Source: https://openjurist.org/582/f2d/686/national-labor-relations-board-v-yeshiva-university
Timestamp: 2017-10-19 18:52:08
Document Index: 775167744

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 9', '§ 159', '§ 152', '§ 152', '§ 152', '§ 235']

582 F2d 686 National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University | OpenJurist
582 F. 2d 686 - National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University
582 F2d 686 National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University
582 F.2d 686
98 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3245, 84 Lab.Cas. P 10,732
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, Respondent,
Yeshiva University Faculty Association, Intervenor.
No. 852, Docket 77-4182.
Howard E. Perlstein, Washington, D. C. (John S. Irving, Gen. Counsel, John E. Higgins, Jr., Deputy Gen. Counsel, Carl L. Taylor, Associate Gen. Counsel, Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, N.L.R.B., Washington, D. C.), for petitioner.
Saul G. Kramer, New York City (Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn, New York City, Peter G. Samuels, Gerald A. Bodner, New York City, Labor Counsel to respondent), for respondent.
Ronald H. Shechtman, New York City (Gordon & Shechtman, Murray A. Gordon, New York City, of counsel), for intervenor.
Matthew W. Finkin, Duke University, Durham, N. C., David E. Feller, University of California, Berkeley, Cal., of counsel, for amicus curiae American Association of University Professors.
Richard Semeraro, New York City, for New York University; Jerome Medalie, Boston, Mass. (Widett, Widett, Slater & Goldman, Boston, Mass.), for Northeastern University; Ronald DeMaria, Newark, N. J. (Lum, Biunno & Tompkins, Newark, N. J.), for Fairleigh Dickinson University; Alan Miller, Boston, Mass. (Stoneman, Chandler & Miller, Boston, Mass.), for Boston University; Nicholas DiGiovanni, Jr., Boston, Mass. (Morgan, Brown, Kearns & Joy, Boston, Mass.), for University of Vermont; Daniel Riesel, New York City (Winer, Neuburger & Sive, New York City), of counsel, for amici curiae.
Lawrence A. Poltrock, Chicago, Ill., Michael Radzilowsky, Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, amicus curiae.
* On October 30, 1974 the Union filed a petition under § 9(e) of the National Labor Relations Act (the Act), as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 159(e), for certification of a bargaining unit consisting of full-time faculty at Yeshiva University.1 In opposition Yeshiva contended that all its faculty members are managerial or supervisory personnel and hence not employees within the meaning of the Act. Alternatively, the University sought a unit consisting of all full-time and regular part-time faculty with certain exclusions for managerial or supervisory personnel. Between November 26, 1974 and May 6, 1975 hearings were conducted before a Board-appointed hearing officer. On December 5, 1975 the Board issued its decision and direction of election, reported at 221 N.L.R.B. 1053.
The Board found that the Union was a labor organization within the meaning of the Act and that University faculty were professional employees and not managerial or supervisory personnel. The Board further found that department chairmen, assistant deans, and faculty members of certain committees with University-wide jurisdiction were neither managerial nor supervisory personnel. The Board concluded that a unit of full-time faculty was an appropriate bargaining unit.2
On this appeal, Yeshiva argues principally, as it did before the Board, that the full-time faculty of the University are managerial and/or supervisory employees within the meaning of the Act and are therefore excluded from the Act's coverage. Yeshiva also urges that two assistant deans and faculty who are departmental or divisional chairmen, or who are members of certain committees on University affairs, exercise additional authority which mandates their classification as supervisors and/or managers.3 Before examining these contentions it is necessary to review the structure of Yeshiva and the role played by the faculty in the operation and governance of the University.
Yeshiva University is a private institution of higher education chartered under the laws of the State of New York. Its offices and educational facilities are located on four widely separated campuses in New York City. We are here concerned with Yeshiva's six undergraduate colleges and programs,4 and four graduate schools.5 Approximately 2,500 full and part-time students are enrolled at Yeshiva. The University is staffed by 209 full-time and 150 part-time faculty members.6
When the need for a new faculty member arises Rabbi Faivelson asks the faculty7 whether they have any objections to the applicants. Faivelson stated that if any faculty member has the slightest objection the applicant is not hired. On an occasion where Faivelson favored termination of a faculty member for budgetary reasons the faculty voted against the termination and the faculty member was retained.
Rabbi Charlop is the Director of the Yeshiva Program, which provides a course of study in Talmudic texts. There are no traditional faculty ranks at the Yeshiva Program. Rabbi Charlop testified that decisions affecting academic matters are made by a consensus of the faculty. In one instance the faculty decided to extend the academic calendar by two weeks and this decision was implemented.7. Belfer Graduate School
The major issue raised in this case is whether the full-time faculty8 of Yeshiva are supervisors within section 2(11) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(11), and/or managerial personnel within the Board's own definition as adopted by the courts, and therefore whether these faculty members are improperly included as employees in the bargaining unit.9
It is well settled in the industrial context that possession of any one of the enumerated powers in section 2(11) or the power to effectively recommend with respect to any one of them is sufficient to satisfy the statutory definition of a supervisor.10 E. g., NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 405 F.2d 1169, 1177 (2d Cir. 1968); NLRB v. Quincy Steel Casting Co., Inc., 200 F.2d 293 (1st Cir. 1952); Ohio Power Co. v. NLRB, 176 F.2d 385 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 338 U.S. 899, 70 S.Ct. 249, 94 L.Ed. 553 (1949).
Managerial employees are exempted from the coverage of the Act not by explicit statutory language but as a matter of Board policy and unanimous court approval. NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., Division of Textron, Inc., 416 U.S. 267, 285-89, 94 S.Ct. 1757, 40 L.Ed.2d 134 (1974). Employees who fall within this category include " 'those who formulate, determine, and effectuate an employer's policies.' " Retail Clerks International Association v. NLRB,125 U.S.App.D.C. 63, 66, 366 F.2d 642, 645 (1966) (Burger, J.), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 1017, 87 S.Ct. 1373, 18 L.Ed.2d 455 (1967). In NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., Division of Textron, Inc., supra, the Supreme Court emphasized the mandatory nature of the exclusion of all employees found to be managerial.
Id. 416 U.S. at 289, 94 S.Ct. at 1769. The Court concluded that the Board " 'is not now free' to read a new and more restrictive meaning into the Act" by which certain managerial employees would be held to be within its coverage. Id.
The record, which has been set forth in some detail in Part II and which is not controverted by the Board, strongly supports the contention of Yeshiva that its full-time faculty, acting at times through committees or department chairmen,11 and at other times as a body, exercise supervisory and managerial functions as defined by section 2(11) of the Act and within the Board's prior holdings as discussed in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., Division of Textron, Inc. We stress that our function is not to examine In vacuo the governance procedures of all four-year private institutions of learning described in the briefs of the Amici universities as "mature" institutions of higher education. Many such institutions have apparently adopted a collegial decision making process in which the faculty plays a decisive role in the development of institutional policy. Given the great diversity in governance structure and allocation of power at such universities it is appropriate to address ourselves solely to the situation at the institution involved in this proceeding. NLRB v. Wentworth Institute, 515 F.2d 550, 556 (1st Cir. 1975). The record here discloses that in many instances the full-time faculty of the schools of Yeshiva without question effectively recommend the hiring, promotion, salary and tenure of the faculty of the University in a manner which can hardly be described as routine or clerical. They further perform managerial functions not only by their personnel decisions but by adopting the standards of admission, the curriculum, the grading system and the graduation requirements of their school. Moreover, in particular cases the hiring of deans, the physical location of a school, teaching loads, and even the tuition to be charged were controlled by the full-time faculty. Indeed, the ability of the full-time faculty effectively to recommend or even to exercise many of the enumerated powers of section 2(11) and to formulate and effectuate University policy is not really disputed here. The Board's decision of December 5, 1975 treated the issue summarily.
Under section 2(12) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(12),12 a professional employee is specifically included within the Act's coverage despite the fact that in the performance of his work he must exercise consistent discretion and judgment. Yeshiva does not argue that its full-time faculty members are not professional within the statutory definition of that term. They are obviously engaged in work which is "predominately intellectual," requiring advanced knowledge in a field of learning, and they do not perform work which is "routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical" in nature. However, the fact that employees are professional does not preclude them from also being categorized as supervisory or managerial employees ineligible for inclusion in a bargaining unit. See, e. g., General Dynamics Corp., 213 N.L.R.B. 851, 860, 862, 863 (1974); Westinghouse Electric Corp., supra, at 726; American Oil Co., 155 N.L.R.B. 46, 48, 49 (1965); Puget Sound Power & Light Co., 117 N.L.R.B. 1825, 1827 (1957). Even in an educational setting, the Board in University of Chicago Library, 205 N.L.R.B. 220 (1973), enf'd, 506 F.2d 1402 (7th Cir. 1974) and Claremont Colleges, 198 N.L.R.B. 811 (1972) excluded professional librarians from a unit of library employees because they supervised non- professionals. Hence, it has been established by the Board's own decisions that simply because individuals are professionals under section 2(12), that status Per se does not preclude their classification as supervisory or managerial personnel.
Whether, as a matter of policy, faculty members of institutions of higher learning are advantaged or disadvantaged by collective bargaining is an issue which has understandably created divergent views.13 But the Board, like the court, is bound both by the Act and by prior judicial interpretations of it. Unquestionably, a university full-time faculty member has the authority to determine the content of his course, the method he employs in teaching it, and the evaluation of his students' academic performance. New York University, supra, at 5. These factors place such faculty members squarely within the language of section 2(12) and these attributes of professionalism should not characterize them as managerial or supervisory.
The Board here adheres to the view it first expressed in C. W. Post Center of Long Island University, 189 N.L.R.B. 904 (1971) and has reiterated in Northeastern University, 218 N.L.R.B. 247 (1975); University of Miami, 213 N.L.R.B. 634 (1974); Adelphi University, supra; and Fordham University, supra. The Board's position is that since the faculty's supervisory and managerial functions are exercised "on a collective basis" rather than by individual faculty members, they must be denied status as supervisory or managerial personnel. The Board's rationale is not adequately explained in this or in its prior opinions.14 Section 2(11) does, however, state that it is applicable to "an individual" who possesses the enumerated indicia of supervision. Since the control here in issue is not that of individual faculty member over nonprofessionals, but the collective control exercised by the faculty either in concert, through department chairmen, or through faculty dominated committees, it must be conceded that if read literally the statutory definition can be construed not to cover the full-time faculty. Since students are not employees the individual faculty supervision over students does not fit within the statutory definition, which requires that the supervisory power be directed to employees. There is the further logical difficulty of holding that the supervisory employees supervise other supervisory employees, cf. General Dynamics Corp., supra, at 859; Post-Newsweek Stations, Capital Area, Inc., 203 N.L.R.B. 522 (1973), although this is somewhat defused when we consider that in many of Yeshiva's schools the full-time faculty also supervise collectively the activities of the part-time faculty.
We need not resolve this point, however, since there is no such " individual" statutory restriction in the Board's own concept of "managerial employees." In fact, in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., Division of Textron, Inc., supra, the managerial personnel found not to be within the collective bargaining unit exercised their managerial functions as a "team." Id. 416 U.S. at 270, 94 S.Ct. 1757.15 Logically, we see no reason that the fact that the policies of a company are created by a group (as indeed they usually are by the Board of Directors) rather than by an individual should be of significance in determining whether an individual has managerial status, and the Board has advanced no satisfactory rationale for the weight it has given this factor.
As it has done consistently in the past,16 the Board here denied managerial or supervisory status to the full-time faculty on the additional ground that the faculty is alleged to be acting on its own behalf and not on behalf of Yeshiva, its employer. The record in no way supports this proposition and in its argument the Board simply advances the conclusory statement that collegial action by peers is inherently action in the interest of the faculty themselves, not in the interest of the University Qua Employer. Indeed, this is characterized in the Board's brief as a "circumstance peculiar to most institutions of higher learning." However, looking at the record one cannot escape the conclusion that even assuming that the faculty's determinations on personnel, curriculum, admissions, grading, graduation requirements and other policy issues were motivated by the faculty's own best interests, the fact that the administration and Board of Trustees of Yeshiva so rarely interfered in the faculty decisions indicates that the interests of the faculty and of the University were almost always co-extensive. Cf. NLRB v. Scott Paper Co., 440 F.2d 625, 630 (1st Cir. 1971) (court rejected Board's argument that tractor owner-operators were not supervisors because authority not exercised in interest of employer company on ground that interests "were so intertwined that powers were exercised for both."); Deaton Truck Line, Inc. v. NLRB, 337 F.2d 697 (5th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 381 U.S. 903, 85 S.Ct. 1448, 14 L.Ed.2d 285 (1965) (same). Certainly, the deans whom the Board found to be supervisory or managerial displayed a remarkable degree of acquiescence and often went so far as to proclaim their identity of interest with the faculty.17 The full-time faculty as a whole or through committees have not in fact acted simply in an advisory capacity, nor have they merely made recommendations which were accorded substantial weight; their decisions on major policy issues have, for the most part proved definitive. Our review of the record leads us to conclude that at Yeshiva University, as Director Faivelson remarked of the Teacher's Institute: "The faculty is the school."
(t)hese three components have the joint authority and responsibility for governing the institution, and the essential and overriding idea is that the enterprise is joint and that there must be "adequate communication among these components, and full opportunity for appropriate joint planning and effort."
Although none of the criteria applied by the Board which we have so far discussed has any particular appeal, the concept that the faculty has neither managerial nor supervisory status because it is subject to the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees is particularly unconvincing.18 Normally, every corporation is ultimately operated by its Board of Directors, W. Cary, Corporations 153 (4th ed. 1969), and yet that fact obviously has never precluded a finding that there are managerial or supervisory employees in the corporation. Certainly the President and Vice-Presidents of Yeshiva as well as its Deans are subject to the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees and yet this does not prevent them from holding managerial or supervisory status.
Section 2(11), in defining a supervisor, expressly includes those who have the power "effectively to recommend" any of the enumerated actions. Obviously then, the section contemplates a review by some higher authority.19 In another context we have already indicated
NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., supra, at 1177 (emphasis supplied).20
We are urged by the Board that its factual findings as to employee status are entitled to great weight and are not lightly set aside. Stop & Shop Companies, Inc. v. NLRB, 548 F.2d 17, 18 (1st Cir. 1977); NLRB v. Monroe Tube Co., Inc., 545 F.2d 1320, 1325 (2d Cir. 1976); Amalgamated Local 355 v. NLRB, supra, at 1000; NLRB v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., supra, at 1172. Thus, a Board determination that an individual is an employee under the Act will stand if it has warrant in the record and a reasonable basis in the statute. E. g., Bayside Enterprises, Inc. v. NLRB, 429 U.S. 298, 97 S.Ct. 576, 50 L.Ed.2d 494 (1977); NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U.S. 111, 131, 64 S.Ct. 851, 88 L.Ed. 1170 (1944).21 However, with respect to the status of full-time faculty the Board here has made no factual findings which would preclude supervisory or managerial status, nor has the Board advanced any persuasive rationale for refusing to so categorize Yeshiva's faculty.
It is clear that the Congress, when it amended the Act in 1947, had no contemplation that it would be applied to professional faculties in private institutions of higher learning.22 Their governance is unique and has no counterpart in the commercial business models the Act was designed to regulate.23 Absent a legislative amendment, it would seem that an appropriate method to explore fully the special problems created by the Board's assumption of jurisdiction here would be by rule-making. See Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, at 304; NLRB v. Wentworth Institute, supra, at 556. Both the American Association of University Professors (which has filed an Amicus curiae brief here) and the Association of American Universities have requested the Board to institute a rule-making proceeding to guide the determination of issues in representation cases involving faculty members of colleges and universities. On July 16, 1971 the Board denied the petition, stating in part, "The Board believes that to adopt inflexible rules for units of teaching employees at this time might well introduce too great an element of rigidity and prevent the Board from adapting its approach to a highly pluristic and fluid set of conditions." Quoted in Kahn, supra, at 88.
The Board here has argued that each case must rest on its own facts. However, in its adjudicative process the Board has consistently applied the rigid criteria we have discussed. In any event, in this case the facts compel the conclusion under long established standards that the full-time faculty has managerial status, and as the Supreme Court indicated in NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., Division of Textron, Inc., supra, 416 U.S. at 289, 94 S.Ct. at 1769, the Board is not now free "to read a new and more restrictive meaning into the Act." We find here that the Board, for the reasons given, has applied unjustified, arbitrary standards and therefore we refuse to enforce the Board's order. See Niagara University v. NLRB, supra.
The Union did not seek to include within the proposed unit the faculty of several schools and affiliates of the University: the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Sue Golding Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Yeshiva High School, the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, and several theological and community programs. The University did not contest the exclusion from the unit of these faculty members. Accordingly, the above divisions of Yeshiva are not here involved and all references to Yeshiva University exclude these schools and programs
Other faculty excluded from the unit sought by the Union and approved by the Board were part-time faculty; lecturers; Deans, acting deans and Directors; faculty whose initial and subsequent appointment is subject to special funding derived in the main from non-University funds or whose initial or subsequent appointment is in connection with special projects; the Registrar; visiting professors (with effective faculty appointments at other academic institutions); librarians; research assistants; research associates; emeritus faculty not actively engaged in teaching at the University; officers of the University; all other administrative and support personnel; guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
The unit approved by the Board included full-time faculty with the titles of professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, or any adjunct or visiting faculty member with such rank, department chairmen, division chairmen, senior faculty and assistant deans. The Board also found that "terminal" faculty members, i. e., those who at the date of the election had received notice of termination or non-renewal of appointment, had reached the mandatory retirement age or had given notice of intention to resign, were eligible to vote if still employed at the date of the election
Thus the unit sought by the Union was found appropriate with one minor exception: faculty members administering grants under awards by Government or private agencies were excluded from the unit as supervisors under the Act.
Yeshiva also argues that the Board abused its discretion by excluding part-time faculty from the unit, and permitting terminal faculty members to vote in the election
The undergraduate units of Yeshiva are Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, The Teacher's Institute for Women, The Erna Michael College of Hebraic Studies (Erna Michael College), James Striar School of General Jewish Studies (James Striar School) and the Yeshiva Program
The graduate schools are: Bernard Revel Graduate School, and its summer division, Harry Fischel School of Higher Jewish Studies (Bernard Revel School), Wurzweiler School of Social Work (Wurzweiler School), Ferkauf Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Ferkauf Graduate School) and Belfer Graduate School of Sciences (Belfer Graduate School)
Below is a numerical breakdown of the faculty members at Yeshiva's ten schools and programs:
Faculty    Faculty
Yeshiva College .....................  47         42
Stern College .......................  38         33
Teacher's Institute for Women .......   4          7
James Striar School .................   6          8
Erna Michael College ................  13          8
Yeshiva Program .....................  10          2
Undergraduate School Subtotals: ..... 118        100
Belfer Graduate School ..............  38          3
Ferkauf Graduate School .............  32         23
Wurzweiler Graduate School ..........  18         14
Bernard Revel Graduate School .......   3         10
Graduate School Subtotals:             91         50
Totals:                               209        150
There are no faculty ranks at the Institute. Thus, there are no department chairmen or senior professors
While we need not resolve the question, we note that we agree with the Board that the part-time faculty is properly excluded from the unit because they play a significantly lesser role in the affairs of the University than the full-time faculty and there is a lack of mutuality of interests between the two groups. Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, 575 F.2d 301 at 308 (1st Cir. 1978); Kendall College v. NLRB, 570 F.2d 216 (7th Cir. 1978); New York University, 205 N.L.R.B. 4, 6-7 (1973). In view of our disposition we need not pass on Yeshiva's position that terminal faculty should have been excluded from the unit and two assistant deans included. Also academic is the University's argument that certain committee and department chairmen who exercise supervisory power over non-unit personnel must, on that account, be excluded as supervisors
One apparent rationale for the Board's inclusion of these chairmen in the unit is its so-called 50 percent rule, established by the Board in Adelphi University, 195 N.L.R.B. 639 (1972), under which the Board does not denominate as supervisors those faculty members who supervise nonprofessionals less than 50 percent of the time. Recently, the First Circuit cited this doctrine to support inclusion of faculty chairmen in a bargaining unit in a case where the court found such supervisory duties occupied only 5 to 10 percent of the individuals' time. Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, at 306 n. 4. The court withheld its view of the validity of this rule in situations involving significantly greater amounts of time spent in a supervisory role. This court has specifically declined to assess the "legal justification" for the 50 percent rule. NLRB v. Mercy College, 536 F.2d 544, 550 (2d Cir. 1976).
Although the Board has, on a number of occasions, considered the question whether full-time faculty at a mature university are supervisors or managers under the Act, see cases cited in text at 698, Infra, no court of appeals has squarely determined the issue. In NLRB v. Wentworth Institute, 515 F.2d 550 (1st Cir. 1975) the First Circuit simply rejected the Institute's argument that All faculty at All institutions of higher learning must be excluded from the Act's coverage. Limiting itself to the institution at hand, the court found that at Wentworth there was "no evidence of an instance of significant faculty impact collectively or individually on policy or managerial matters." Id. at 557. In Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, the university argued that certain department chairmen were supervisors rather than that the entire faculty should have been deemed managerial or supervisory
It should be noted, however, that the Board has been less rigorous in denominating individuals as supervisors in those cases in which the employees involved were professionals within the meaning of section 2(12) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 152(12). E. g., General Dynamics Corp., 213 N.L.R.B. 851 (1974); Adelphi University, supra, at 644. In instances in which the professionals involved possessed only limited supervisory authority and exercised such authority only sporadically the courts have been willing to accept the Board's position. E. G., Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, at 306; Westinghouse Electric Corp., 163 N.L.R.B. 723 (1967), enf'd, 424 F.2d 1151 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 831, 91 S.Ct. 63, 27 L.Ed.2d 62 (1970). This discrepancy in the Board's approach seemingly results from the tension between the exclusion from the Act of supervisors under section 2(11) and the inclusion of professional employees under section 2(12). M. Finkin, The Supervisory Status of Professional Employees, 45 Fordham L.Rev. 805, 807-828 (1977). However, we cannot accept this rationale in the instant case, where the supervisory and managerial authority of the faculty is so pervasive and consistently exercised
We do not dispute the Board's finding that when department chairmen at Yeshiva act on matters such as faculty appointments, tenure, salary increases and the like, they function "primarily as instruments of the faculty." See, e. g., Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, at 305; New York University, supra; Fordham University, 193 N.L.R.B. 134 (1971). Rather, this finding of the Board reinforces our belief that in a variety of ways the full-time faculty at Yeshiva wields supervisory and managerial power
Section 2(12) of the Act defines a professional employee as
Compare, e. g., Kahn, The NLRB and Higher Education: The Failure of Policymaking Through Adjudication, 21 U.C.L.A. L.Rev. 63, 79-83 (1973) (hereinafter cited as Kahn); Kadish, The Theory of the Profession and Its Predicament, 58 A.A.U.P. Bull. 120, 122 (1972); and Brown, Collective Bargaining in Higher Education, 67 Mich.L.Rev. 1067, 1072 (1969), With The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Governance of Higher Education, A Report and Recommendation (1973); and Bloustein, A Chamber of Horrors?, in The Effects of Faculty Collective Bargaining on Higher Education 110 (R. Hewitt ed. 1973)
The Board acknowledges in its brief that the activities of the full-time faculty at Yeshiva might suggest managerial or supervisory status in other contexts, but not in the case of an institution of higher learning. The legal justification for a different standard for university faculty is not made clear. The Board does comment, however, that labor organizations currently administer collective bargaining agreements for faculty at over 500 colleges and universities across the country and, therefore, the Board's position comports with "widely shared recognition of the organizational rights of faculty."
When the Board first announced this view in C. W. Post Center of Long Island University, supra, at 905, it did so without benefit of analysis, and without citation to pertinent administrative decisions, judicial precedents or legislative history. In Fordham University, supra, the Board repeated its conclusory approach to the problem. Finally, in Adelphi University, supra, the Board conceded that its position arose not from precedent but from its puzzlement in attempting to apply to the unique university governance structure terms which were "designed to cope in the typical organizations of the commercial world." Id. at 648. The Board admitted that it could not square the Act with the university setting in which "power and authority is vested in a body composed of all of one's peers or colleagues." Id. See Kahn, Supra, at 95, 120-25. In two subsequent decisions, Northeastern University, supra, and Miami University, supra, the Board refused to further analyze or reconsider the issue of the supervisory or managerial status of full-time faculty. Instead, it dismissed the question, as it did in this case, solely by reference to its earlier rulings
Cf. Sida of Hawaii, Inc., 191 N.L.R.B. 194, 195 (1971); Red and White Airway Cab Co., 123 N.L.R.B. 83, 85 (1959); Brookings Plywood Corp., 98 N.L.R.B. 794, 798 (1952). In these cases employee-shareholders were excluded from the bargaining units where in the aggregate they held sufficient shares to give them an effective voice in the formulation of corporate policy
It should also be noted that in NLRB v. Wentworth Institute, supra, no managerial or supervisory exclusion was found because the court perceived no evidence of "significant faculty impact Collectively or individually." Id. at 557 (emphasis added).
Northeastern University, supra; University of Miami, supra; Adelphi University, supra; See New York University, supra
For example, Dean Rabinowitz of Erna Michael College testified that his role was "simply (to) carry out the mandate of the faculty," and Dean Komar of Belfer Graduate School saw his position as Dean as "first among equals"
The Board has also relied on this ground for denial of supervisory and managerial status to faculty in Northeastern University, supra; University of Miami, supra; New York University, supra; Adelphi University, supra; C. W. Post Center of Long Island University, supra
In the industrial context the Board has deemed to be supervisors those whose recommendations of the actions designated in section 2(11), although reviewed by higher authority, were consistently given effect. E. g., Transformer Engineers, 114 N.L.R.B. 1325, 1327 (1955)
See also, e. g., Amalgamated Local 355 v. NLRB, 481 F.2d 996, 999-1000 (2d Cir. 1973); Eastern Greyhound Lines v. NLRB, 337 F.2d 84, 86 (6th Cir. 1964); NLRB v. Southern Airways Co., 290 F.2d 519, 524 (5th Cir. 1961)
Closer scrutiny of the Board's determinations, however, will result where, as here, the Board has acted inconsistently with prior rulings in reaching its decision. See Niagara University v. NLRB, 558 F.2d 1116, 1118 (2d Cir. 1977); B. Schwartz, Administrative Law §§ 235-36 (1976)
The legislative history of section 2(12) mentions its applicability to lawyers, engineers, and medical personnel. There is no reference to college or university faculty. H.R.Conf.Rep.No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 36 (1947), U.S.Code Cong.Serv.1947, p. 1135. See also NLRB v. Wentworth Institute, supra, at 554-55 (finding the legislative history of the Act inconclusive as to whether Congress specifically intended to exclude nonprofit educational institutions from Board jurisdiction). Prior to its decision in Cornell University, 183 N.L.R.B. 329 (1970), the Board had refused to assert jurisdiction over nonprofit educational institutions. Trustees of Columbia University, 97 N.L.R.B. 424 (1951)
Adelphi University, supra, at 648; Kadish, The Theory of the Profession and Its Predicament, 58 A.A.U.P. Bull. 120, 122 (1972); Kahn, supra, at 69-74, 84-86. See also Trustees of Boston University v. NLRB, supra, at 304