Lansing General Hospital

LANSING GENERAL HOSPITAL I Lansing General Hospital and Service Employees In- ternational Union, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 7- RC-12887 August 27, 1975 DECISION AND ORDER BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING 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 Kenneth D. Meadows. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Pro- cedure, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Director for Region 7, this case was trans- ferred to the National Labor Relations Board for de- cision. Briefs have been timely filed by the Employer and Petitioner. Pursuant to Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 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 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 case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the pur- poses of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organization involved claims to rep- resent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of certain employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reasons: The Petitioner requests an election in a unit of jan- itors, janitresses, leaders, and wall washers employed by the Employer in the housekeeping department at its Lansing, Michigan, hospital. The Employer ar- gues for the dismissal of the petition on the grounds that the classifications requested by Petitioner are covered by a contract effective from December 17, 1972, to December 17, 1975, between it and Council 55, American Federation of State, County and Mu- nicipal Employees, AFL-CIO (herein AFSCME), which had been certified by the Michigan Employ- ment Relations Commission (herein MERC) on March 7, 1972, as the exclusive bargaining represen- tative for a unit of the Employer's service and main- tenance employees.' However, prior to 1974, the Employer's practice was to contract out its janitorial and other house- keeping work to various janitorial contractors rather than to perform such work with its own employees. From the mid 1960's until 1971, the janitorial work at the Employer's hospital was performed by Allied Maintenance Company (herein Allied). In 1971, Master Housekeepers, Inc. (herein Master), succeed- ed to Allied's contract with the Employer and hired Allied's employees. During the entire period when Allied and Master were providing janitorial services to the Employer, their employees were represented by Petitioner and were covered by consecutive col- lective-bargaining agreements executed on their be- half by Petitioner with Allied and Master, respective- ly. On March 15, 1974, the Employer, in an effort to reduce costs, served formal notice on Master that it would be terminating the janitorial service contract as of July 1, 1974, and establishing its own house- keeping department. The contract with Master was terminated as of July 1, and the Employer retained the former employees and supervisors of Master as its own employees to perform its janitorial and housekeeping work. Since that time, however, the Employer has refused to recognize Petitioner as the exclusive representative of the employees in its newly created housekeeping department and has refused to apply the Petitioner-Master collective-bargaining agreement to them. Instead, the Employer has viewed the housekeeping unit as an accretion to the preexisting service and maintenance unit represented by AFSCME, and has, since July 1, applied its col- lective-bargaining agreement with AFSCME to the housekeeping employees? While the housekeeping employees now receive the same contractual benefits as do the other service and maintenance employees, AFSCME has not sought to represent them actively. Counsel for AFSCME ap- peared specially at the hearing to disclaim interest in the representation of the housekeeping employees, after which he withdrew from the proceeding. The apparent motivation behind this disclaimer was an AFL-CIO "no-raid" proceeding initiated by Peti- tioner against AFSCME in January 1975, 2 months prior to the hearing, in which the arbitrator had The unit was described as follows- All regular full time and part time nurse aides, orderlies , ward clerks, dietary and kitchen employees , central supply room employees, store room clerks, linen room clerks, linen aides, unregistered technicians, maintenance equipment and grounds employees . excluding registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, all clerical employees , registered tech- nicians, pharmacists, day care center attendants, co-op students, securi- ty guards and supervisors, and all other employees. a While the houskeeping employees no longer enjoy the benefits provided for in the old Petitioner-Master contract, the Employer has allowed them to retain their old seniority. 220 NLRB No. 1 2 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD found the housekeeping employees properly within Petitioner's jurisdiction. In a collateral MERC pro- ceeding in which the appropriateness of the house- keeping unit was litigated,' AFSCME's counsel stat- ed that the existence of the interunion "no-raid" agreement was "one of the considerations" for its failure to seek representation of the housekeeping employees; but it would be willing to represent them if MERC found that they had accreted to its preex- isting service and maintenance unit. Prior to July 1974, the service and maintenance employees of the Employer were divided into the fol- lowing administrative departments: (1) dietary, (2) maintenance, (3) central supply, (4) pharmacy, (5) cardiopulmonary (unregistered technicians), (6) pa- thology (unregistered technicians), (7) X-ray (unre- gistered technicians), and (8) nursing (nurses aides, orderlies, and ward clerks). After the Employer as- sumed responsibility for furnishing housekeeping services on July 1, 1974, a new housekeeping depart- ment was created, staffed by the former employees of Master. The immediate supervisor of the housekeep- ing department, Klotz, who is now executive house- keeper, was formerly a housekeeping supervisor em- ployed by Master. Klotz, along with the head of the maintenance department, is immediately answerable to Warfield, the director of the physical plant. At present, all departments except nursing are ultimate- ly responsible to Assistant Hospital Administrator Amos.4 The scope of duties assigned housekeeping person- nel has been expanded since the housekeeping func- tions was taken over by the Employer.' Housekeep- ing aides, when employed by Master, had the responsibility of general cleaning of patients' rooms and bathrooms, including mopping and emptying of trash cans. After July 1, 1974, they were given the added tasks of washing windows, television sets, and cabinets in the individual patient rooms, and the carting of linen through the hospital, the latter task previously performed by other service and mainte- nance employees. Other housekeeping employees have been given additional assignments previously or presently performed by other employees within the preexisting service and maintenance unit, such as 7 Petitioner had, on July 5, 1974, filed an unfair labor practice charge with MERC, alleging that the Employer had refused to bargain with Petitioner upon canceling the Master contract and taking over the housekeeping func- tions. The MERC administrative law judge eventually dismissed the charge, finding that the housekeeping unit was no longer appropnate, but rather was an accretion to the overall hospital service and maintenance unit On January 8, 1975, MERC affirmed its administrative law judge. The nursing department employees are answerable to the director of nursing who in turn reports to the hospital administrator. 3 The record shows that the housekeeping department consists of 28 to 30 employees while the preexisting service and maintenance unit has approxi- mately 250 employees. light bulb cleaning, yard work, tile scraping, and fur- niture moving. Housekeeping employees come into daily contact with other service and maintenance employees. All service and maintenance employees, including housekeeping employees, use the same punch-in sys- tem, are required to take the same physical examina- tion prior to being hired, participate in the same per- sonnel orientation program, and are subject to the same hospital rules and regulations. The issue is whether the housekeeping employees previously employed by Master have, as a result of the Employer's assumption of housekeeping work previously performed by Master, accreted to the Employer's preexisting unit of service and mainte- nance employees, thus making the contract between the Employer and AFSCME a bar to the instant peti- tion. At the outset, we note that this issue has already been litigated in a collateral state proceeding wherein MERC found that the housekeeping employees had accreted to the existing service and maintenance unit. Here the result reached by MERC is totally consis- tent with the Board law, and a finding of accretion is amply supported by the record evidence in this case. These employees have been thoroughly integrated into the general service and maintenance operations of the Employer's hospital. They share common su- pervision with the maintenance employees. Many of the housekeeping employees have taken on tasks pre- viously performed by personnel within the service and maintenance unit. Indeed, as noted above, there have been instances in which a housekeeping em- ployee engages in job functions usually reserved to, and presently performed by, maintenance personnel such as grounds work and tile scraping. The nature of the duties of the housekeeping employees brings them in constant contact with other service and maintenance employees on a daily basis. The Em- ployer applies identical personnel policies towards housekeeping employees and other service and main- tenance employees. Finally, the housekeeping em- ployees do not possess any unique skills or special- ized training which would justify their exclusion from an overall service and maintenance unit. In fact, housekeeping personnel are precisely the type of un- skilled employees which we have regarded as proper- ly included in an overall service and maintenance unit within a hospital. See, e.g., Mercy Hospitals of Sacramento, Inc., 217 NLRB No. 131 (1975); Nathan and Miriam Barnert Memorial Hospital Association d/b/a Barnert Memorial Hospital Center, 217 NLRB No. 132 (1975). Petitioner adverts to its almost decade-long history LANSING GENERAL HOSPITAL of representation of the housekeeping employees, marked as it is by a harmonious bargaining relation- ship with the independent housekeeping contractors Allied and Master. However, whatever unique com- munity of interest these employees might have shared when employed by such independent contrac- tors, such community, after the assumption of the housekeeping contractors' duties by the Employer and its retention of their employees, has been sub- merged into a broader community of interest they now share with the Employer's service and mainte- nance employees .6 In light of the foregoing, we find that the housekeeping employees recently acquired 6 Firestone Synthetic Fibers Company, 171 NLRB 1121 ( 1968). 3 by the Employer were normal accretions to the ex- isting service and maintenance unit, and were prop- erly treated as such by the Employer. We conclude that the 1972 contract between the Employer and AFSCME is a bar to this proceeding and shall, there- fore, dismiss the petition? ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein be, and it is hereby is, dismissed. 7 We find no merit in Petitioner's argument that the Employer is a succes- sor to Master and therefore has a duty pursuant to the Supreme Court's decision in N L R B v. Burns International Security Service, Inc., 406 U.S. 272 (1972), to bargain with Petitioner concerning the housekeeping employ- ees. We do not regard the Burns doctrine as applicable where, as here, the predecessor's bargaining unit did not remain intact