USC Norris Cancer Hospital (Norris)

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 19, 2012

21-RD-002890 (N.L.R.B. Jul. 19, 2012)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
USC NORRIS CANCER HOSPITAL (NORRIS)
Employer
and
GLORIA QUIOAN, an Individual
Petitioner Case 21-RD-2890
and
CALIFORNIA NURSES ASSOCIATION/
NATIONAL NURSES ORGANIZING
COMMITTEE, NNU
Union
ORDER
Petitioner’s Request for Review of the Acting Regional Director’s Decision and
Order Dismissing Petition is denied as it raises no substantial issues warranting review.1
RICHARD F. GRIFFIN, JR., MEMBER
SHARON BLOCK, MEMBER
Member Hayes, dissenting in part:
I would grant the Petitioner’s Request for Review, reverse the Acting Regional
Director, and remand this case with directions to conduct an election in the petitioned-for
single facility unit. In my view, the Acting Regional Director clearly erred by finding
that the 2005 side agreement between predecessor employer Tenet Healthsystem and the
California Nurses Association (CNA) was not part of the master agreement adopted by

1 The Petitioner seeks to decertify the Union as the representative of the Norris Hospital nurses. The
petition is therefore inconsistent on its face with longstanding Board policy requiring that the unit at issue
in a decertification election be coextensive with the existing bargaining unit--here, a two-facility unit that
includes the nurses at USC University Hospital. The policy is based on the premise that the employees
who are represented in the existing unit should not be deprived of representation in that unit unless a
majority of those employees so desire.
Before we even consider an exception to this policy, it is incumbent on the Petitioner to meet her
evidentiary burden supporting such an exception. The Petitioner has not done so. She has provided no
evidence of any history of collective bargaining in the petitioned-for unit. Instead, relying heavily on a
2005 "side agreement" between the Union and Tenet Healthsystem Norris, Inc., a predecessor of the current
Employer, the Petitioner contends that the Union consented to a decertification election in the originally
certified unit, which comprised the Norris nurses only. The applicability of that side agreement is in doubt,
however. Most significantly, the Petitioner has supplied no evidence of the agreement's duration, and we
are not persuaded that it remains in effect.
Given the Petitioner's failure to meet her burden, we deny her request for review.
2
current Employer USC Norris Cancer Hospital (Norris). Notwithstanding any multi-
facility bargaining, both the CNA and Tenet expressly consented in the side agreement to
stipulate in any subsequent decertification election that the appropriate unit for Norris
hospital employees would be the originally certified single-facility unit. This agreement
remained in effect and binding on both the CNA and Norris. Such an agreement should
be given effect unless contrary to statutory provision or policy, and it clearly is not;
rather, it effectuates employee free choice by providing for a decertification election in
the same appropriate single-facility unit in which the original representation election took
place.
BRIAN E. HAYES, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., July 19, 2012.