Levine Hospital of Hayward, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 21, 1975

219 N.L.R.B. 327 (N.L.R.B. 1975)

LEVINE HOSPITAL OF HAYWARD, INC. 327
Levine Hospital of Hayward , Inc. and Professional
and Clerical Employees Division , Freight Checkers,
Clerical Employees and Helpers , Local Union No.
856, International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of Ameri-
ca,' Petitioner . Case 20-RC-12556
July 21, 1975
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS 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 Gretchen S.
Owens of the National Labor Relations Board. On
February 24, 1975, the Regional Director for Region
20 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in
which he found that the Employer 's medical records
clerks and transcribers constitute a unit appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining within the
meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act. Thereafter, the
Employer , in accordance with Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions , Series 8 , as amended , filed a Request for Re-
view of the decision of the Regional Director on the
ground that he erred in directing an election in the
unit of all medical records clerks and transcribers.
By telegraphic order dated April 29, 1975, the
Board granted the Employer's Request for Review
and stayed the election pending decision on review.
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 considered the entire record in this
case with respect to the issues under review, and
makes the following findings:
The Employer operates a proprietary acute care
hospital in Hayward , California . The Employer has
collective-bargaining relationships with two labor or-
ganizations which currently represent almost all of its
approximately 150 employees . Thus, the Employer
and Hospital and Institutional Workers Union, Lo-
cal 250 (hereinafter referred to as Local 250) have
entered into successive collective-bargaining agree-
ments for the past 12 years covering a broad service
and maintenance unit which includes LVN's, aides,
housekeepers and dietary employees , and laboratory
clerks .' In addition, Local 250 represents the
Employer's business office clerical employees in a
separate bargaining unit. The Employer is also a par-
ty to a collective-bargaining agreement with Interna-
tional Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union
Local 6 (hereinafter referred to as Local 6) covering a
unit of x-ray technicians. Both Local 250 and Local 6
were given notice of the instant petition but neither
union chose to participate in any of the proceedings
herein.
In the instant case, the Petitioner seeks to repre-
sent a separate unit of seven medical records clerks
and transcribers on the basis that these employees
constitute a residual unit of the Employer's unrepre-
sented nonprofessional employees 3 and that the Em-
ployer has specifically excluded them from all of the
previously recognized units. The Union further ar-
gues that the medical records clerks and transcribers
have a separate community of interest from the cur-
rently represented employees. On the other hand, the
Employer contends that the instant petition should
be dismissed because the medical records clerks and
transcribers properly belong in one of the currently
existing bargaining units and that a finding that the
petitioned-for employees constitute a separate appro-
priate unit would unduly proliferate the number of
units at the Employer's facility. In the somewhat un-
usual circumstances of this case, we agree with the
Employer's contentions.
In our opinion, the medical records clerks and
transcribers, if they are to be represented at all,
should properly be part of the currently existing
broad service and maintenance unit. Thus, the record
establishes, first, that they are very few in number:
seven.4 Moreover, their work is functionally related
to the work performed by the service and mainte-
nance employees in general and, more specifically, is
virtually identical to the work performed by other
hospital clerical employees, nonbusiness office cleri-
cal employees who are included in the service and
maintenance unit. While the medical records clerks
and transcribers work primarily in a separate area
within the Employer's facility, their work regularly
brings them into physical and/or telephonic contact
with other service and maintenance employees. Thus,
medical records clerks and transcribers deliver pa-
tients' records to nursing service employees and
make up and distribute surgical schedules through-
out the hospital. Furthermore, contrary to the Re-
gional Director's finding that medical records clerks
tnc representative in a Board-conducted election.
The only other unrepresented employees of the Employer are registered
nurses and laboratory technicians , whom the parties stipulated are profes-
sional employees . The Employer does not contend that these professional
employees should be included in the same unit as the petitioned-for employ-
The name of the Petitioner appears as amended at the hearing. ees
2 The laboratory clerks were added to the broad service and maintenance ° Compare, a g., Mt. Airy Foundation, d/b/a Mount Airy Psychiatric Center,
unit about 2 years ago after they chose Local 250 as their collective-bargain- 217 No. 137 (1975)
219 NLRB No. 81
328 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
and transcribers possess special skills, the record in-
dicates, and we find, that the medical records clerks'
and transcribers' skills are primarily clerical in na-
ture, obtained by on-the-job training or a short 9-
month training program, coupled with a general
knowledge of medical terminology, which the majori-
ty of hospital employees would be required to know.'
In addition, all of the Employer's employees, includ-
ing medical records clerks and transcribers, work the
same hours, enjoy the same fringe benefits, are paid
at essentially comparable rates, and share other
terms and conditions of employment which are out-
lined in the collective -bargaining agreement between
the Employer and Local 250 and are applied to all
employees throughout the Employer's facility. Based
on the above evidence, we find that the medical re-
cords clerks and transcribers share a very close com-
munity of interest with the employees in the current-
ly existing service and maintenance unit and, if they
desire representation, should properly be included in
that bargaining unit.
We are not persuaded by the Petitioner's argument
that the Employer is somehow estopped at this point,
by its voluntary exclusions of medical records clerks
and transcribers from previously established bargain-
ing units , from insisting that medical records clerks
and transcribers be included in one of the existing
bargaining units. The fact that the several medical
records clerks and transcribers have historically been
excluded from the various bargaining units at the
Employer's hospital means, of course, that they are
entitled at this point to a voice in whether or not they
desire to be represented by a labor organization.
However, their prior exclusions were made without
the benefit of the Board' s guidelines for appropriate
units in the health care industry and, under the cir-
cumstances herein , we do not consider ourselves
bound to give this small group all the options nor-
mally available to a true "residual" unit.
We find merit in the Employer's contention that
the creation at this point of a separate bargaining
unit for medical records clerks and transcribers
would result in an undue proliferation of bargaining
units at its facility contrary to congressional intent.
Thus, we find pertinent the following comments of
' While it appears from the record that the medical records clerks' and
transcribers ' specific duties are different from the specific duties performed
by other individuals in the service and maintenance unit, we note that a
service and maintenance unit in the health care industry is analogous to a
plantwide production and maintenance unit in the industrial sector and, as
such , includes employees who perform many diversified tasks who neverthe-
less share a community of interest with one another . See Newington
Children 's Center, 217 NLRB No. 134 ( 1975).
Senator Taft:6
The issue of proliferation of bargaining units
in health care institutions has also greatly con-
cerned me during consideration of legislation in
this area. Hospitals and other types of health
care institutions are particularly vulnerable to a
multiplicity of bargaining units due to the diver-
sified nature of the medical services provided
patients. If each professional interest and job
classification is permitted to form a separate bar-
gaining unit , numerous administrative and labor
relations problems become involved in the deliv-
ery of health care. . . . the Board should be per-
mitted some flexibility in unit determination
cases. I cannot stress enough, however, the im-
portance of great caution being exercised by the
Board in reviewing unit cases in the area. Un-
warranted unit fragmentation leading to juris-
dictional disputes and work stoppages must be
prevented. [Emphasis supplied.]
We therefore find that the establishment, at this
point, of a separate bargaining unit for the few medi-
cal records clerks and transcribers here involved is
unwarranted.
Accordingly, for the above-stated reasons, we con-
clude that there is no basis either on the facts of this
case or in the law to find that the medical records
clerks and transcribers constitute a separate appro-
priate bargaining unit.
We note that our decision herein does not relegate
the medical records clerks and transcribers to a state
of perpetual unrepresentation. In view of our finding
herein that the medical records clerks and transcri-
bers share a community of interest with the service
and maintenance employees, we would entertain a
timely petition which seeks to represent all of the
Employer's service and maintenance employees, in-
cluding the medical records clerks and transcribers;
or, we would entertain a petition by the representa-
tive of the service and maintenance employees to add
the medical records clerks and transcribers to the ex-
isting unit, by means of a representation election.'
Accordingly, for the above-stated reasons , we find
that the petitioned-for separate unit of medical re-
cords clerks and transcribers is inappropriate and we
shall therefore dismiss the petition herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition be, and it
hereby is, dismissed.
6 120 Cong. Rec. S. 6940 (1974).
7 See, e.g., the petition filed earlier for the laboratory clerks Fn. 2, supra