain- ing under the Board's traditional community of interest test. The Employer is a college involved in the instruc- tion and training of physicians. In connection with this activity, it owns and operates a 10-story, 426-bed teaching hospital. The powerhouse, a separate build- ing connected to the hospital by a tunnel, generates all of the energy necessary for the operation of the hospital. The shift engineers, utility men, and engineer me- chanic are the only employees responsible for the op- eration of the powerplant equipment. The shift engi- neers, all but one of whom are licensed by the city, work in the central control room monitoring the vari- ous energy generating devices. The utility men assist the shift engineers and work under their direction. The utility men also take log readings, drain the boil- ers, and perform general maintenance functions such as painting and cleaning. The engineer mechanic is responsible for maintaining and repairing the Employer's complicated and expensive energy pro- ducing machines. The record reveals that these employees are sepa- rately supervised and work almost exclusively in the powerplant. Thus, it is uncontroverted that the shift engineers spend 99 percent of their working time in the powerhouse. The duties of the utility men require their presence in the powerhouse except for occasion- al trips to the shipping dock to pick up supplies. As for the engineer mechanic, most of the generating equipment maintained by him is located in the pow- erplant. In the course of their duties in the powerplant, the shift engineers, utility men, and engineer mechanic seldom come into contact with other employees. For, only one other employee, the master electrician, has any functions to perform in the powerhouse, and he is present there only on a very infrequent basis. And, although the shift engineers and utility men have their lockers and perform minor repairs in the main- tenance shop located in the lower level of the hospi- tal adjacent to the entrance to the tunnel, a partition of shelves and plywood separates the area in which they work from the area utilized by the Employer's maintenance employees.3 The powerhouse employees 3 The employer's maintenance mechanics, food service employees, and Continued 220 NLRB No. 36 182 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD do not even join the other employees for lunch in the cafeteria. Instead, they eat their lunch in the power- plant. In sum, these powerhouse employees are sepa- rately located and separately supervised, perform a unique and specialized function, and rarely come into contract with other employees. Furthermore, it appears that other service and maintenance employ- ees with whom the powerhouse employees might be joined in an overall service and maintenance unit are already represented by other labor organizations. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the custodians are represented jointly by Local 9.6 of the Building Service Em- ployees Union, herein called Local 96, and Local I of the International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers, herein called Local I. The Employer's supply, processing, and distribution employees are represented by Local I Although there are presently separate collective -bargaining agreements cov- ering each of the above-described bargaining units, their provisions are vir- tually identical and they each have the same expiration date. Local I and Local 96 originally intervened in this proceeding, but withdrew prior to the opening of the hearing. shift engineers, utility men, and engineer mechanic enjoy a community of interest in and amongst them- selves and apart from all others. Accordingly, we shall direct an election in the following unit ° which, we find, constitutes a unit appropriate for the pur- poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:5 All shift engineers, utility men, and engineer me- chanics employed by Kansas City College of Os- teopathic Medicine, Kansas City, Missouri, but excluding all office clerical employees, profes- sional employees, all other employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit- ted from publication.] The parties stipulated, and we find, that shift engineer Leo Hardwick is eligible to vote in the election whether or not at the time of the election he is still temporarily occupying the position of acting chief engineer 5 For the reasons set forth in Chairman Murphy and Member Fanning's dissenting opinion in Shnners Hospitals for Crippled Children, 217 NLRB No. 138 (1975), we find no merit in the Employer's contention that the unit sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate because it is in derogation of the congressional mandate to avoid undue proliferation of bargaining units in the health care industry.