Sierra Hospital Foundation

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 31, 1970

181 N.L.R.B. 869 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

SIERRA HOSPITAL FOUNDATION 869
Sierra Hospital Foundation ' and National
Association of Independent Unions, Petitioner.
Case 20-RC-8526
March 31, 1970
DECISION AND ORDER
By CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH 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 Shirley N. Bingham,
Hearing Officer. Following the hearing and pursuant
to Section 102 67 of the National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of
Procedure, Series 8, as amended, by direction of the
Regional Director for Region 20, this case was
transferred to the National Labor Relations Board
for decision. Thereafter, a brief was filed by the
Employer.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has delegated its
powers in connection with this case to a
three-member panel
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. The rulings are hereby
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in the case, the Board
finds:
Petitioner seeks to represent certain of the
Employer's employees in a unit which is coextensive
with the Employer's overall operation. ' The
Employer is a not-for-profit entity incorporated
under the laws of the State of California as a
charitable institution2 and licensed by the State
Department of Public Health as a hospital. Its three
physically-separated facilities are located within a
5-mile area in Fresno, California, and consist of a
hospital known as Sierra Hospital, and two
sub-acute facilities known as Fresno Convalescent
Hospital and Country View Convalescent Hospital.
The hospital is a 95-bed, 210-room facility which
provides acute medical, surgical, pediatric, and
emergency services, together with all of the usual
allied hospital services. The two sub-acute facilities,
hereinafter called the convalescent units, have a
total of 99 beds and provide nursing procedures
which are only slightly lower in quality and intensity
than those provided in the hospital. These units care
for patients who either require below hospital but
above normal nursing home care, or who have been
transferred thereto from the hospital after the need
for acute care has partially subsided but who
nevertheless require nursing care above and beyond
that available in the ordinary nursing home
The Employer 's name appears as amended at the hearing
The Employer's medical staff consists of 173
non-salaried physicians who, as private practitioners,
seek admission for, and attend, their own patients in
both the hospital and the convalescent units Its
patients, including those who either are unable to
pay or who are not eligible for Medicare or Medical
benefits, are admitted without regard to age, race,
color, creed, or national origin, and, depending on
their needs, are placed in either the hospital or a
convalescent unit. As patients progress or regress,
they are transferred to and from the hospital and
the convalescent units, as the case may be, and upon
medical approval, are subsequently transferred to
their homes or to a nursing home.
The entire operation is treated, both
administratively and functionally, as a single entity.
All three facilities are governed by one set of bylaws
administered by a Board of Trustees. There is a
single personnel policy with regard to seniority,
holiday, vacation, and other fringe benefits for all
employees, a single payroll, bank account, annual
audit and balance sheets, and wages and working
conditions are uniformally applied within job
classifications. Its managerial line of authority
consists basically of an administrator, a director of
nursing services, a director of in-service training, a
pathologist, a radiologist, a pharmacist, a
purchasing agent, and a business manager, all of
whom service the entire operation. Neither the
hospital nor the convalescent units are supervised as
separate autonomous units, but all come under the
foregoing command chain.
Functionally, the hospital and the convalescent
units operate as an integrated enterprise involving
considerable routine interchange by 220 of the
Employer's 248 employees. While 67 of these
employees are permanently assigned to the hospital,
apparently for administrative purposes, their
intra-facility work is not affected thereby, and the
remaining 153 employees, all of whom are in the
Employer's nursing service department, are not
assigned to any particular facility but perform their
duties wherever necessary, "depending on patient
load and the need in various departments."
Inasmuch as that part of the not-for-profit
charitable entity known as Sierra Hospital furnishes
hospital services, it falls within the statutory
exemption of enterprises over which the Board may
not assert jurisdiction. Additionally, such hospital
services as may be rendered by the convalescent
units are closely and intimately related to, and in
some situations may be inseparable from, the
hospital services. In view of all the circumstances,
we conclude that it would not effectuate the policies
The Employer ' s charter provides that no part of its net earnings shall
inure to the benefit of any individual , and that in the event it ceases to
carry out its charitable objectives, or enters into voluntary dissolution, all
assets shall be distributed to an organization engaged in similar non-profit
functions
181 NLRB No. 143
870 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
of the Act to assert jurisdiction here. Accordingly, and it hereby is, dismissed.
we shall dismiss the petition.3
ORDER 'The Wesleyan Foundation, 171 NLRB No 22, cf United Hospital
Services . Inc, 172 NLRB No 188, Inter-County Blood Banks, 165 NLRB
It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, 252