NLRB Modifies Unit Determination Standard in Non-Acute Health Care Facilities

September 14, 2011

In its third significant case in a matter of days, the National Labor Relations Board overruled longstanding precedent and changed the standard for determining what constitutes an appropriate unit for bargaining in non-acute health care facilities. The Board’s decision in Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of Mobile, overrules Park Manor Care Center, a decision which stood for 20 years. In Park Manor, the NLRB applied a “pragmatic or empirical community-of-interest” standard for non-acute health care facilities, including nursing homes and rehabilitation centers, which encouraged larger bargaining units to avoid burdening health care facilities with many smaller units which could be represented by multiple unions. Larger units are also generally more difficult for unions to organize.

In Specialty Healthcare, the union petitioned to be certified as the bargaining agent for 53 CNAs. The employer argued that the group of CNAs was not an appropriate unit by themselves, and under Park Manor, the only appropriate unit was one which included all nonprofessional service and maintenance employees. The Board rejected the employer’s argument, finding that the pragmatic community-of-interest approach announced in Park Manor was obsolete, and that the traditional “community-of-interest” unit determination standard must be applied to non-acute health care facilities. Under the traditional community-of-interest standard, the Board considers whether the relevant groups of employees:

are organized into separate departments;
have distinct skills and training;
have distinct job functions and perform distinct work;
are functionally integrated;
have frequent contact with each other;
are interchanged with each other;
have distinct terms and conditions of employment; and
are separately supervised.

The Board went on to hold that if an employer asserts that a group of employees must be included in the petitioned-for a unit, the employer has the burden to show that there is an overwhelming community-of-interest that would justify enlarging the petitioned-for unit.

The implications of the decision are significant because unions will now be able to isolate particular job classifications and organize facilities on a piecemeal basis, increasing the likelihood of a successful organizing campaign and reducing the amount of resources necessary to successfully organize. The case also increases the probability that multiple units with different unions will be certified in a single facility.

Overview