Cornell University

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 8, 1973

202 N.L.R.B. 290 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

290 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Cornell University and Chauffeurs , Teamsters, Ware-
housemen ,and Helpers Local Union #65, Petition-
er. Case 3-RC-5432
March 8, 1973
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Richard C.
Heffern of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the hearing and pursuant to Section
102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series
8, as amended, by direction of the Regional Director
for Region 3, this case was transferred to the Board
for decision. Thereafter the Employer and the
Petitioner' filed briefs.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
On 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
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.2
2. The labor organizations involved claim to
represent certain employees of the Employer.3
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The petition, as amended, seeks a unit of all
full-time and regular part-time employees, including
students, employed at 10 of the 18 dining facilities
operated by Cornell University on its Ithaca, New
York, campus, excluding all academic, professional,
technical, confidential, and clerical employees, and
all guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.
There are also five fraternity houses, owned by the
University, on the Ithaca campus whose chefs are
University employees; these chefs are not sought by
Petitioner. The Employer takes the position that the
appropriate unit should consist of all nonacademic,
1 With the Board's consent the following parties submitted amicus curiae
briefs supporting the exclusion of student employees from any unit found
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining : Columbia University,
Hofstra University, Harvard College, Amherst College, Brown University,
The Catholic University of America, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, the
University of Chicago, the Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities in New Jersey, Northeastern University, Yale University,
Wheaton College , Colgate University , Massachusetts Institute of Technolo-
gy, Georgetown University, the University of Rochester, Duquesne
University of the Holy Ghost , Manhattan College, Servomahon, Inc.,
Fordham University, Drake University, and Vanderbilt University.
2 Cornell University, 183 NLRB No 41, Sec 103.1 of the Board's Rules
and Regulations , Series 8 , as amended
3 At the hearing, Local 200 Service Employees International Union,
nonsupervisory employees employed by the Univer-
sity throughout the State of New York,4 excluding
employees of the Medical School and Nursing
School in New York City, and all student employees.
There is no bargaining history.
Cornell University is a private nonprofit education-
al institution with an enrollment of approximately
14,000 students. The University has about 5,700
nonacademic employees throughout the State. There
are approximately 329 employees, including stu-
dents, in the unit sought by Petitioner.
Although the University' s facilities are widely
scattered throughout the State of New York, its
operations are highly centralized: the personnel
department in Ithaca establishes employment and
labor relations policy for the entire University,
interviews prospective employees and refers them to
job vacancies (although the actual hiring is done by
the various departments), classifies jobs according to
1 of 280 job classifications, and determines benefits
to which employees are entitled. Job vacancies are
posted throughout the University and longevity dates
from an employee' s initial hiring by the University.
There is a uniform grievance procedure, and wage
rates and other benefits are generally uniform
throughout the State, with some local variations.
The unit sought by Petitioner consists of all "food
handlers, cafeteria workers, vending operators, cash-
iers, store employees, dishwashers, custodians, cooks,
waitresses, bus boys, pantry men, counter men, soda
bar workers, laborers, kitchen helpers, pot washers,
coffee hostesses, salad makers, grill men, etc.,"
Including students, employed at Willard Straight
Hall Dining, Clara Dickson, Noyes Center, North
Campus Union, Sage Dining, Noyes Lodge, Risley
Dining, Balch Dining, Martha Van Renssalaer, and
Hughes Hall. All of these facilities report through A.
A. Jaeger, the University's director of dining services,
as do the five chefs who work in fraternity houses
owned by the University. In addition to the dining
halls included in the petitioned-for unit and the
fraternity houses there are eight other dining facili-
ties on the Ithaca campus: Moakley House, The
Green Dragon, Statler Hall, Sage Infirmary, The
Commons, The Temple of Zeus, The Dairy Bar, and
AFL-CIO, indicated that it would seek to intervene and thereafter was
permitted to take part in the hearing by the Heanng Officer , although it is
not clear in the record whether Local 200 formally was granted the status of
Intervenor . It took no position with respect to the unit issue but stated that
it desired to participate in any election held in whatever unit was ultimately
found to be appropriate While it was somewhat irregular for the Heanng
Officer to permit Local 200 to participate in the hearing without resolving
its status as an intervenor one way or the other , we shall permit it a place on
the ballot providing it has submitted a sufficient timely showing of interest
to the Regional Director for Region 3.
4 The University 's main campus is at Ithaca but it also has about 55
smaller facilities scattered throughout the State , three of which include
dining facilities
202 NLRB No. 41
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 291
Phileas Fogg. Except for Statler Hall and Sage
Infirmary, these facilities, located in various campus
buildings, are all snack bars or coffeehouses which
report through various academic department or
college heads. Statler Hall is a hotel run by the Hotel
Management School and Sage Infirmary's dining
facility is part of the Department of Health Services
and is only open to the Infirmary's patients and staff.
The record shows that employees in the facilities
Petitioner seeks to exclude perform the same job
functions under the same working conditions as
employees in the petitioned-for unit, and that six
employees laid off from the petitioned-for unit now
work in other university-owned dining facilities on
the Ithaca campus. Further, although most of the
petitioned-for facilities are dining rooms or cafeterias
and most of the excluded facilities are snackbars or
coffeehouses, Clara Dickson, one of the facilities
sought in the petition, offers only delicatessen and
vending machine services , while Statler Hall, Sage
Infirmary, and the five university-owned fraternity
houses, which Petitioner would exclude from the
unit,5 offer full dining services. Thus it appears that
the only substantial distinction between the facilities
Petitioner seeks and those it would exclude is that the
petitioned-for facilities report through Jaeger while
the excluded ones, with the exception of the chefs, do
not. However, the record indicates that the separate
lines of supervision have minimal impact on the
operation of any of the dining facilities and we do
not find this distinction sufficient to show that the
employees of the excluded facilities do not share a
substantial community of interest with the employees
in the petitioned-for unit. Accordingly, in view of all
the factors noted above, we find that the unit sought
by Petitioner is too limited to be appropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining.
The Employer contends that because of its central-
ized operations, common labor policy and generally
uniform wage rates and benefits, and the fact that a
number of jobs performed by employees in the
petitioned-for unit are also performed elsewhere on
its campuses, all of its nonacademic, nonsupervisory
employees throughout the State of New York share a
substantial community of interest, and thus, only an
overall unit is appropriate. However, the record
shows that there is considerable geographic diversity
among Cornell's various facilities and considerable
5 Petitioner originally sought to exclude Statler Hall on the grounds that
the student employees there were employed as part of the curriculum in
hotel management, but the record showed that 37 of the 112 students
working at the Statler were not enrolled in the Hotel School at all and many
of the remainder were regular student employees most of the time and only
worked a few hours per week for academic credit . Petitioner's basis for
excluding the Infirmary was that it is open only to patients and staff, but of
the facilities sought to be included in the unit , Balch Dining is open only to
special conference participants and Risley Dining apparently serves only
residents of the building in which it is located.
distances between many of them. Furthermore, there
is a minimal degree of interchange of employees
within dining services with employees of other
departments.6 Moreover, the food service facilities
function to provide a common service that is not
offered by any of the other university departments or
services, and its employees comprise a homogeneous
and distinct group performing similar duties that,
with the exception of custodians, laborers, and
cashiers, are not performed elsewhere on the campus.
These factors, plus the fact that no labor organiza-
tion is actively seeking a statewide unit, lead us to the
conclusion that something less than the statewide
unit urged by the Employer may be appropriate.
We have in the past held that the same general
guidelines employed in making unit determinations
in the industrial sphere should be utilized in college
cases where the employer operates a number of
facilities.? Applying this principle, we find that an
analogy can be made between a university such as
Cornell which operates dining facilities for its
students and a hotel or club which operates a
restaurant for its guests. In the latter situation we
have held that the functions of a restaurant and the
rest of a hotel's operation are not necessarily so
highly integrated that only an overall unit is
appropriate, and that a restaurant may constitute an
appropriate units In view of the foregoing facts that
establish the similarity of the above-named dining
facilities to one another, we find that the employees
of all the Employer's dining facilities share a
substantial community of interest separate from that
of other university employees, and that a unit
comprised of all the Employer's dining facilities on
the Ithaca campus,9 including the five fraternity
chefs, is appropriate for purposes of collective
bargaining.
Petitioner contends that students who work part
time in the dining services should be included in the
unit, while the Employer would exclude them. The
record shows that, although students frequently
perform the same jobs under the same working
conditions as nonstudent employees and the same
grievance procedure applies to student and nonstu-
dent employees alike, the University treats students
differently in a number of ways. Students are hired
through the student employment office or by the
individual managers of the various dining halls
6 Eleven employees now in dining services transferred from other
departments and 23 employees laid off from the petitioned -for unit now
work in other departments.
7 Claremont Colleges, 198 NLRB No . 121; Cornell University, supra.
9 77 Operating Company, 160 NLRB 927 (1966 ), Denver Athletic Club, 164
NLRB 677 (1967).
9 Three food services located at three other of the Employer 's facilities
within New York State are not included in the unit found to be appropriate
since they are open only in the summer and are geographically distant from
the main Ithaca campus.
292 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
rather than through the personnel office, and,
students are hired for work on a semester basis while
nonstudent employees are hired for an indefinite
period. Students are paid at a different and generally
lower wage rate and do not receive the same fringe
benefits as nonstudent employees. Furthermore, in
the dining facilities most student employees have
supervisors who are also students, while the nonstu-
dent employees are supervised by regular full-time
supervisors. Finally, for the great majority of student
employees, since they have no expectation of
remaining permanently in their present jobs, their
employment is incidental to their academic objec-
tives. In consideration of these facts and in conformi-
ty with our recent decision in Georgetown University,
200 NLRB No. 14, we find that students do not share
a substantial community of interest with regular
nonstudent full-time and part-time employees.10
Accordingly, we shall exclude them from the unit.
We find the following employees constitute a unit
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All food handlers, cafeteria workers, vending
operators, cashiers, store employees, dishwashers,
custodians, cooks, waitresses, bus boys, pantry
men, counter men, soda bar workers, laborers,
kitchen helpers, pot washers, coffee hostesses,
salad makers, grill men, etc., employed by the
Employer at all of the dining facilities operated
by the Employer on its Ithaca, New York,
campus, including the five chefs employed in
fraternity houses owned by the Employer, and
excluding all other nonacademic employees,
office clericals, professionals, students, guards
and supervisors as defined within the meaning of
the Act.
[Direction of Election 11 and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
10 The parties are agreed, and we find, that regular part-time nonstudent here found appropriate, the Direction of Election is subject to an
employees who work 20 or more hours per week are to be included in any administrative determination by the Regional Director for Region 3 that the
unit found appropriate Petitioner's showing of interest in the unit of employees here found
11 As the Petitioner's showing of interest was in a smaller unit than is appropriate is sufficient