Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 10, 1975

220 N.L.R.B. 181 (N.L.R.B. 1975)

KANSAS CITY COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE
Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine i and
International Union of Operating Engineers Local
6-6A-6B, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 17-RC-7713
September 10, 1975
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND JENKINS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Hearing Officer Jill F.
Brown. Pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National
Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, Series
8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Di-
rector for Region 17, this case was transferred to the
National Labor Relations Board for decision. There-
after, the Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs.'
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 reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings 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. The parties stipulated that the Employer, Kan-
sas City College of Osteopathic Medicine, operates a
nonprofit hospital in the State of Missouri, that the
Employer's gross annual revenue exceeds $250,000,
and that the Employer annually purchases goods and
services valued in excess of $50,000 directly from
sources located outside of the State of Missouri. We
find that the Employer is engaged in commerce with-
in the meaning of the Act, and that it will effectuate
the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to rep-
resent 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. Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of shift engi-
neers , utility men, and engineer mechanics, but ex-
cluding office clerical employees, professional em-
ployees, all other employees, guards and supervisors
1 The Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing
2 Upon application of the Employer , the Board, on June 30 , 1975, granted
the parties special permission to file supplemental briefs . On July 14, 1975,
the Employer filed a supplemental brief
The Employer 's request for oral argument is hereby denied, as the record,
including the briefs, adequately presents the issues and the positions of the
parties.
181
as defined in the Act. In support of its position, the
Petitioner asserts that the employees sought consti-
tute a traditionally appropriate powerhouse unit. The
Employer contends that the petitioned-for unit is in-
appropriate because it would lead to fragmentation
of the Employer's work force and would create a
multiplicity of bargaining units in a health care insti-
tution. The Employer further contends that the pro-
posed unit is not appropriate for collective bargain-
ing under the Board's traditional community of
interest test.
The Employer is a college involved in the instruc-
tion and training of physicians. In connection with
this activity, it owns and operates a 10-story, 426-bed
teaching hospital. The powerhouse, a separate build-
ing connected to the hospital by a tunnel, generates
all of the energy necessary for the operation of the
hospital.
The shift engineers, utility men, and engineer me-
chanic are the only employees responsible for the op-
eration of the powerplant equipment. The shift engi-
neers, all but one of whom are licensed by the city,
work in the central control room monitoring the vari-
ous energy generating devices. The utility men assist
the shift engineers and work under their direction.
The utility men also take log readings, drain the boil-
ers, and perform general maintenance functions such
as painting and cleaning. The engineer mechanic is
responsible for maintaining and repairing the
Employer's complicated and expensive energy pro-
ducing machines.
The record reveals that these employees are sepa-
rately supervised and work almost exclusively in the
powerplant. Thus, it is uncontroverted that the shift
engineers spend 99 percent of their working time in
the powerhouse. The duties of the utility men require
their presence in the powerhouse except for occasion-
al trips to the shipping dock to pick up supplies. As
for the engineer mechanic, most of the generating
equipment maintained by him is located in the pow-
erplant.
In the course of their duties in the powerplant, the
shift engineers, utility men, and engineer mechanic
seldom come into contact with other employees. For,
only one other employee, the master electrician, has
any functions to perform in the powerhouse, and he
is present there only on a very infrequent basis. And,
although the shift engineers and utility men have
their lockers and perform minor repairs in the main-
tenance shop located in the lower level of the hospi-
tal adjacent to the entrance to the tunnel, a partition
of shelves and plywood separates the area in which
they work from the area utilized by the Employer's
maintenance employees.3 The powerhouse employees
3 The employer's maintenance mechanics, food service employees, and
Continued
220 NLRB No. 36
182 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
do not even join the other employees for lunch in the
cafeteria. Instead, they eat their lunch in the power-
plant.
In sum, these powerhouse employees are sepa-
rately located and separately supervised, perform a
unique and specialized function, and rarely come
into contract with other employees. Furthermore, it
appears that other service and maintenance employ-
ees with whom the powerhouse employees might be
joined in an overall service and maintenance unit are
already represented by other labor organizations.
Under these circumstances, we conclude that the
custodians are represented jointly by Local 9.6 of the Building Service Em-
ployees Union, herein called Local 96, and Local I of the International
Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers, herein called Local I. The Employer's
supply, processing , and distribution employees are represented by Local I
Although there are presently separate collective -bargaining agreements cov-
ering each of the above-described bargaining units, their provisions are vir-
tually identical and they each have the same expiration date . Local I and
Local 96 originally intervened in this proceeding, but withdrew prior to the
opening of the hearing.
shift engineers, utility men, and engineer mechanic
enjoy a community of interest in and amongst them-
selves and apart from all others. Accordingly, we
shall direct an election in the following unit ° which,
we find, constitutes a unit appropriate for the pur-
poses of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9(b) of the Act:5
All shift engineers , utility men, and engineer me-
chanics employed by Kansas City College of Os-
teopathic Medicine, Kansas City, Missouri, but
excluding all office clerical employees, profes-
sional employees, all other employees, guards
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit-
ted from publication.]
The parties stipulated , and we find, that shift engineer Leo Hardwick is
eligible to vote in the election whether or not at the time of the election he
is still temporarily occupying the position of acting chief engineer
5 For the reasons set forth in Chairman Murphy and Member Fanning's
dissenting opinion in Shnners Hospitals for Crippled Children, 217 NLRB
No. 138 (1975), we find no merit in the Employer's contention that the unit
sought by the Petitioner is inappropriate because it is in derogation of the
congressional mandate to avoid undue proliferation of bargaining units in
the health care industry.