Faulkner Hospital

FAULKNER HOSPITAL Faulkner Hospital and International Union of Operat- ing Engineers, Local 877, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case I-RC 15883 May 7, 1979 DECISION ON REVIEW AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN FANNING AND MEMBERS MURPHY AND TRUESDAI.E On October 13, 1978, the Regional Director for Re- gion I issued his Decision and Order in the above- entitled proceeding. He found inappropriate the pro- posed hospital maintenance unit consisting of all em- ployees in the Employer's facilities services division, except the two part-time secretaries, on the grounds that the petitioned-for employees shared community of interest with service employees. He therefore dis- missed the petition.' Thereafter, in accordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regu- lations, Series 8, as amended, the Petitioner filed a timely request for review alleging that the Regional Director erred in his findings. On December 4, 1978, the National Labor Relations Board by telegraphic order granted the Petitioner's request for review. Thereafter, the Petitioner and the Employer filed briefs 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, including the various briefs filed by the parties, and makes the following findings: The Employer operates a 255-bed nonprofit hospi- tal in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. The hospital employs approximately 720 full-time employees and 466 part-time employees. The maintenance employ- ees sought by the Petitioner consist of eight systems mechanics, one biomedical electronics technician and one assistant, one storeroom clerk, and two grounds- men. Also included is the licensed electrician position, currently vacant. In Allegheny General Hospital, 239 NLRB 872 (1978), the Board, after reviewing the legislative his- tory underlying the health care amendments to the Act and the Board's unit determinations in this area, concluded that hospital maintenance employees may I Although the Regional Director dismissed the petition. he made two unit placement findings: the two biomedical electronics technicians were found to be technical employees and excluded from the maintenance unit sought; the two part-time secretaries were found to share community of interest with employees in a broad maintenance and service unit. constitute an appropriate bargaining unit. Further- more, in making this determination a majority of the Board stated that they will continue to rely on the traditional community-of-interest test, as established in American Cyanamid Company, 131 NLRB 909 (1961). See Allegheny General Hospital, supra at 883. In our opinion, the application of this standard to the record in this case warrants the establishment of a separate bargaining unit composed of the Employer's maintenance employees in the Employer's facilities service division. The maintenance employees are a distinct adminis- trative subdivision apart from other service employ- ees. They are organized in the facilities services divi- sion of operations. The other section of the division, utilities, involves functions contracted out by the Em- ployer. The maintenance section has a separate loca- tion on the hospital's second floor. There is a hierar- chy of supervision exclusively for maintenance employees consisting of the director of facility ser- vices and his assistants, the maintenance manager. and the grounds manager. The maintenance employ- ees are subject to minimal interdepartmental supervi- sion. The Employer contracts out the maintenance and operation of the central power plant, the heating, ven- tilation, and air-conditioning systems, together with major repair and installation work requiring licenses not held by the maintenance employees. However. the Employer's systems mechanics are responsible for maintaining and repairing various complex equip- ment throughout the hospital. The equipment in- cludes sophisticated monorail and pneumatic tube systems,2 as well as sterilization. conveyor, electrical. timekeeping, call. plumbing. water treatment, and waste systems. These functions require familiarity with the facility's multitude of electrical circuits. In- 2The director of facility senrices described the systems at the hearing: A monorail system is an automatic material delivery system within the Hospital. Its function is to take dietary foods and so forth, clean supplies. and pharmacy goods from the support areas on the second floor of the Hospital automatically to all the patient floors for distribu- tion by technicians on those floors. The other half of the system is to take the waste and recyclable mate- nals back down to the support divisions for the disposal or cleaning up. It encompasses approximatecl 3.000 feet of monorail track. man, different carts and transport carriers that the materials are loaded ont., and it includes two automatic elevator lifts for the matenals which are In use We have the pneumatic tube system whose function it is to move mall and small supplies and paper throughout the hospital. There are three systems involved, one is the jet tube system which functions to take letters from the medical care people as they are in patient rooms and transport them immediately to the information com- munications centers on each floor. The second system is in the pathology lab in order to transport sam- ples from various labs into a simple control room. The third system and the most complicated is the large house tube system, which is comprised of 39 individual sending and receiving stal- tions throughout the entire hospital 242 NLRB No. 17 47 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD stallation and major repair work, including mainte- nance of the electrical generators, are the responsibil- ity of the licensed electrician. For this position, the Employer requires knowledge of state and national safety codes involving all aspects of the use of elec- tricity at a health care facility, together with the abil- ity to work with wiring diagrams and blueprints. The biomedical electronics technicians are respon- sible for installing, repairing, and maintaining com- plex electronic equipment such as pacemakers, elec- trosurgical generators, ultrasonic flowmeters, and infusion pumps. Their duties entail testing equip- ment, diagnosing malfunctions, making necessary re- pairs, and replacing parts, as well as calibrating labo- ratory or other electronic equipment. The storeroom clerk is responsible for the efficient management of the storeroom and its supplies, in- cluding inventory control and security. He acts as the contact for facilities services with purchasing and shipping and receiving. He also may be required to perform small "in-shop" maintenance jobs and to as- sist management personnel with material require- ments for budget preparations. The groundsmen are responsible for the exterior of the hospital. They mow, trim, and fertilize lawns, and perform other du- ties reflective of their job classifications. In the performance of the enumerated functions, a large majority of the maintenance employees exercise a degree of skill which appears greater than that re- quired for service positions at the hospital. The Em- ployer seeks mechanics with vocational backgrounds and extensive experience because the work requires the basic skills of plumbing, electrical work, pipefit- ting, mechanics, and carpentry. Seven of the eight mechanics have acknowledged skills involving combi- nations of journeymen pipefitter, refrigeration techni- cian, and certification in radio electronics, carpentry, electricity, and masonry. In dealing with the monorail and pneumatic tube systems, the systems mechanics must exercise independent judgment and be familiar with blueprints. It takes approximately I year for me- chanics to be completely familiar with their duties and, in addition to on-the-job training, the Employer provides opportunities for technical training in that mechanics attend daily or weekly seminars once or twice a year in order to improve their skills.3 Prior training is also required for the biomedical electronics technicians. The two employees currently in these positions have associate degrees in engineer- ing and electronics, respectively. Their work requires independent judgment. They apply practical skills, complying with mandated standards to ensure equip- ' The high degree of skill exercised by the mechanics is amply illustrated in the record. ment accuracy and freedom from electrical hazard, and balance the hospital's need for certain equipment with the availability of repair services. The record reveals that there is occasional inter- change between the mechanics and biomedical elec- tronic technicians. Mechanics sometimes repair bio- medical equipment and assist the technicians. There is also close contact between the mechanics and the groundsmen who bring problems with lawnmowers, trucks, and snowplows directly to the maintenance shop. However, there is minimal interchange between the maintenance employees and the service employees. Groundsmen and the storeroom clerk have little con- tact with service employees. On the other hand, me- chanics have daily contact with service employees since they move around the facility monitoring the monorail and pneumatic tube systems and respond- ing to work order calls. Yet, even when they work together to clear jams or identify and correct prob- lems, the maintenance employees and service employ- ees perform discrete functions. For example, when a flood or spill occurs, mechanics correct the problem and housekeeping employees clean up the area; when the monorail breaks down, mechanics make repairs while "SPD technicians"4 notify others in the vicinity of the problem and free the area of carts; afterwards, housekeeping employees and the technicians may help the mechanics put the carrier back on the track. While mechanics repair housekeeping equipment, housekeeping employees clean the floor of the main- tenance shop. Common functions appear to be those which require the least skill: groundskeepers move furniture and equipment outside the building and housekeeping employees perform the same tasks in- side the building. In addition, it appears that transfers to and from the maintenance department have not been extensive. Since March 1976, three persons have joined the section and three persons have left.5 Maintenance employees are subject to centralized personnel policies and share common fringe benefits with service employees. The hospital has a common wage and salary structure applicable to all hourly em- ployees. However, most of the maintenance employ- ees are concentrated in the higher pay grades. The licensed electrician position is grade 11, the mechan- ics and the biomedical electronics technicians are grade 10, the assistant technician is grade 9, the store- room clerk is grade 7, the groundsmen are grade 5. By contrast, service employees such as housekeeping and 'Supply, processing, and distribution (SPD). Two of those leaving the section appear to have been involved in a possible transfer of the function of parking lot attendant to the security section. 48 FAULKNER HOSPITAL dietary employees appear to be concentrated in grades 3, 4, and 5.6 Under the circumstances detailed above, and for the reasons set forth in Allegheny General Hospital, supra, we find that the maintenance employees share a community of interest sufficiently separate and dis- tinct from the broader community of interest which they share with service employees so as to warrant a separate bargaining unit. In so concluding, we note particularly that these employees are established in a separate department having independent supervision. They perform varied and typical maintenance work for the hospital, exercising the particular skills re- quired by this function, including the specialized skills necessary for maintaining the Employer's com- plex monorail and pneumatic tube systems. Further- more, in the exercise of these functions, there is mini- mal interchange and functional integration between maintenance employees and service employees. It also appears that the maintenance employees, as a group, are more highly paid than service employees. 7 We also find, contrary to the Regional Director, that the biomedical electronics technicians share a sufficient community of interest with the maintenance employees to warrant their inclusion in the unit. These employees are administratively part of the maintenance department with its independent super- vision; they perform a skilled maintenance function requiring independent judgment as do a majority of the department's other employees; they are hourly paid at a comparable grade with the mechanics; there is occasional functional interchange between these technicians and the mechanics. Moreover, we are per- suaded that the degree of skill of the technicians is merely one aspect of their shared community of inter- est with the other maintenance employees, rather 6 The Employer's reference to the similarities in grades of technical (6- 10) and maintenance (5-11) employees is irrelevant to the instant issue of the appropriateness of a maintenance unit compared with a broad service and maintenance unit, 7 See also The Long Island College Hospilal, 239 NLRB 1135 (1978) (sup- plementing 228 NLRB 83 (1977)). than an indication of technical status. In addition, the Petitioner seeks to include the technicians in the maintenance unit.8 Accordingly. they are included. On the other hand, we find that the record as a whole indicates that the community of interest be- tween the two part-time secretaries and the mainte- nance employees is not so substantial as to require their inclusion in the unit. The secretaries work di- rectly for the director of the facilities services division in the division offices adjacent to the maintenance shop; they are required to have a high school educa- tion and basic secretarial skills; their duties include typing, shorthand, answering telephones, setting up meetings, and maintaining the files and work orders for the division. They are in contact, principally by telephone, with employees in every hospital depart- ment requiring the services of the division. Thus, al- though the secretaries are part of the administrative section and perform tasks related to maintenance work orders, they also perform typical office clerical tasks and have only limited contact with the other maintenance employees. Under these circumstances, we shall exclude them from the unit.9 Accordingly, we find, contrary to the Regional Di- rector, and for the reasons set forth in Allegheny Gen- eral Hospital, supra, that the following employees constitute a unit appropriate for the purpose of col- lective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act: All hourly paid employees of the facilities ser- vices division, including painters, licensed electri- cians, systems mechanics, storeroom clerks, biomedical electronics technicians, and grounds- men, but excluding the part-time secretaries, guards, and supervisors, as defined in the Act. [Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omitted from publication.] Cf. Duke Universitv, 226 NLRB 470. 473. (1976) (X-ra) equipment re- pairmen). 9 St. Francis Hospital-Medical Center. 223 NLRB 1451, 1454 (1976) (secre- taries). 49