Milwaukee Psychiatric Hospital

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Aug 11, 1975

219 N.L.R.B. 1043 (N.L.R.B. 1975)

MILWAUKEE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL 1043
Milwaukee Sanitarium Foundation, Inc., d/b/a Mil-
waukee Psychiatric Hospital and Local 1199, Na-
tional Union of Hospital and Health-Care Employ-
ees, RWDSU, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case
30-RC-2510
August 11, 1975
DECISION ON REVIEW AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY AND MEMBERS FANNING AND
PENELLO
On April 7, 1975, the Regional Director for Region
30 issued a Decision and Direction of Election in the
above-entitled proceeding in which he found appro-
priate a unit of all full-time and regular part-time
employees, including service and maintenance em-
ployees, students and nonstudents employed in the
food service department, licensed practical nurses
(LPN's), alcoholism counselors, activity therapists,
psychiatric aides (including student and nonstudent
psychiatric aides), and office clerical employees; but
excluding professional employees. Thereafter, in ac-
cordance with Section 102.67 of the National Labor
Relations Board 's Rules and Regulations , Series 8, as
amended, the Employer and the Petitioner filed time-
ly requests for review of the Regional Director's deci-
sion.
By telegraphic order dated May 16, 1975, the
Board denied the Employer's request for review,
granted the Petitioner's request for review, and
stayed the election pending decision on review.
Thereafter, the Petitioner filed a brief on review and
the Employer filed a brief in opposition.
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, includ-
ing the briefs , and makes the following findings:
The Employer is a nonprofit Wisconsin corpora-
tion which operates the hospital involved herein, lo-
cated in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, for the treatment of
patients for mental illness and behavioral disorders.
It employs approximately 230 to 235 employees at
the hospital.
The Petitioner requests a unit of all service and
maintenance employees, including psychiatric aides,
but excluding LPN's, alcoholism counselors, activity
therapists, and office clerical employees. The Em-
ployer agrees to the inclusion of service and mainte-
nance employees and psychiatric aides, but contends
that the only appropriate unit would include the
LPN's, alcoholism counselors, activity therapists,
and office clerical employees. The Regional Director
agreed with the Employer's contention in this regard.
We do not., -
In finding that the LPN's should be included in
the unit of service and maintenance employees, the
Regional Director noted that the job functions, su-
pervision, and fringe benefits of the LPN's are essen-
tially the same as those of the psychiatric aides, who
the parties agree should be included. While we see no
reason to override the parties' agreement to include
the psychiatric aides, we do not find their inclusion
as sufficient basis for including, over Petitioner's ob-
jections, the LPN's who, for the same reasons set
forth in Nathan and Miriam Barnert Memorial Hospi-
tal Association d/b/a Barnert Memorial Hospital Cen-
ter, 217 NLRB No. 132 (1975), are technical employ-
ees whom the Petitioner may properly exclude from
its requested unit of service and maintenance em-
ployees. Newington Children's Hospital, 217 NLRB
No. 134 (1975).'
There are four activity therapists whose status is in
dispute here: two music therapists, a recreation ther-
apist, and an art therapist. Their jobs in general are
to develop individual programs of activity therapy
for each patient referred to them, to carry the pro-
gram out, and to report to the psychiatrists, regis-
tered nurses, LPN's, or psychiatric aides regarding
the outcome of the therapy. They are not closely su-
pervised in the performance of their day-to-day du-
ties. Although the formal pay scale for these thera-
pists overlaps the pay scale for LPN's, all of them
earn more per hour than the LPN's. The music thera-
pists have bachelors of music arts degrees, 6 months'
clinical training, and are registered with the national
organization of their specialty, the National Associa-
tion of Music Therapy. The recreation therapist has a
bachelor of science degree in therapeutic recreation.
The art therapist does not have a bachelor's degree
and the record is silent as to his or her training for
this position. Nevertheless, we find that all of these
therapists work in specialized areas of learned skill,
involving the use of independent judgment, at levels
characteristic of technical, if not professional, em-
ployees.'
Unlike the activity therapists, we find that the al-
coholism counselors are not technical employees.
The only educational requirement for the job is a
high school education plus 6 weeks of counseling
workshop seminars. We see no meaningful distin-
guishing features between these alcoholism counsel-
' Cf. Waldorf Instrument Company, Division of F. C. Huyck & Sons, 122
NLRB 803. 804-806 (1958).
219 NLRB No. 166
1044 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ors and those in other recent cases in which we have
included such employees in service and maintenance
units 2
Finally, the Petitioner's request that the clerical
employees working in the Employer's business office
be excluded from the service and maintenance em-
ployee unit is supported by our decision in Mercy
Hospitals of. Sacramento, Inc., 217 NLRB No. 131
(1975). We shall therefore exclude from the unit the
business office clericals, as well as the LPN's and the
activity therapists, but include the alcoholism coun-
selors.
On the basis of the foregoing findings, we find that
the following employees of the Employer constitute a
unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bar-
gaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act:
All full-time and regular part-time service and
2 St. Catherine's Hospital of Dominican Sisters of Kenosha, Wisconsin, Inc.,
217 NLRB No. 133, at fn. 18 (1975); Mount Airy Foundation, d/bla Mount
Airy Psychiatric Center, 217 NLRB No. 137, fn. 3 (1975)
maintenance employees employed by the Em-
ployer, including psychiatric aides, alcoholism
counselors, and clerical employees other than
business office clerical employees; excluding li-
censed practical nurses, activity therapists, and
other technical employees, business office cleri-
cal employees, professional employees, guards
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Election omitted from publication.] 3
MEMBER PENELLO, dissenting in part:
I agree with my colleagues in the majority that the
business office clerical employees should be excluded
from the service and maintenance unit herein. For
the reasons set forth in my dissenting opinions, with
Member Kennedy, in Barnert Memorial Hospital
Center, supra; Newington Children's Hospital, supra;
and in my concurring opinion in Mount Airy Psychi-
atric Center, supra, I would include technical employ-
ees in the service and maintenance unit.4
3 [Excelsior fn. omitted from publication.]
1 decline to join my colleagues in their Solomonic efforts at deciding
whether each of the disputed employees is or is not a technical employee.