Madison General Hospital Association

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jun 26, 1975

218 N.L.R.B. 954 (N.L.R.B. 1975)

954 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Madison General Hospital Association ' and Madison
Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL -
CIO,2 Petitioner. Case 30-RC-2493
June 26, 1975
DECISION AND ORDER
BY MEMBERS FANNING, 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 James E.
Ford of the National Labor Relations Board.
Following the close of hearing, the Regional Director
for Region 30 transferred this case to the Board for
decision. Briefs were filed by the Madison General
Hospital Association (hereinafter called the Employ-
er) and the Petitioner.
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 having duly considered the Hearing
Officer's rulings made at the hearing fords that they
are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby
affirmed. Upon the entire record in this case,
including the parties' briefs, the Board finds:
1. The Employer is a Wisconsin corporation
engaged in the operation of a nonprofit hospital in
Madison, Wisconsin. The parties have stipulated and
we find that, during the past calendar year, the
Employer purchased goods and services in excess of
$50,000 from outside the State of Wisconsin and,
during the same period, performed services to its
customers in excess of $500,000. Accordingly, we
find that the Employer is engaged in commerce
within the meaning of the Act. We further ford that it
will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert
jurisdiction herein.
2. The parties stipulated and we ford that Peti-
tioner and the Intervenor are labor organizations
within the meaning of the National Labor Relations
Act.
3. For reasons set forth below, no question
affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of certain employees of the Employer within the
meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7)
of the Act.
Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of all building
trades craftsmen employed by the Employer, exclud-
ing all other employees, guards, and supervisors as
defined by the Act, currently represented by the
Intervenor in a unit with other employees. The
Intervenor and the Employer executed the most
recent of a series of collective-bargaining agreements
on April 19, 1972. The agreement was effective
February 14, 1972, and was to "remain in effect for a
period of three years with the exception of Article 3,
Section 2, pertaining to wage rates . . . ." The
contract further provided that wages would be "a
proper subject for negotiations by the parties hereto
in accordance with this agreement at the end of two
years." On January 15, 1974, a new wage agreement
was negotiated which stated that "this contract with
all articles and amendments embodied will remain in
effect through 1974."
On February 15, 1974, Petitioner filed a petition
with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commis-
sion requesting the commission to conduct an
election among "all employees performing work as
building trades craftsmen including apprentices and
trainees in line of progression in their respective
crafts." The Intervenor contended that its collective-
bargaining contract with the Employer was a bar.
The commission found that a collective-bargaining
agreement existed between the Employer and the
Intervenor which "by its terms, remains in full force
and effect until at least February 13, 1975." It,
therefore, stated that "the petition was filed more
than one year prior to the expiration date of the
agreement and approximately 11 months prior to the
date on which the present agreement may be
reopened by either party for negotiations on a new
agreement." With respect to the Petitioner's argu-
ment that there presently existed a change in
circumstances which would warrant the Commis-
sion's departure from its "contract bar" policy, such
changed conditions being based on the fact that the
Employer's craft employees, apprentices, and helpers
have been working side by side with craft employees
of outside contractors on construction work, the
Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission stat-
ed that it "does not deem that such a practice
constitutes such a changed circumstance so as to
warrant the conduct of an election among the
employees petitioned for during the existence of a
valid collective bargaining agreement."
On December 13, 1974, Petitioner filed the present
petition with the National Labor Relations Board
stating that the current contract between the Em-
ployer and the Intervenor expired February 13, 1975.
Prior thereto by letter dated September 29, 1974, 91
days before December 31, 1974, Intervenor notified
the Employer of its choice to terminate the labor
agreement on December 31, 1974. The Employer and
the Intervenor commenced the negotiation for a new
contract on October 4, 1974, and reached tentative
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing.
2 Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, Local 150 (here-
218 NLRB No. 150
inafter referred to as the Intervenor), was permitted to intervene at the
hearing.
MADISON GENERAL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION 955
agreement on December 20, 1974. On December 31,
1974, the Intervenor notified Employer that the
membership had ratified the agreement on December
30, 1974.
The Employer contends that the contract between
Employer and Intervenor terminated on December
31, 1974, by reason of the wage agreement dated
January 15, 1974, which shrank the termination date
from that contained in the main body of the contract
(February 15, 1975) to December 31, 1974. It argues,
therefore, Petitioner should have properly filed its
petition at any time between October 1 and 30, 1974,
which would fall within the 30-day time period.
However, the Employer contends, since the petition
was filed December 13, it is within the insulated
period and barred by the contract. Petitioner
contends that although the general rule is that
petitions by rival unions either for severance of a
group of employees from a bargaining unit or for
recognition as a representative of the. entire unit must
be filed during the period from 90 to 60 days prior to
the expiration of the contract, the petition is timely
since it had justifiably relied on (1) the Employer's
assertion before the Wisconsin Employment Rela-
tions Commission that the contract expired on
February 14, 1975, and (2) the determination made
by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commis-
sion that February 14, 1975, was indeed the expira-
tion date.
In Longview Terrace Co., 208 NLRB 698 (1974), we
held that, where a later agreement had a different
expiration date from the initial agreement and
constituted a premature curtailment of the expiration
date of the initial contract, "such conduct obviously
frustrates third parties in their attempt to ascertain
the proper filing period and, consequently, it would
not effectuate the policies of the Act to permit a
petition to be barred under such circumstances." If
we were to bar the petition herein, we would be
exalting the goal of providing stability to contractual
agreements to the extent of depriving employees of
the opportunity to select, reject, or change their
representative status at reasonable and predictable
intervals. Petitioner filed its petition in a timely
manner with regard to what it reasonably considered
the expiration date. There had been no change in
circumstances since both the Employer and the
3 Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, 217 NLRB No. 138 (1975),
Chairman Murphy and Member Fanning dissenting.
4 E.g. National Aniline Division Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation 102
Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission stat-
ed that the appropriate expiration date was February
14, 1975. Since the instant petition was timely filed
with respect to that date, the original expiration date,
we find that neither the 1972 contract as originally
agreed to nor as modified by the wage agreement of
January 1974 is a bar to the filing of the contract.
Petitioner seeks to sever a unit of all building
trades craftsmen from the established unit of all
regular full- and part-time employees of the Employ-
er, including kitchen, dining room, linen room,
maintenance, housekeeping, boiler room and engi-
neering employees, nurses aides and orderlies;
excluding supervisors, office and professional em-
ployees, student nurses and student employees. The
craft employees whom Petitioner seeks to represent
are the carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers,
steamfitters, refrigeration specialists, and their ap-
prentices. Approximately 13 employees fill these
positions.
In Shriners Hospital,3 the Board found that the
only appropriate unit which encompassed stationary
engineers was a broad unit consisting of all service
and maintenance employees of the employer, exclud-
ing professionals and business office clericals. Ac-
cordingly, the requested unit of stationary engineers
was found inappropriate. Here the Petitioner seeks to
represent 13 employees working in six different
crafts. The Board has traditionally refused to grant
severance elections to multicraft maintenance units,
even in industries where such units may be estab-
lished in the absence of a history of bargaining on a
broader basis .4 In view of these circumstances and
the legislative history of the health care amendments
to the Act, it is apparent that it would not effectuate
the policies of the Act to direct the elections sought
in this case.
Accordingly, we find that the unit of building
trades craftsmen sought by the Petitioner herein is
inappropriate for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing, and we shall dismiss the petition.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition filed herein
be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
NLRB 129, 132 (1953); Union Steam Pump Company, 118 NLRB 689, 693
(1957); General Foods Corporation, Maxwell House Division 166 NLRB 1032
(1967).