Goddard College

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 4, 1975

216 N.L.R.B. 457 (N.L.R.B. 1975)

GODDARD COLLEGE 457
Goddard College and American Federation of Teach- disputed faculty groups. The Employer, on the other
ers, AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 1-RC-13261 hand, contends that the employees in each of the
February 4, 1975
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY MEMBERS JENKINS, KENNEDY, 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 G. Rosalyn
Johnson of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the close of the hearing, the Regional
Director for Region 1 transferred this case to the
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. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board finds:
1. Goddard College is a private, nonprofit institu-
tion of higher learning operating under a charter
from the State of Vermont with its main offices and
educational facilities at Plainfield, Vermont. Its gross
annual revenue exceeds $1 million. The Employer
concedes that it is subject to the jurisdiction of the
Board and we find that it is an employer engaged in
commerce within the meaning of the Act and that it
will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert
jurisdiction in this proceeding.
2. The labor organization involved claims 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 Sections 9(c)(1) and
2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner petitions to represent a unit of
all full-time and part-time faculty members, profes-
sional librarians and counselors, with certain exclu-
sions,' but seeks, in the alternative, to represent
separate units of full-time and part-time faculty
members if the Board excludes the latter from the
unit because of their part-time status. In addition, the
Petitioner urges the inclusion of certain other
disputed faculty groups should be excluded from the
unit of full-time faculty members on the basis of a
lack of community of interest. For the reasons
hereinafter expressed, we find that the employees in
all but one of the disputed faculty groups lack a
sufficient community of interest with the other
faculty members to be included in the unit.
The Petitioner seeks to include the core faculty
members in the Goddard masters program. The
masters program is a nationwide program and core
faculty members are located in Plainfield, Los
Angeles, Boston , Philadelphia, New York City,
Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Core faculty
members pass on admissions to the program and
develop course projects for each admitted student.
Projects are implemented through field faculty,
excluded from the bargaining unit by agreement of
the parties, who work directly with the students
under the supervision of a core faculty member. The
record establishes that core faculty members effec-
tively recommend the hiring of field faculty and have
authority to fire them for unsatisfactory work. Core
faculty members do not engage in direct teaching
duties other than arranging and participating in
program seminars and colloquia.
The record further indicates that core faculty
members work a longer academic year than other
faculty members and receive higher compensation
therefor. In addition, except for the two core faculty
members residing in Plainfield, core faculty in the
masters program receive urban cost of living allow-
ances as well as office allowances for rent, secretarial
help, and general office expenses. They do not
participate in any college committees. When the
entire core faculty meets at Plainfield five or six
times a year, the discussion is confined to admission
and degree requirements in the masters program.
Core faculty have little, if any, contact with regular
faculty members, except for some undergraduate
faculty members who are students in the masters
program, and there is no course or faculty inter-
change with other college departments.
In these circumstances, particularly the administra-
tive, nonteaching nature of the work performed by
the core faculty members, their geographic separa-
tion from the Plainfield campus, their unique
working conditions, and the absence of interchange
or interaction with other faculty members, we
conclude that the core faculty in the Goddard
i The petitioned -for unit consists of "All full -time and regular part - Affairs, technical director of the theater , the director of the Extramural
time faculty members , professional librarians and counselors , excluding Studies Office , the director of the health center, all medical doctors in the
all other employees , library assistants , teaching fellows, graduate interns , health center, directors of the Community Health Clinic Project , guards,
field faculty in the Graduate Program , the co-directors in the Learning and supervisors , as defined in the Act."
Aid Center , the deans , associate deans , director of the Office of Cultural
216 NLRB No. 81
458 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
masters program do not share a substantial commu-
nity of interest with unit faculty members and we
shall therefore exclude them from the bargaining
unit.
The Petitioner also seeks to include in the unit the
core and project faculty in the Goddard-Cambridge
graduate program in social change, while the
Employer urges their exclusion based on their
geographic separation from the Plainfield campus
and the semiautonomous nature of the program. The
record shows that the program is conducted solely in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is approximately
200 miles from Plainfield. Until September 1974, all
salaries and course content were established by a
people's council consisting of students and faculty,
without aid, financial or otherwise, from Plainfield.
Since September 1974, the people's council has been
replaced by a graduate council, the activities of
which were not disclosed in the record, and salaries
are paid from Plainfield. The record shows that the
Cambridge-based faculty work solely in Cambridge,
and have little, if any, direct contact with Plainfield-
based faculty, have no interchange with faculty
members in other departments, and do not partici-
pate in any college committees other than those
affecting the Cambridge program. Based on the
above evidence, particularly the semiautonomous
nature of the program, which only recently has
become a part of the Employer's graduate depart-
ment, and its geographic separation from Plainfield,
we find that there is little community of interest
between the faculty at Cambridge and the faculty at
Plainfield. Therefore, we shall exclude the core and
project faculty at the Cambridge-Goddard graduate
program in social change from the bargaining unit.
Likewise, the Petitioner seeks to include in the unit
all visiting faculty in the undergraduate residency
program. The record establishes that all visiting
faculty are hired for a definite term of 1 semester or 1
year. Only occasionally have visiting faculty contin-
ued their employment beyond 1 year and the record
shows that only 5 to 10 percent of the visiting faculty
have been offered permanent faculty positions.
Although visiting faculty are paid according to the
undergraduate pay and benefits scale and participate
in curriculum and faculty meetings with full voting
privileges, we find that their work is nevertheless of a
temporary nature, and that they have no reasonable
expectancy of reappointment. We shall, therefore,
exclude all visiting faculty from the bargaining unit.2
The Petitioner contends that the faculty in the
Goddard experimental program in further education
should be included in the faculty bargaining unit.
The Employer left it to the Board to determine
whether these faculty members shared a sufficient
community of interest with unit faculty members.
The faculty members in this program work solely on
weekends, teaching special classes reserved for low-
income persons. Their work is confined to this
particular program and there is no course or faculty
interchange with other departments, nor do these
faculty members participate in any college commit-
tees. In addition, the record shows that these faculty
members are hired for 1 semester only, receive
abbreviated fringe benefits, and are paid less than
unit faculty members. In these circumstances, we
find that the faculty in the Goddard experimental
program in further education do not share a
sufficient community of interest with the other
faculty members to be included in the bargaining
unit, and shall exclude them therefrom.
The Petitioner also contends that the cycle faculty
in the adult degree program should be included in
the unit. The record establishes that, unlike the
regular faculty members, the cycle faculty members
are hired on a 1-semester basis and work on campus
only 2 weeks per semester, teaching one-third to two-
thirds fewer students than the unit faculty. In
contrast, unit faculty members have campus office
space and work with students there throughout the
semester. The record further establishes that the
cycle faculty members receive a lower salary and
lower fringe benefits than unit faculty and generally
have full-time employment elsewhere. In addition,
they are not required to serve on faculty committees
and have little, if any, contact with regular faculty
members. We find in these circumstances, particular-
ly the short time spent teaching on campus and the
absence of regular contact with unit faculty mem-
bers, that the cycle faculty do not share a sufficient
community of interest with unit faculty to warrant
their inclusion in the unit. Therefore, we shall
exclude the cycle faculty in the adult degree program
from the bargaining unit.
As stated above, the exclusions of the faculty in the
Goddard-Cambridge graduate program in social
change, the visiting faculty, the faculty in the
Goddard experimental program in further education,
and the cycle faculty in the adult degree program
from the appropriate bargaining unit are based solely
on the absence of sufficient community of interest
between each of these faculty groups and faculty
members who are included in the unit. Some of these
excluded employees are full-time, some are part-time.
As for the Petitioner's alternative request to represent
part-time employees in these excluded faculty groups
in a separate bargaining unit of part-time employees,
we find that the facts contained in the record before
2 See , e.g, General American Transportation Corp., 187 NLRB 120 (1970).
GODDARD COLLEGE 459
us are insufficient to establish a community of
interest between these excluded groups of employees,
and one another . To the contrary, the record
establishes that these employees are different hetero-
geneous groups of people whose only common
identification is their part-time work for the Employ-
er. In our view, such an identification, in light of
their different wages, hours, responsibilities, loca-
tions, and conditions of employment, does not
establish a community of interest sufficient to
warrant their being grouped together in a single
bargaining unit.
There remains for our consideration the unit
placement of two additional employee groups.
The Petitioner seeks to include in the faculty unit
the nurses in the campus health care center. The
Employer took no position and left to the Board the
determination as to whether the nurses shared the
requisite community of interest with faculty mem-
bers to be included. The record shows that the nurses
are hired through the personnel office and work
under professional staff contracts which provide for
different working hours, wages, and benefits than are
contained in faculty teaching contracts . In addition,
the nurses ' work is confined to the health center
which provides health care services for students and
faculty . On the basis of this evidence, it is clear that
the nurses do not perform any academic function3
and we shall therefore exclude them from the faculty
bargaining unit.4
We shall also exclude the counselors in the
psychological services office who provide emotional
counseling to students through crisis intervention
3 In the past, one nurse , Williams , assisted in teaching an undergraduate
class in health and acted as an academic counselor to students . We find that
these activities, which took a little more than 12 percent of her time, are
insufficient to establish a community of interest between Williams and the
members of the faculty unit. Nurse Williams'job is primarily nonacademic
in nature and , in any event , the Board has not included academic counselors
in faculty bargaining units . C. W. Post Center of Long Island University, 189
NLRB 904, 908 ( 1971). Likewise , the fact that all three nurses have assisted
the health care physician in the paramedical program taught at the health
and short-term therapy. Like the nurses, the counse-
lors are hired through the personnel office and have
professional staff contracts. In addition, like the
nurses, the psychological counselors' work is con-
fined to the psychological services office and is
unrelated to the academic function performed by
faculty members.5 Therefore, we shall exclude
psychological counselors from the faculty bargaining
unit.
Accordingly, for the reasons stated above, we find
that the following unit is appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9(b) of the Act:
All full-time faculty members, professional librar-
ians and counselors , excluding the core faculty in
the Goddard Masters Program, the faculty in the
Goddard-Cambridge Graduate Program in Social
Change, the visiting faculty, the faculty in the
Goddard Experimental Program in Further Edu-
cation, the cycle faculty in the Adult Degree
Program, library assistants, teaching fellows,
graduate interns , field faculty in the Graduate
Program, the co-directors in the Learning Aid
Center, the deans , associate deans, director of the
Extramural Studies Office, the director of the
health center, the nurses in the health center, all
medical doctors in the health center , directors of
the Community Health Clinic Project, guards and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]
care center does not negate their essentially nonacademic work function
and does not give the nurses a community of interest with regular faculty.
4 University of Miami, 213 NLRB No. 64 (1974).
S One counselor, Goldin, has supervised student independent study
projects and served on senior study committees and as an academic
counselor to several students. However, as in the case of nurse Williams, In
4, supra, we find that these activities, which took only 10 to 15 percent of
Goldin's time, are insufficient to establish a community of interest between
Goldin and the members of the faculty unit.