National Labor Relations Board v. Catherine Mcauley Health Center

885 F.2d 341, 132 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2734, 1989 U.S. App. LEXIS 14003
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 20, 1989
Docket88-5455
StatusPublished

This text of 885 F.2d 341 (National Labor Relations Board v. Catherine Mcauley Health Center) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
National Labor Relations Board v. Catherine Mcauley Health Center, 885 F.2d 341, 132 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2734, 1989 U.S. App. LEXIS 14003 (6th Cir. 1989).

Opinion

885 F.2d 341

132 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2734, 58 USLW 2288,
112 Lab.Cas. P 11,452

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner,
v.
CATHERINE McAULEY HEALTH CENTER, doing business as Mercy
Health Building, a division of Sisters of Mercy
Health Corporation, Respondent.

No. 88-5455.

United States Court of Appeals,
Sixth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 14, 1989.
Decided Sept. 20, 1989.

Aileen A. Armstrong, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, Peter Winkler, Charles P. Donnelly, Jr., William M. Bernstein (argued), N.L.R.B., Office of the General Counsel, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

A. David Mikesell (argued), Honigman, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn, Detroit, Mich., for respondent.

Before GUY and NORRIS, Circuit Judges; and BELL, District Judge.*

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge.

The National Labor Relations Board petitions for enforcement of its order finding the employer in violation of Sections 8(a)(1) and (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 158(a)(1) and (5), for refusal to bargain. We must determine whether the Board properly invoked its "single-facility presumption" in a bargaining unit scope determination regarding some employees located in one building of a hospital complex. Because we believe that a factual predicate for application of the presumption, geographical separation, is not present, and that under the traditional "community of interests" standard the evidence does not support the Board's finding, we deny enforcement.

I.

Catherine McAuley Health Center, a division of Sisters of Mercy Health Corporation, d/b/a Mercywood Health Building ("McAuley"), has for many years maintained health care facilities providing inpatient and outpatient medical services in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. The main facility is located on Huron River Drive, where McAuley operates, among other services, a hospital, a drug rehabilitation facility, an inpatient ambulatory care center, a building housing offices and a motel, an urgent care facility, an education center, and a child care facility. Prior to 1986, McAuley also operated Mercywood Hospital ("Mercywood"), a mental health facility, at a separate location eighteen miles from the main facility.

This dispute arose from the relocation of Mercywood to the Huron River Drive location, and the relocation's effect on union representation of certain employees of Mercywood. In 1979, McAuley established a single governance board to consolidate management of the two facilities. The board determined that the mental health facility should be moved to the Huron River Drive location. Consequently, in 1983, McAuley began construction of a new building at the main facility.

In 1984, Local 79, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO ("the union"), filed a petition to represent the service and maintenance employees at Mercywood, which was still located at its original site. On November 2, 1984, the union, upon receiving a majority of votes in a representation election, was certified as the collective bargaining representative for employees in the following unit at Mercywood:

All full-time and regular part-time environmental aids, linen aids, discharge cleaning aids, environment specialists, lead aids, wall washers, food service workers, dishwashers, cooks I, cooks II, head cooks, psychiatric aids, maintenance employees, groundskeepers, drivers, maintenance utility workers, lead groundskeeper, mechanic boiler relief employees, painters, coordinator preventive maintenance employees, construction coordinators, recreational therapy aids, occupational therapy aids, and unit information clerks, employed by Mercywood Hospital, but excluding all office clerical employees, casual employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act, and all other employees.

A one-year collective bargaining agreement, effective between November 7, 1985 and November 7, 1986, was negotiated. The parties appended to the collective bargaining agreement a "Letter of Agreement," which stated that the collective bargaining agreement "shall be applicable at a new location in the event Mercywood Hospital is moved to another location to the extent required by law." (Emphasis added.)

On August 19, 1986, union business agent Michele Fecteau and union attorney Michael Haggerty met with McAuley's Director of Employee Relations, Dorothy Brown, and McAuley attorney David Mikesell to discuss Mercywood's move. The union requested specific information regarding Mercywood's move and its effect upon the employees. Mikesell and Brown indicated that the move of employees would be "en masse" and that McAuley intended to respect the collective bargaining agreement at the new facility.

On October 6, McAuley received the union's demands for a new collective bargaining agreement. Four days later, Mikesell met with Fecteau and another union representative. Mikesell informed them that negotiations could be fruitless because the separate Mercywood bargaining unit might cease to exist if the move was considered a merger, but nonetheless agreed to meet for bargaining.

Before the parties could meet for negotiations, McAuley moved the Mercywood operations to its main location according to schedule, on October 25, 1986. A letter was distributed to all Mercywood employees advising them that Mercywood's move completed McAuley's integration of its physical and mental health programs and that McAuley had "decided that it is no longer appropriate to continue to recognize a separate bargaining unit for Mercywood employees. We have, therefore, notified the [union] that we no longer recognize them as representing the eighty-nine employees in the former Mercywood bargaining unit." Mikesell sent Fecteau a letter to this effect. McAuley's representative failed to appear for negotiation sessions scheduled for November 5 and 6, and the collective bargaining agreement expired by its terms on November 7.

The record reflects that, following the relocation, McAuley's staff consisted of approximately 2,700 employees, divisible into four distinct groups: 475 supervisory and management employees; 1,500 professional licensed employees, including registered nurses, medical technologists and physical therapists; 300 clerical employees, and 400 service and maintenance employees, including environmental aides, food service employees, psychiatric aides, unit assistants, physical medical aids, surgical aids, and engineering and maintenance employees. According to the Board's estimation, somewhere between forty-eight and ninety-eight of the service and maintenance employees work at the Mercywood building. By and large, the service and maintenance group at the new Mercywood facility and that of the old facility consist of the same persons. There occurred some interchange, however, as Mercywood's food service employees, maintenance employees, and groundskeepers were incorporated into McAuley's central departments.

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Bluebook (online)
885 F.2d 341, 132 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2734, 1989 U.S. App. LEXIS 14003, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-labor-relations-board-v-catherine-mcauley-health-center-ca6-1989.