Peninsula Hospital Center, 139 (1975)

PENINSULA HOSPITAL CENTER

Peninsula Hospital Center and Peninsula General Nursing Home Corp., Employer-Petitioner and District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, RWDSU, AFL-CIO.

Case 29-UC-55

July 15, 1975 DECISION AND ORDER

This decision arises from a petition for clarification of a unit duly filed by Peninsula Hospital Center and Peninsula General Nursing Home Corp. on September 18, 1974. A hearing was held on October 15, 17, 21, and 25, 1974, before Hearing Officer Richard Epifanio. On December 11, 1974, the Regional Director for Region 29 issued an order transferring the case to the Board for decision.

The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.

Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds:

1. Peninsula Hospital Center and Peninsula General Nursing Home Corp. are New York corporations having their principal places of business located at Far Rockaway, New York. The parties stipulated, and we find, that they have a common labor relations policy, and that they constitute a single employer. The Employer is engaged in the operation of a private, nonprofit, health care facility. It has a gross annual revenue exceeding $1 million annually and receives goods from outside the State of New York having an annual value exceeding $50,000. The parties stipulated, and we find, that the Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act.

   We further find that it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.

2. The parties stipulated, and we find, that District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, RWDSU, AFL-CIO, is a labor organization within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act and is the currently recognized representative of various categories of employees: service and maintenance, guards, clerical, technical, social workers, and pharmacists.

3. The Employer does not question the status of the Union as the bargaining representative of the employees in the categories described above. It alleges, however, that 'guards' perform the duties of 'guards' as described in Section 9(b)(3) of the Act, and it has invoked the Board's clarification proceedings for the purposes of clarifying its legal obligations, under the statute, to continue recognizing the Union as the representative of any unit which in139 eludes its guards. Its petition defines the currently recognized status of the Union as embracing all the above-described employees in one single unit.

   The Union does not concede that the Employer's guards do in fact fall within this statutory definition of 'guards' contained in Section 9(b)(3) of the Act.

   But it contends that, in any event, dismissal of the petition is warranted on any one or more of the following asserted grounds(1) It currently represents guards as a separate and distinct bargaining unit rather than a mixed unit of guards and nonguards and there is therefore no unit dispute of a kind appropriate for resolution via the clarification route.

   (2) The Employer is a member of the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes of New York (hereinafter the League),' which bargains with District 1199 on a multiemployer rather than on a single-employer basis and the Employer cannot appropriately invoke the clarification procedure herein without the consent of the other parties.

   (3) The instant petition should be dismissed as untimely because, as a result of the negotiations conducted by and between the League and the Union and culminating in a contract agreed to on or about July 26, 1974, some 2 months before the instant petition was filed the Employer became bound by that contract-one covering its represented...