POMONA VALLEY HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER

National Labor Relations Board - Unpublished Board Decisions

Dec 15, 2017

21-RC-166499 (N.L.R.B. Dec. 15, 2017)

1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
POMONA VALLEY HOSPITAL MEDICAL
CENTER
Employer
and Case 21-RC-166499
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL
UNION, UNITED HEALTHCARE WORKERS-WEST
Petitioner
ORDER
The Employer’s Request for Review of the Regional Director’s Supplemental Decision and
Direction to Sustain Certain Challenged Ballots and to Count the Remaining Challenged Ballots
is granted solely with the respect to the Regional Director’s finding that the Information
Technology Clericals, Telecommunications Technician, Worker’s Compensation Claims
Specialist, Education Coordinator, Charge Revenue Representatives, System Coordinator
Laboratory, and Nursing Staff Coordinators are excluded from the unit. The Petitioner’s Request
for Review is also granted solely with respect to the Regional Director’s inclusion of the
Specialists HIM Data Integrity, Application Specialist, and Application Specialist, Perioperative.
The Requests for Review are denied in all other respects.1

1 In agreeing with the Regional Director that Administrative Assistant, Master Planning should
be excluded from the petitioned-for unit, we rely on evidence showing that she does not share a
community of interest with unit employees. In this regard, she primarily works offsite, her
supervisor does not supervise any other unit employees, and her work is not related to patient
care. In addition, she only spends 10 percent of her time in the Hospital taking minutes from
meetings, and the evidence suggests that her level of interaction with unit employees is minimal.
We agree with the Regional Director that the Medical Records Technicians are BOCs. In
doing so, we emphasize that they function as a contact point between medical records and billing
(including recommending billing corrections), and the evidence does not establish that they work
in patient care areas or have frequent or substantial contact with unit employees in the course of
performing their functions. See St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, 222 NLRB 674, 677 (1976)
(medical records clericals found to be BOCs where they did not have physical daily contact with
employees in patient care areas). The instant case is also distinguishable from Rhode Island
Hospital, 313 NLRB 343, 362-363 (1993), cited by the Employer, where the included medical
records employees received continuous requests for information from employees dealing directly
with patients, and had little contact with BOCs.
In agreeing with the Regional Director that the Security Assistant should be excluded
from the unit, we find it unnecessary to rely on Rhode Island Hospital, supra at 345-347 (security
personnel excluded as statutory guards).
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PHILIP A. MISCIMARRA, CHAIRMAN
MARVIN E. KAPLAN, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., December 15, 2017.
MEMBER PEARCE, concurring and dissenting in part.
I agree with my colleagues in all respects except for their decision to grant the
Employer’s request for review of the Regional Director’s decision to exclude from the
petitioned-for service/nonprofessional and technical unit the positions of Information
Technology Clericals, Telecommunications Technician, Worker’s Compensation Claims

Contrary to the Petitioner, we agree with the Regional Director that the Coordinator, ICU
should be included in the unit. In doing so, we emphasize that 1) the Coordinator performs
clerical work in a patient care department; 2) her office is in the main Hospital on the second
floor of the intensive care tower; 3) her supervisor also supervises unit employees; 4) she
interacts with unit employees when she takes minutes of daily meetings conducted by physicians
(connected with making rounds) and attended by nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and
social workers, and enters data connected with those rounds; 5) her work taking daily minutes is
connected with patient care; and 6) she assists employees with payroll, generating further contact
with unit employees. See e.g., Newington Children’s Hospital, 217 NLRB 793, 795 (1975)
(clerk II in operating room included, where clerk was in the nursing department, relayed and
received messages from the operating room, and was supervised by an operating room
supervisor).
We agree with the Regional Director that the Hospitality Desk and Parking Ambassadors
are properly included in the unit. See Charter Hospital of Orlando South, 313 NLRB 951, 951
(1994) (receptionists working in lobby who greet and assist visitors, observe egress and ingress,
answer phones, and give paychecks to employees found not to be BOCs). In doing so, we find
that the Petitioner is precluded from raising for the first time in its Request for Review the
argument that the Hospitality Desk and Parking Ambassadors are guards under Sec. 9(b)(3) of
the Act. See Board’s Rules and Regulations, Sec. 102.67 (e) (“Such request may not raise any
issue or allege any facts not timely presented to the Regional Director.”).
Finally, we agree with the Petitioner that the Regional Director made a drafting error with
respect to the Specialists HIM Data Integrity by discussing them in two separate sections and
making contradictory findings regarding their status. Thus, the Regional Director at pages 5-6 of
his Supplemental Decision sustained the challenges to the Specialists’ ballots, but on page 10
overruled the challenges. After viewing the Supplemental Decision as a whole, we conclude that
the Regional Director intended to overrule their challenged ballots and that his inclusion of these
Specialists in his discussion on page 5-6 of his Supplemental Decision was an inadvertent error.
In this regard, the Regional Director included the Specialists HIM Data Integrity in the list of
challenged ballots that were overruled at both the beginning of his Supplemental Decision at
page 2 and his conclusion at page 11. As indicated above, however, the Regional Director’s
inclusion of the Specialists HIM Data Integrity raises a substantial issue warranting review.
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Specialist, Education Coordinator, Charge Revenue Representatives, and System Coordinator
Laboratory.
Unlike my colleagues, I would deny the Employer’s request for review of the Regional
Director’s findings that the Information Technology Clericals (IT) are business office clericals
(BOCs) who should be excluded from the petitioned-for unit. As the Regional Director correctly
noted, the Board has generally found that employees working in the IT field are BOCs who
constitute a separate appropriate unit in acute care hospital settings such as here. See Silver
Cross Hospital, 350 NLRB 114, 115 fn. 7 (2007) and Rhode Island Hospital, 313 NLRB 343,
359-361 (1993). I see no need to reconsider this precedent, and note that no party has requested
that we do so. Additionally, I would deny review as to the Telecommunication Technician on
the basis that, even if not a BOC as the Regional Director found, the work he performs on
sophisticated systems and equipment is also akin to that of skilled maintenance employees who
are excluded from the unit.
Next, I would not grant review of the Regional Director’s exclusion of the Education
Coordinator and Worker’s Compensation Claims Specialist, both of whom mainly perform
personnel/HR functions that are generally considered BOC positions. The Education
Coordinator assists all employees, unit and nonunit, with continuing education requirements or
aspirations. St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, 222 NLRB 674, 676 (1976) (finding clerical
employees in personnel department are BOCs and excluded from service and maintenance unit);
St. Francis Hospital, 219 NLRB 963,964 (1975) (same re clerical employees in RN education
department). Similarly, the Worker’s Compensation employee also works in HR, processing
worker’s compensation reimbursement claims for Hospital employees. See St. Luke’s Episcopal
Hospital, supra, 222 NLRB at 676.
Nor would I grant review of the Regional Director’s decision to exclude the four Charge
Revenue representatives. These four employees perform coding duties related to billing and
reimbursement. Using information submitted by doctors and nurses, the Charge Revenue
representatives post charges to the financial system and reconcile reports and patient records that
require knowledge of billing codes. They also maintain daily contact with the billing office to
ensure timely billing, and have little contact with unit employees in performing their duties.
Accordingly, like the other coders excluded from the unit, I agree with the Regional Director that
they too were properly excluded.
Finally, I would deny review of the coding system coordinator in the laboratory who, like
other excluded coders, has very limited contact with unit employees and primarily performs
billing functions and ensures that patients are charged for the correct diagnostic test.
_____________________________________
Mark Gaston Pearce, Member
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD