Anaheim Memorial Hospital

ANAHEIM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 161 Anaheim Memorial Hospital Association , d/b/a Ana- heim Memorial Hospital and International Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 501, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 21-RC-14388 December 9, 1976 DECISION AND ORDER By CHAIRMAN MURPHY 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 Joseph M. Connors of the National Labor Relations Board. Following the close of the hearing, the Regional Director for Region 21 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, having duly considered the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing, finds they are free of prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case, and the beef filed herein, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of employees within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following reason: The Employer is a nonprofit corporation engaged in the operation of an acute, general care hospital in Anaheim, California. The hospital complex consists of two connected buildings housing the patient-care and related areas, a separate building housing the hospital's administrative offices, gift shop, pharmacy, laboratory, and private doctors' offices, and a fourth structure, designated as the service building, housing the boilers and the offices and major equipment of the maintenance, or engineering, department. There are 240 beds and 12 bassinets. The hospital employs approximately 725 employees, approximately 400 to 450 of whom are service, maintenance, and technical employees. Petitioner seeks to represent the approximately 19 employees of the engineering department, excluding all other employees. The Employer argues that a separate unit consisting of such employees is inappro- priate, a position with which we agree. 227 NLRB No. 25 The maintenance-engineering department operates under a department head and three "coordinators" whose supervisory status is in dispute but which status we need not determine. Each of the coordina- tors is in charge of a different aspect of the depart- ment's overall function, which is, as described by the department head, the repair and maintenance of mechanical and electrical equipment and of the building and grounds and security. A landscape coordinator is responsible for three "maintenance groundspersons" who maintain the lawns, trees, shrubs, parking lots, and other outdoor areas and the necessary equipment. Another coordi- nator is a biomedical equipment technician (BMET), who directs two other BMET's whose chief function is the maintenance and repair of the hospital's electronic medical equipment. The third coordinator is in charge of a general maintenance pool which takes care of all the department's functions not covered by the other two groups and shares with them some security functions. This coordinator has working under him approximately nine "mainte- nance persons," two maintenance helpers, and two unlicensed engineers. The "maintenance persons" include two employees whose specialty is painting and two carpenters, all of whom are sometimes called on to perform other work. Among the other mainte- nance persons, some have acquired skills which make them "favored" for assignments on electrical work, some on air-conditioning, but all serve as rotating general maintenance men on evening and night shifts. The unlicensed engineers have different specialties, too, one working principally on plumbing and boilers, and the other on air-conditioning, refrigera- tion, and electrical work. Finally, there is a mainte- nance clerk. Minor maintenance work is requested by other departments through the use- of work orders, which are either phoned in to the maintenance clerk or left in pickup boxes throughout the hospital to be picked up by a member of the maintenance pool designated as the "duty man," who makes rounds about every 2 hours. He performs the smaller jobs on the spot, but takes the work orders for the more difficult jobs back to the service building for assignment by the coordi- nator. Except for the maintenance clerk and the unli- censed engineer who works on boilers, the employees in the department apparently spend 20 percent or less of their time in the service building, the balance performing maintenance jobs throughout the hospital premises. Some of their work involves moving furni- ture and equipment in conjunction with employees of the housekeeping department and the departments in which the maintenance jobs are located. Although they are supervised principally within the- mainte- 162 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD nance department, there is some evidence of limited direction by, and in some cases temporary assign- ment to, supervisors outside the department. The maintenance department employees have lock- ers in the service building and apparently report there at the beginning of the workday, at least on the first shift when the coordinators are on duty. But they are required to punch in and out on the same timeclocks used by all other employees, located in one of the main patient-care buildings. Their first shift corres- ponds to the regular shift for most of the service and technical employees of the hospital. Since the mainte- nance function must be manned 24 hours a day, however, members of the maintenance pool (though usually not the other employees in the department) regularly rotate to the evening and night shifts, one employee at a time. The hospital's wage rate system, into which the maintenance department is integrated, has 33 grades. The BMET's and the unlicensed engineers are in grade 18, along with X-ray technicians and medical photographer. The maintenance persons and mainte- nance helpers occupy grade 13, which grade currently contains no employees outside of the maintenance department.' The maintenance groundspersons share grade 7 with PBX operator, medical records clerk, and unit secretary. The maintenance clerk occupies grade 6, as do assistant EKG technician and duplicat- ing machine operator. The employees in question receive the same fringe benefits as other employees, use the same cafeteria and parking lot, and their personnel matters are administered centrally. With respect to hiring, firing, promotions, and transfers, there is a sharing of responsibility among the department head, the per- sonnel department, and the assistant administrator of the hospital, although the department head appears to have the operative authority with regard to hiring, firing, and transfers. Several employees have gone into the maintenance department by the transfer route, pursuant to an overall hospital policy of giving preference to current employees for interdepartmen- tal transfers. . All the department employees except the clerk are issued uniforms, one type for the maintenance persons, helpers, and unlicensed engineers, a slightly different type for the BMET's, and a color variation for the groundspersons. The BMET's rarely if ever wear their uniforms, and the groundspersons often wear cutoff jeans and tee shirts or no shirts in hot weather. The hospital provides wearing apparel to service and technical employees in other depart- ments. There is evidence that some of the - mainte- nance department employees, apparently the mem- bers of the general maintenance crew, were told that it was preferred or they were required to have their own pouches of basic handtools. None of the jobs in the maintenance department require a certification, license, or formal apprentice- ship. Although the formal job descriptions of both the unlicensed engineers and the maintenance persons mention journeyman status in a trade as a prerequi- site, the testimony is to the effect that this was interpreted to mean merely sufficient skill to perform the jobs required of them. In fact, the unlicensed engineers and the painting and carpentry mainte- nance persons are experienced and skilled in their specialties. The unlicensed engineer, who specializes in electrical work, air-conditioning, and refrigeration, has completed a basic course in these trades, but such formal training is not required. On the other hand, a document issued by the department head indicates certain course requirements for promotion from maintenance person to unlicensed engineer. The nonspecialist maintenance persons are consid- ered to be skilled in general maintenance, and the maintenance helpers, who are in the same pay grade, are considered semiskilled. Within each grade, how- ever, there are wage steps earned through experience, and the helpers apparently become maintenance persons as they advance their skills through on-the- job training. The BMET's are both skilled and heavily schooled in electronics and- occupy, with the unlicensed engineers, the highest grade in the department. Neither the groundsperson nor the clerk position has any particular skill or educational status requirement, although the formal job descriptions mention some generalized knowledge and ability, and some high school work or experience equivalence. A number of collective-bargaining agreements introduced into evidence failed to establish any consistent area pattern of bargaining with respect to maintenance department units. The number of con- tracts in which the recognized bargaining unit includ- ed both service and maintenance employees predomi- nated, but there were also a number of instances where the unit was limited to engineering or mainte- nance employees or where such employees were excluded from a larger unit. There were few if any agreements,2 however, where a maintenance depart- I In between grades 13 and 18 are various technicians, executive technician, dietitian, RN II, physical therapist (experienced), clinician, secretaries, and instructor, accountant, and social worker classifications coordinating RN, medical technologist, and pharmacist. Above grade 18, only 6 of the possible 15 grades are currently occupied by 2 Not all the agreements are self-explanatory as to the functions job classifications. These include , in ascending order, cytologist, staff RN, performed by the employees in the unit, and no testimony was adduced nuclear medicine technician , ultrasound technician, special procedure which filled in the gaps ANAHEIM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 163 ment of the scope under consideration here was recognized as a separate unit. We are not persuaded that the employees in this maintenance department have a strong enough separate community of interest to warrant finding, in the face of the general congressional admonitions against proliferation of units, that they constitute a separate appropriate unit.3 These employees are diverse in their types as well as their levels of skills. Their rates of pay encompass a broad spectrum within the overall wage system of the hospital. Their contact with other employees is probably at least as significant as those of most hospital employees with other employees outside their immediate depart- ments. These factors, considered in light of the record as a whole, are not counterbalanced by any factors of sufficient weight to justify granting to these employ- ees the privilege, denied to skilled employees in other departments, of separate bargaining status.4 As the Petitioner has indicated that it does not wish to participate in an election in a different or larger unit, we shall dismiss the petition herein. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case 21- RC-14388 be, and it hereby is, dismissed. CHAIRMAN MURPHY, dissenting: I disagree with my colleagues' finding that the unit requested by the Petitioner is inappropriate. In my view, the record amply establishes that the Employ- er's maintenance-engineering department employees possess a sufficiently strong separate community of interest to warrant a finding that they constitute an appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act. The unit sought by the Petitioner includes all employees in all job classifications in the Employer's maintenance department. This department currently consists of two biomedical equipment technicians (BMET), two unlicensed engineers, nine hospital maintenance persons, two maintenance helpers, three maintenance groundspersons, and one maintenance clerk. The maintenance department is generally responsible for the Employer's heating, cooling, grounds, and electrical systems and for the perfor- mance of minor maintenance and preventive mainte- nance throughout the entire hospital. It operates under the overall direction of a department head who has the authority to hire, fire, and discipline the department's employees. Reporting to the depart- 3 See The Jewish Hospital Association ofCincinnatt d/b/a Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati. 223 NLRB 614,616 (1976) 4 /d at 617 5 The fact that some of the maintenance workers, such as the groundsper- sons and BMET's, frequently do not wear their uniforms itself distinguishes them from other hospital service employees who regularly wear uniforms. ment head are three "coordinators," each in charge of a different aspect of the department's overall func- tions. Thus, there is a BMET coordinator who oversees the maintenance and repair of the Employ- er's electronic medical equipment; a landscape coor- dinator who oversees the maintenance of the outdoor grounds, including lawns, trees, shrubs, and parking lots; and a general maintenance coordinator who is responsible for the general maintenance pool which takes care of the heating, cooling, and electrical systems and provides other repair and maintenance functions not provided by the other two groups. The maintenance department is located in a sepa- rate building, designated as the service building, which is not used by any other employees. This building houses the boilers and other major mainte- nance equipment, the lockers for the maintenance department employees, and the offices of the mainte- nance supervisors. Although the maintenance depart- ment employees punch a common clock at one of the Employer's other facilities, they report to the service building to obtain their work assignments and their tools and to change their clothes. In this regard, the maintenance department employees are issued uni- forms which are distinctly different from the uni- forms issued to other hospital personnel.5 Although the Employer encourages permanent transfers into the department, there is no evidence of transfers out of the unit, nor of interchange between employees in that department and employees in any other department. There also is no significant evi- dence that supervisors outside the department direct the work of the maintenance department employees. In my judgment, the foregoing factors establish that the maintenance department employees enjoy a sufficiently separate community of interest to warrant their recognition as a separate bargaining unit. The fact that there are also similarities between these employees and other service employees of the Em- ployer does not justify a finding that the maintenance department here is an inappropriate unit. Indeed, in finding the unit inappropriate the majority relies primarily on "the general congressional admonitions against proliferation of units" in the health care industry. I have previously expressed my disagree- ment with the premise that the legislative history of the health care amendments precludes us from finding a maintenance department unit appropriate where the facts show that the employees in such department enjoy a separate community of interest.6 I adhere to that position and would find, therefore, 8 Shriners Hospitals for Crippled Children, 217 NLRB 806 (1975) And see Riverside Methodist Hospital, 223 NLRB 1084 (1976), and Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati d/b/a Jewish Hospital ofCincinnatt, 223 NLRB 614 (1976) 164 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD that the maintenance-engineenng department unit unit for purposes of collective bargaining within the requested by the Petitioner constitutes an appropriate meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act.