Monongahela Valley Hospital Incorporated

Case Number: 06-UC-000488

Date Filed: 12/03/2007

Status: Closed

No. of Employees: 500

Location: Monongahela, PA

Region Assigned: Region 06, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Unit Description: Unit Involved: There is currently a contract between the United Steelworkers and Monongahela Valley Hospital Incorporated for the Hospital's not for profit acute care facility on Country Club Road in Carroll Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania. The bargaining unit description under the recognition clause in the contract is for "all of the employees of the Hospital excluding nurses, supervisors, confidential and all others as defined in the National Labor Relations Act." The parties also have a side letter agreement that extends bargaining unit and contract coverage to employees of the Hospital who do bargaining unit work at the Women's Health Center located at the Willowpointe HealthPlex facility in Rostraver, Pennsylvania. Proposed Clarification: The Hospital has recently created three new positions at the Willowpointe HealthPlex facility that perform work traditionally done by employees in the bargaining unit. These positions include Phlebotomist, an EKG-Techncian, an an Environmental Aide. Bargaining unit employees are eligible to transfer to these newly created positions. These newly created positions also do similar work to and share common supervision with the bargaining unit members already located at the Women's Health Center at the Willopointe HealthPlex facility. There is a strong community of interest between these three employees and the existing bargaining unit members. Since these positions were created during the life of the existing contract between the parties they should be eligible to be accreted into the bargaining unit at this time. Safeway Carrier, Inc., 256 NLRB 918 (1981). Furthermore, because this is a small group of employees, it fits into the Board's standards for accretion and should not require an election. Safety carrier, 306 NLRB 960 (1992). In fact, since these employees are actually performing the same work that the bargaining unit has traditionally performed, they can be viewed as part of the bargaining unit already, and not an accretion. Premcor, Inc., 333 NLRB 1365 (2001); Development Disabilities, Institute, 334 NLRB 1166 (2001). Accordingly, the United Steelworkers submits that the proper bargaining unit, as clarified, shoul include all of the employees of the Hospital including those employees of the Hospital who perform bargaining unit work at the Willowpointe HealthPlesx facility.