Indiana Hospital

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 30, 1998

326 N.L.R.B. 1399 (N.L.R.B. 1998)

INDIANA HOSPITAL, INC. 1399
Indiana Hospital, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of
Indiana Health Care Corporation and Indiana
Hospital Professional Employees Associa-
tion/PSEA Health Care, Petitioner. Case 6–RC–
11488
September 30, 1998
DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF RESULTS OF
ELECTION
BY MEMBERS FOX, LIEBMAN, AND BRAME
The National Labor Relations Board, by a three-
member panel, has considered objections to an election
held March 20, 1998, and the hearing officer’s report
recommending disposition of them. The election was
conducted pursuant to a Decision and Direction of Elec-
tion issued by the Regional Director. The tally of ballots
shows 101 for and 102 against the Petitioner, with no
challenged ballots, and 1 void ballot.
The Board has reviewed the record in light of the ex-
ceptions and briefs, has adopted the hearing officer’s
findings and recommendations only to the extent consis-
tent with this decision, and finds that a certification of
results of election should be issued.
The hearing officer recommended sustaining Objec-
tions 1 and 2 and setting aside the election because she
found that the Employer engaged in objectionable con-
duct by offering payment to, and paying, off-duty em-
ployees as a reward for coming to a Board election. We
do not adopt the hearing officer’s recommendation be-
cause we find that the evidence fails to show that the
Employer made such an offer to employees.
The record discloses that the idea of giving 1 hour’s
pay to off-duty employees who came to the Employer’s
facility to vote in the Board election was discussed and
approved by certain of the Employer’s supervisory or
managerial personnel prior to the election, but there is no
evidence of what, if anything, employees were told prior
to the election concerning pay or reimbursement for off-
duty employees who came to vote in the election.
Two or three weeks before the election, three or four
nursing supervisors, including Mary Beth Kennedy,
Chris Arrow, and Debbie Succherelli, asked Joseph
McDermott, the Employer’s attorney, whether employ-
ees who were not scheduled to work during the election
would be paid for coming in and voting. He replied that
it was permissible to reimburse employees who were off
duty for the expense of coming in to vote, and he sug-
gested that 1 hour’s pay be the amount of the reimburse-
ment. At the hearing, McDermott claimed that he
thought this would approximate the employees’ travel
expenses. McDermott did not speak to any employees
directly, and there is no evidence whether Kennedy, Ar-
row, or Succherelli, none of whom testified, conveyed
this information to any employees.
On the afternoon before the election, Matthew Read-
ing, the Employer’s director of human resources, sent an
electronic mail message to all the Employer’s managers
and supervisors to whom employees eligible to vote re-
ported. The message stated as follows:

Off-duty registered nurses on election day.
Joe McDermott has verified that registered
nurses, not scheduled to work during the election
hours, should be paid for coming to the hospital for
the election tomorrow.
Registered nurses not scheduled to work, but
who come to the hospital for the election should
swipe in prior to and swipe out following their vote.
When reviewing time cards for payroll, please make
adjustments to pay so that these nurses receive one
(1) hour pay for this time. The time can be scheduled
to in-service.
Please call me if you have any questions.

Reading testified that, after he sent this message, he did not
have any communication with the managers and supervisors
to whom it was sent. He did not direct management to in-
form the eligible voters and he did not know which supervi-
sors had or had not conveyed to employees the information
contained in his message.
The only employees who testified, Susan Flowers and
Beth Pardee, both stated that they were not informed
prior to the election that off-duty employees who came in
to vote would receive pay. Flowers, who served as the
Union’s election observer during the afternoon voting
session, testified that she first learned about such pay
when some employees coming to vote asked where a
timeclock was in the voting room where they could
punch in. The Employer’s election observer, Carrie Pap-
pal, told them to go to their units to punch in. Flowers
asked Pappal why the employees would be talking about
getting paid when they were there for only 5 minutes,
and Pappal replied that they were getting paid for an
hour. Flowers testified that at least six employees asked
about punching in. Pardee, who served as the Union’s
election observer during the morning voting session, tes-
tified that two employees asked where a timeclock was
in the voting room and Pappal told them to punch in at
their units.
Pardee further testified that after the election she asked
PCU Unit Manager Margaret Welsh and OR Unit Man-
ager Kathy Cunningham about some employees being
told they would be paid if they came in to vote. Accord-
ing to Pardee, Welsh replied that she had received Read-
ing’s e-mail late in the afternoon on the day before the
election and that it did not really involve her because all
of her employees were scheduled to work. Cunningham
told Pardee that the operating room was so busy on the
day before the election that she did not even read her e-
mail until the next morning.
326 NLRB No. 152
DECISIONS OF THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 1400
In sum, the record contains no evidence of what, if
anything, the Employer told employees prior to the elec-
tion concerning pay or reimbursement for off-duty em-
ployees who came to vote in the election. Indeed, it con-
tains much evidence of employees not being told any-
thing about such payment. Both employee witnesses tes-
tified that they were not told anything prior to the elec-
tion about payment for off-duty employees who came in
to vote in the election, and both management witnesses
testified that they did not tell any employees prior to the
election about payment for off-duty employees who
came in to vote in the election.
In Sunrise Rehabilitation Hospital, 320 NLRB 212
(1995), the Board held that “monetary payments that are
offered to employees as a reward for coming to a Board
election and that exceed reimbursement for actual trans-
portation expenses . . . [constitute] objectionable con-
duct.”1
The only evidence that any employee knew, prior to
the election, that off-duty employees would be paid an
hour’s pay to come in to vote was union observer Flow-
ers’ hearsay testimony that employer observer Carrie

1 Under the circumstances of this case, Member Brame finds it un-
necessary to express a view on the Board’s decision in Sunrise Reha-
bilitation Hospital.
Pappal told her that employees were punching in at their
units because they were getting paid for an hour. Fol-
lowing the election, of 92 eligible voters not scheduled to
work on election day, 48 were paid the equivalent of 1
hour’s pay, minus deductions. Absent evidence of what,
if anything, the Employer told employees prior to the
election about payment to off-duty employees who came
to vote in the election, however, we cannot find the Em-
ployer’s conduct objectionable. The Union has simply
failed to meet its burden to prove that any objectionable
offer was made to employees prior to the election. Fur-
ther, absent such an offer, the Employer’s actual payment
to off-duty employees made after the election was over
could not have influenced their vote in the election and,
thus, is not in itself objectionable conduct. Accordingly,
we do not adopt the hearing officer’s recommendation
that the election be set aside. Rather, we overrule Objec-
tions 1 and 2 and shall certify the results of the election.
CERTIFICATION OF RESULTS OF ELECTION
IT IS CERTIFIED that a majority of the valid ballots have
not been cast for Indiana Hospital Professional Associa-
tion/PSEA Health Care and that it is not the exclusive
representative of these bargaining unit employees.