Opinion ID: 528546
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Disparity of Interests Test

Text: 12 Our standard of review of the Board's choice of a bargaining unit in the health care field is whether the Board properly focused on the 'disparity of interests' between employee groups which would prohibit or inhibit fair representation of employee interests. Southwest Community Health Servs., 726 F.2d at 613 (quoting NLRB v. St. Francis Hosp. of Lynwood, 601 F.2d 404, 419 (9th Cir.1979)). This standard is more searching than the arbitrary and without substantial support standard traditionally applied to unit determinations in non-health care industries. Southwest Community Health Servs., 726 F.2d at 613. The point of this more rigorous standard is to ensure that the Board correctly applies the disparity of interests test to bargaining unit determinations in the health care field rather than the traditional community of interests test and its concomitant presumption of appropriateness. Thus, this less deferential standard does not grant reviewing courts a license to interfere with the Board's factual findings as long as they are supported by substantial evidence in the record. See 29 U.S.C. Sec. 160(f). 13 The disparity of interests test adopted by this court in St. Luke's was not intended to shackle the Board with an onerous burden. Beth Israel Hosp., 688 F.2d at 698. Nor does it invariably require one bargaining unit for all nonprofessional employees. In fact, it is plausible that bargaining units as narrow as ambulance service employees or registered nurses may be wholly appropriate under the disparity of interests test. See Southwest Community Health Servs., 726 F.2d at 614; Beth Israel Hosp., 688 F.2d at 698. We do not believe that the Board applied a legal standard incongruous with St. Luke's just because it held appropriate the same bargaining unit under the disparity of interests test as it did under the community of interests test. 14 Nor do we agree with the Hospital's allegation that the Regional Director was merely giving lip service to the disparity of interests test mandated by St. Luke's. This allegation is undermined by the fact that in the related case, also involving the Hospital, the Regional Director, on remand for application of the disparity of interests test, broadened the registered nurse unit to a unit of all professionals. 5 15 In St. Luke's we held that in applying the disparity of interests test it is necessary to start with a broad unit and exclude employees with disparate interests. 653 F.2d at 457-58 n. 6. The Regional Director complied with this directive. He started with a broad unit of all nonprofessionals and excluded service and maintenance employees because he found sharper than usual differences between the two groups of employees. Thus, this case is unlike Southwest Community Health Servs., 726 F.2d at 611, where we denied enforcement of the Board's order when the Regional Director began his analysis with a narrow unit of ambulance service employees. Accord St. Anthony Hosp. Sys., 655 F.2d at 1028 (enforcement denied when analysis had begun with unit consisting solely of registered nurses). 16 The Hospital contends that all nonprofessionals belong in one unit. In effect, the Hospital believes that the interests of salad makers and laundry workers are not different enough from EKG technicians and surgical technicians to justify placing them in different bargaining units. We disagree. The Regional Director, in finding sharper than usual differences between technical and service/maintenance employees examined traditional criteria such as wages, education and training, degree of interchange, and commonality of supervision. 17 The Regional Director concluded that the average starting wages for the large majority of technical employees were $2 or 35% higher than the average starting wages for service/maintenance employees. He also found a significant difference between the education and training of the technical employees and the service/maintenance employees. Specifically, the Regional Director determined that almost all of the technical classifications required formal training beyond high school, while very few of the service/maintenance classifications required such training. 18 In addition, the Regional Director found minimal interchange between technical and service/maintenance employees and that technical and service/maintenance employees do not for the most part have common supervision. Finally, the Regional Director concluded that although there was some integration of job duties between technical and service/maintenance employees, it did not usually involve actual assistance of one another. In light of these factual findings, the Regional Director held there are sharper than usual differences between the Hospital's technical employees and service/maintenance employees; accordingly, he reaffirmed his previous decision that a unit of exclusively technical employees was appropriate. 19 The Hospital has not convinced us these factual findings are unsupported by the record; thus, we will not disturb them. In addition, we are satisfied that the Board has met its burden of showing that the interests of the technical and service/maintenance employees are disparate enough to justify placing the technical employees in a separate unit. See Southwest Community Health Servs., 726 F.2d at 613. Therefore, we affirm the Board's finding that an all technical unit is appropriate. 20