The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 16, 1976

222 N.L.R.B. 309 (N.L.R.B. 1976)

TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of
New York I and District 65, Distributive Workers of
America, Petitioner. Case 2-RC-16835
January 16, 1976
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MURPHY 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 Hearing Officer Elbert F.
Tellum of the National Labor Relations Board. Fol-
lowing the hearing, this case was transferred to the
National Labor Relations Board in Washington,
D.C., for decision, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as
amended. Thereafter, the Employer and the Peti-
tioner'filed briefs with the Board.
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 reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free
from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, including the
briefs filed by the Employer and the Petitioner, the
Board finds:
1. Columbia University is a private nonprofit in-
stitution of, higher learning with offices and educa-
tional facilities located at New York City and the
surrounding area. During the past year, the Universi-
ty derived gross revenues in excess of $1 million.
During the same period, the University purchased
materials valued in excess of $50,000 directly from
sources located outside the State of New York. Based
on the foregoing stipulated facts, we find that the
Employer is engaged in commerce within the mean-
ing of the Act and that it will effectuate the policies
of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioner claims to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing the representation of employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and
(7) of the Act.
4. Columbia's main campus is located in the
Morningside Heights area of New York City. Colum-
bia also uses property for administrative and aca-
1 The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing
309
demic purposes in the surrounding New York City
area, some within blocks of the main campus and
others more than 15 miles from the main campus.
The University has 70 departments within 16 facul-
ties offering courses of instruction, all of which are
under the overall control of the board of trustees.
The president is the chief executive officer. Columbia
has a student enrollment of approximately 18,000,
with a faculty of approximately 5,000 and some 10,
000 employees.
The Petitioner seeks a unit of approximately 1,000
unrepresented clerical employees at Columbia's
Morningside Heights campus and its environs.2 The
Employer, on the other hand, claims that the only
appropriate unit is one universitywide in scope, en-
compassing all unrepresented clerical employees, in-
cluding those at several off-campus locations, and all
technical employees employed by the University.
There is no collective-bargaining history for either
the employees petitioned for or for the employees
within the scope of the unit urged by the Employer.
As the foregoing indicates, the differences between
the Petitioner and the Employer over what consti-
tutes the appropriate unit for purposes of collective
bargaining involve certain clerical employees located
at three off-campus locations, the Lamont-Doherty
Geological Observatory, the Nevis Laboratories, and
the Treasurer's Office; and certain technical or tech-
nical-type employees employed throughout the Uni-
versity. There also is a dispute over the minimum
number of hours to be used as a cutoff for determin-
ing eligibility for regular part-time employees.
It is not the Board's function to determine whether
a unit might be the most appropriate unit. Rather,
the Board's role is to determine whether the peti-
tioned-for unit can be considered appropriate for
purposes of collective bargaining. As we said in Cor-
nell University, 183 NLRB 329, 330 (1970), in de-
termining whether a particular group of employees
constitutes an appropriate unit for bargaining where
an employer, as here, operates a number of facilities,
the Board considers such factors as prior bargaining
history; centralization of management, particularly
in regard to labor relations; extent of employee inter-
change; degree of interdependence or autonomy of
facilities; differences or similarities in skills and func-
tions of the employees; and geographical location of
the facilities in relation to each other. Accordingly,
with these considerations in mind, we shall examine
the unit requested.
All of the employees of the University are hired
through a centralized personnel office located on the
main campus. The ultimate decision to hire a partic-
2 There are approximately 500 clerical employees at the main campus
who are presently represented by another labor organization
222 NLRB No. 41
310 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ular individual, however, is in all cases made by the
department or facility with the vacancy. It is unusual
for employees to transfer between departments.
There is a centralized wage and salary structure; one
schedule covers clerical employees, and a separate
schedule known as the "R" or research schedule cov-
ers technical employees. All supporting staff employ-
ees of the University are governed by the same per-
sonnel policies and share common benefits.
Nevis Laboratories
Nevis is a research facility engaged in projects in-
volving basic nuclear structures, including energy re-
search and the acceleration of protons using a cyclo-
tron. Located at Irvington, New York, approximately
15 miles north of Columbia's main campus, the facil-
ities at Nevis include a research building, a laborato-
ry, and a cyclotron.
Nearly all of Nevis' funds are provided by the
Federal government. Two separate multimillion dol-
lar projects are funded by the National Science
Foundation. A third project is funded by the Atomic
Energy Commission.
Among the 150 employees at Nevis, there are ap-
proximately 60 technicians and 12 clerical employ-
ees. A sizable number of the technicians are involved
in converting the cyclotron; other technicians are
machining tools, installing plumbing and electrical
equipment, and building computers. Approximately
25 graduate students work with the seven principal
investigators at Nevis. Nevis does its own recruiting
and has its own personnel officer and purchasing
personnel. Although the Nevis Laboratories comply
with all general universitywide policies and proce-
dures, there is no showing of day-to-day direction of
Nevis' operation and affairs by the faculty and ad-
ministration at the Morningside Heights campus.
In view of the geographical separation of the Nevis
Laboratories from the rest of the University, its inde-
pendent function and operation, the fact that it de-
rives its funds' from nonuniversity sources, and the
circumstances set forth above, we conclude that the
employees of Nevis Laboratories have a separate and
distinct community of interest from the employees
sought herein and therefore, we shall exclude them
from the unit.'
Lamont-Doherty Geological
Lamont is a research institute engaged in the study
of the origins and structure of the earth and its rela-
tion to the universe. Located in Palisades, New York,
Lamont is approximately 15 miles from Columbia's
main campus.
Approximately 180 research projects are financed
by approximately $8 million in Federal government
funds, primarily from the National Science Founda-
tion, and by approximately $1.5 million in private
funds. A relatively small portion of Lamont's funds
are provided from the University's general funds. La-
mont employs 100 to 125 clerical employees. Ap-
proximately two-thirds of these clerical employees
are financed by funds provided by Federal govern-
ment contracts. Like Nevis, there is no showing of
day-to-day direction of Lamont's operation and af-
fairs by the faculty and administration at the Morn-
ingside Heights campus. In view of these circum-
stances, we conclude that the employees at Lamont
have a separate and distinct community of interest
from the employees sought herein and, as with the
employees of Nevis Laboratories, we shall exclude
them from the unit.
The Treasurer's Office
The Treasurer's Office is located at 125 Maiden
Lane in New York City, approximately 10 miles from
Columbia's main campus. This office is responsible
for all investments and cash disbursements of the
University. It places all of the insurance for the Uni-
versity. It also is responsible for housing faculty, em-
ployees, and students, and manages approximately
150 buildings. These housing functions are conduct-
ed at two offices located on the main campus.
All employees of the Treasurer's Office receive the
same wage scales and benefits and are governed by
the same personnel policies as other employees of the
University. There have been both temporary and
permanent transfers between the main office located
on Maiden Lane and the two housing offices located
on the main campus. In its brief, Petitioner acknowl-
edges that the employees of the Treasurer's Office
have numerous contacts with the main campus, in-
cluding some interchange and interlocking supervi-
sion, and that the Treasurer's Office is geographically
part of the same urban area. Based on the foregoing
and the record as a whole, we conclude that the cleri-
cal employees of the Treasurer's Office share a com-
munity of interest with the other employees sought
by the Petitioner. Accordingly, we shall include these
employees in the unit.
The Technical Employees
At the outset, we note that the parties chose not to
give a detailed description of all the job classifica-
tions held by the 300 to 350 employees alleged to be
technicals. Instead, the parties agreed that three
groups of technical employees would be representa-
TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 311
tive of all of the Employer's technical employees, and
that the Board could base-its determination upon an
examination of the job functions of these representa-
tive employees. These groups are the technical em-
ployees in the chemistry and biology departments,
representing basic science research, and the technical
employees in the Bureau of Applied Social Research
(BASK), representing the social sciences. According-
ly, as the parties would have the technical employees
treated as a group, we will make our determination
on this basis.
The record shows that the central organizational
structure 'of the chemistry department includes a de-
partmental office, a business office, a stockroom, and
a technical support group which constructs and
maintains the equipment used in research projects
conducted by the department. There are also approx-
imately 20 substructures operating in the chemistry
department, each of which is engaged in a research
project under the direction of a professor who is re-
ferred to as a principal investigator. The principal
investigator directs the work of research associates,
graduate students, and technicians. He also generally
has a secretary, but relies on the departmental office
for additional clerical support.
The clericals assigned to the departmental office,
as well as to the individual research projects, perform
typical clerical work. All clerical employees work a
regular 9-to-5 shift, as do the technical employees
assigned at the departmental level; but the technical
employees assigned to individual research projects
vary their hours to accommodate the needs of the
research.
According to the director of chemistry laborato-
ries, the technical employees in the chemistry depart-
ment perform almost the same functions as the re-
search associates. The essential difference in these
two groups is that the technical employees have not
attained the same academic levels as the research as-
sociates. They have received, however, highly spe-
cialized training and experience in preparation for
the jobs they perform. Among the technical employ-
ees in the chemistry department who have highly spe-
cialized training and experience are the following:
operators of fermentators involved in biophysical re-
search, chemists, electronics technicians, and instru-
ment makers.
There is no interchange of technical and clerical
employees in the chemistry department. All clerical
employees are on one pay schedule and all technical
employees are on a separate pay schedule known as
the "R" or research schedule.
The record also shows that the biology department
is organized and operated along the same lines as the
chemistry department. Again, there is a departmental
structure and approximately 17 research' projects
being directed by principal investigators. There is a
central pool of secretaries in the departmental office
and, as in the chemistry department, the technical
employees perform highly specialized functions.
With respect to the operation of the social science
departments, the record shows that the Bureau of
Applied Social Research (BASR) is also organized
and operated along the same lines as the chemistry
and biology departments. It has a central departmen-
tal office and individual research projects. Among
the disputed positions in BASK are 17 research assis-
tant positions. The record shows that these research
assistants have been trained in the social sciences,
generally with an undergraduate degree, but in many
instances they are working on advanced degrees.
Moreover, they are familiar with statistical tech-
niques and computer programming. We find that the
qualifications of the research assistants and their
functions and responsibilities clearly show that they
are, at the very least, highly specialized technical em-
ployees and that their job functions cannot in any
way be described as clerical in nature.
From the foregoing and the entire record, we find
that significant differences exist between technical
employees and clerical employees concerning job
functions, responsibilities, use of initiative, and inde-
pendent judgment. The job functions of the technical
employees are of a highly specialized nature and in
many cases they exercise the type of skill and judg-
ment required of professional employees. Because of
the nature of their duties, the technical employees
work in close conjunction with professional employ-
ees and the clerical employees appear to be merely
supportive of this function. Although technical em-
ployees and clerical employees share common bene-
fits, they are governed by separate pay schedules. It
is also significant that a pattern of separate represen-
tation for clerical employees at the University has
been previously established and that, at the present
time, the Employer has a collective-bargaining rela-
tionship with another labor organization which cov-
ers some 500 clerical employees at the University's
main campus. Accordingly, in the circumstances of
this case, we find that the technical employees have
interests sufficiently different to allow their exclusion
from the unit of clerical employees sought by the
Petitioner.
A final matter for our determination is the eligibili-
ty standard for part-time employees. The
University's practice is to treat as regular part-time
employees those unrepresented employees who work
at least 20 hours per week. Such individuals are cov-
ered under established wage and benefit programs in
effect at the University. Petitioner urges the cutoff be
312 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
set at 10 hours. In the absence of any other clearly
defined and uniform system of classifying part-time
employees, we find that regular part-time employees
eligible to vote in the election are those individuals
who work at least 20 hours per week and are covered
under the University's regular wage and benefit pro-
grams.'
3 Petitioner presented evidence that the Employer has negotiated and exe-
cuted one contract with "a 10-hour minimum to qualify as a regular part-
time employee , and a second contract provides for a 14-hour minimum. We
find the negotiated terms of these agreements to be of insufficient weight to
be controlling where , as here , the University has a specific policy as to the
treatment of part-time employees.
We find the following employees constitute a unit
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All unrepresented full-time and regular part-
time clerical employees working 20 hours or
more per week who are employed by Columbia
University at the Morningside Heights campus
and at 43rd Street, 98th Street, Baker's Field,
and at the Treasurer's Office; but excluding all
other employees, guards, and supervisors as de-
fined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit-
ted from publication.]