Georgetown University

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Nov 10, 1972

200 N.L.R.B. 215 (N.L.R.B. 1972)

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 215
The President and Directors of Georgetown College
for Georgetown University and Local 1199DC,
affiliated with the National Union of Hospital and
Nursing Home Employees , a Division of
RWDSU/AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 5-RC-8033
November 10, 1972
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER 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 William I.
Shooer. 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
Acting Regional Director for Region 5, this case was
transferred to the National Labor Relations Board
for decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the
Petitioner filed briefs.
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 has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. The rulings 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
policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.'
2. The Petitioner and Service Employees Interna-
tional Union, Local 82, AFL-CIO (Intervenor
herein), claim to represent 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 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 service and mainte-
nance employees, including students, employed by
Georgetown University, excluding all academic,
faculty, professional, technical, confidential, clerical,
and hospital employees, and all other employees,
guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.2 The
Employer takes the position that the appropriate unit
should consist of all nonacademic employees at the
University including clerical, technical, and hospital
employees, but excluding students. Further, the
Employer would define part-time employees as
employees working 20 or more hours per week or,
alternatively, employees working a regular schedule
on a year-round basis regardless of the number of
hours worked per week. The Intervenor took no
position at the hearing with respect to the unit
designated on the amended petition. There is no
bargaining history.
Georgetown University, a private nonprofit educa-
tional institution incorporated by an act of Congress
in 1789, has an enrollment of approximately 8,000
students in nine schools. The majority of the
University's buildings are located on the main
campus in Georgetown, a part of Washington, D.C.
A board of directors exercises overall authority over
the University, with the president as the chief
administrative officer. Reporting to the president are
six vice presidents who are responsible for major
administrative areas. The University's annual budget
is approximately $74 million, of which $38 million is
allocated to the University's medical center complex
comprised of the schools of medicine, dentistry, and
nursing and the hospital. Neither the medical center
nor the hospital is separately incorporated. The
budget is assembled annually by requests from
divisions and departments within the six major
administrative areas. The requests are channelled up
to the appropriate vice president and the university
budget office for review. Upon approval, they are
first submitted to the president, and then to the
board of directors. The budget for the hospital is
approved or rejected as part of the entire budget for
medical center affairs.
Various universitywide services are centralized.
The six administrative areas of the University are
charged a proportionate amount of their budget for
these functions. Illustrative of those services are
purchasing, switchboard, payroll, electronic data
processing, and maintenance.
Personnel policy is also centrally administered. A
personnel program for all nonacademic employees is
conducted by the central personnel office which
includes recruitment, employment, wages and sala-
ries, certain aspects of benefits, and employee
activities. Although there are approximately 300 job
I Cornell University, 183 NLRB No. 41; Rules and Regulations , Series 8, are technical employees, and 750 are service and maintenance employees
as amended, Section 103 . 1. There are 40-50 maintenance employees and approximately 300 service
2 The Employer employs approximately 2,900 nonacademic employees . employees who are charged to the hospital in excess of 50 percent of their
Approximately 1,400 are supervisors , professionals, confidential employees, worktime . The remaining 410 to 420 service and maintenance employees
or guards Of the remaining 1,500, approximately 500 are clericals and 250 constitute the unit Petitioner seeks to represent.
200 NLRB No. 14
216 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
titles and classifications, the University maintains a
universitywide wage and salary program and, all
employees share common personnel policies, wage
scales, and fringe benefits.3
There is a uniform policy with respect to recruit-
ment of employees from sources outside the Univer-
sity. All applicants are given a standard application
form and an introductory pamphlet. Each new
employee is provided with a "Welcome" brochure
which sets forth virtually all aspects of employment
at the University. As for promotions and recruitment
through intrauniversity transfers, employees are
provided with a list of vacant jobs which is posted in
25 places throughout the University. Any employee,
regardless of the place or category he works in, may
apply for the vacant jobs. There is considerable
movement within the nonacademic work force
consisting of transfers between departments, and
promotion or advancement in all classifications. The
central personnel office maintains a training program
for improvement of skills, and another program of
on-the-job training, resulting in opportunities for
promotions.
In view of these factors, it is the Employer's
position that only an overall unit of nonacademic
personnel is appropriate, including clerical, technical,
and hospital employees. However, the record shows
that the great majority of the employees who the
Petitioner seeks are under the ultimate responsibility
of the vice president for planning and physical plant.
According to the Employer's occupational list,
employees sought are in service classifications whose
nomenclature reveals they are engaged in custodial
and housekeeping functions considered to be essen-
tially "blue collar" work. Included are maintenance
crafts and custodial workers, similar to the "house-
keeping" employees in Duke University, 4 or manual
laborers. Such a unit in a university or college
environment can be said to be analogous to the usual
production and maintenance unit in the industrial
sphere, and is a classic appropriate unit. We find a
unit of service and maintenance employees to be
appropriate herein. Such a unit does not normally
include office clerical or technical employees. Since it
is the Board's long-established policy to exclude
office clericals from units of manual workers,5 we
shall exclude the office clericals here. As for the
technical employees, the record indicates that they
have a community of interest separate and distinct
from other nonacademic employees. Thus, it appears
they have a separate line of supervision, are trained
3 There is a slight variation in the number of holidays and vacation days
between hospital employees and other nonacademic employees.
4 Duke University, 194 NLRB No. 31.
5 John H Harland Co, 127 NLRB 588, Westinghouse Electric Co., IIS
NLRB 1043.
6 Duke University, supra,- Loyola University Medical Center, 194 NLRB
to become proficient in a technical line, and receive
close supervision by other technicians, and the
nature of their work is substantially different from
service and maintenance employees here found
appropriate. Consequently, we shall exclude the
technical employees from the unit. Further, in accord
with our decision in Duke University and Section 2(2)
of the Act, which precludes us from asserting
jurisdiction over hospitals operated and maintained
by nonprofit entities, we shall exclude from the unit
employees who are employed over 50 percent of their
working time within the hospital .6
The Employer would exclude all students and
would define regular part-time employees as employ-
ees working 20 or more hours per week, or employees
working a regular schedule on a year-round basis
regardless of the number of hours worked per week.
We find merit in the Employer's contentions. The
record shows that the student employees are paid
differently from other regular part-time employees.
Their pay is diminished by the amount of financial
aid each may receive from academic grants and the
Federal Government. Some students fill positions
that are casual in nature and are not classified.
Because in most instances their employment is for
less than an academic year of 9 months, they are
considered temporary employees. Also, there is a
restriction on the number of hours' per week a
student may work, i.e., only in cases where the
student has the dean's permission are undergraduate
students permitted to work more than 20 hours per
week. Accordingly, since students have many facts
peculiar to themselves, and do not appear to have a
community of interest with other regular part-time
employees, we shall exclude them from the unit.?
With respect to regular part-time employees, the
Employer would include those who work 20 or more
hours a week and the Petitioner would include those
who work 16 or more hours a week. Under university
policy, regular part-time employees are those who
work 20 or more hours a week. They are then
classified as regular part-time employees and begin
to share the same fringe benefits available to the full-
time employees. Since the Petitioner has not ad-
vanced any basis for its formula defining regular
part-time employees, and as the Employer's pro-
posed formula is not substantially different from the
Petitioner's and does not appear unreasonable, we
will accept the Employer's classification. According-
ly, we shall include as regular part-time employees
No. 30, and cases cited at fn.5 therein For the reasons stated in his dissent
in Duke, Member Fanning would not exclude hospital employee from the
unit.
r Cf. National Cash Register Company, 95 NLRB 27; Scope Associates
d/b/a Westbridge, 172 NLRB No. 208.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 217
any employees who regularly work 20 or more hours
per week.8 This holding is, however, based on the
facts of this case and is not to be construed as a
standard definition of regular part-time employees
applicable to all universities or colleges.
Accordingly, as the record shows that the service
and maintenance employees share a separate com-
munity of interest from other nonacademic employ-
ees, we find that a unit of all full-time and regular
part-time service and maintenance employees who
work 20 or more hours a week, excluding students,
clericals, technicals, all academic, faculty, profession-
al, confidential, and hospital employees, and all
other employees, guards and supervisors as defined
in the Act, is appropriate .9
The parties are in disagreement on the placement
of the glass blower, laboratory assistants, and
autopsy assistants in the unit. The record shows that
the glass blower is highly skilled in the blowing of
various glass instruments and configurations that are
used for special project type work. He works alone,
may be salaried, and reports to the vice president for
academic affairs. The laboratory assistants receive
on-the-job training by other technical employees, are
hourly paid at a rate higher than the custodial
employees, and normal advancement is progression
to senior laboratory assistant. Autopsy assistants
assist in the performance of autopsies, receive on-
the-job training, are also hourly paid at a rate higher
than custodial employees, normally advance to chief
autopsy assistant, and report to the vice president for
medical center affairs. We find that the glass blower,
laboratory assistants, and autopsy assistants are
technical employees and for this reason their com-
munity of interest is separate from that of the service
and maintenance employees, and we shall exclude
them from the unit.
The parties are in disagreement as to the placement
of library assistants in the unit. The record shows
that library assistants work in the library performing
clerical work which involves recording information
concerning the receipt of old and new books. We
find that the library assistants are clerical employees
and that their community of interest is separate from
that of the service and maintenance employees, and
we shall exclude them from the unit.
The Petitioner would exclude as clericals the
library aides and messenger clerks. The record shows
that most of the employees in these classifications are
students. Library aides devote their worktime to the
8 Leland Stanford Jr. University, 194 NLRB No. 187. Where the parties
disagree as to the formula for defining regular part-time employees,
Chairman Miller would apply the Board's usual standard that all regular
part-time employees should be included in the unit regardless of the number
of hours worked per week.
8 We shall also include the six or seven off-campus "service" employees
whom Petitioner seeks, and whose employer is Georgetown University. The
physical movement of books about the library which
involves the proper placement of new and returned
books on the library racks. Messenger clerks perform
only light clerical work and function mainly as
messengers between buildings within the university
complex. As library aides and messenger clerks
perform manual duties, we conclude that they are
essentially "blue collar" workers and have the same
community of interest as other service and mainte-
nance employees. Accordingly, except for the student
library aides we shall include them in the unit.'°
The parties were also in disagreement on the unit
placement of the following classifications found in
the print shop: printing estimator, printing planner,
stripping production coordinator, and production
coordinator. As the record testimony is inadequate to
determine whether these employees are supervisory
or whether the Board traditionally includes them in a
departmental unit, we shall allow employees in these
classifications to vote subject to challenge.
The classifications of physical plant trainee and
patient transporter were not discussed in the record
testimony. In view of the absence of record testimo-
ny, we shall allow employees in these classifications
to vote subject to challenge.
The Petitioner would include the classification of
parking attendant in the unit. The record shows that
the parking attendants do not actually park cars but
attend the University's various parking lots. Some
are employees of the hospital; they are stationed at
the hospital parking lot underneath the hospital and
are under the supervision of the hospital administra-
tor. Since other parking attendants are assigned to
nonhospital facilities, we shall not apply the 50-
percent test to the parking attendant classification."
If 50 percent or more of the parking attendants, as a
group, are assigned to the hospital, then we shall
exclude them from the unit. However, if 50 percent
or more are assigned to nonhospital functions, then
we shall include them in the unit. We shall, therefore,
permit them to vote subject to challenge.
We find the following employees of the Employer
constitute a unit appropriate for purposes of collec-
tive bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of
the Act:
All full-time and regular part-time service and
maintenance employees working 20 hours or
more per week, including library aides, messenger
clerks, printing estimator, printing planner, strip-
ping production coordinator, printing production
parties agree that academic , faculty, and professional employees should be
excluded from any unit found appropriate herein.
10 The Petitioner also seeks to include communications aides as
employees in this classification carry messages and apparently perform
manual duties, we shall also include them in the unit.
11 Duke University, 200 NLRB No. 13. Member Fanning would include
parking lot attendants.
218 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
coordinator, physical plant trainee, patient trans-
porter and parking attendant, but excluding the
glass blower, laboratory assistants, autopsy assist-
ants, library assistants, students, academic, facul-
ty, professional, technical, confidential, office,
clerical, hospital employees, and all other employ-
ees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]