Opinion ID: 198566
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Sum of the Parts and the Whole

Text: 60 Treating Provident's challenge on a clause by clause basis under § 2(11), we conclude that it has not met its burden, despite an able challenge. Because an atomized analysis may mislead, we step back to review the entire picture. Matching the Board's conclusions against the purposes for the exclusion of supervisors from the Act, we find no mismatch. Testing the Board's conclusions against the structure of the workplace, we again find no mismatch. 61 To achieve a balanced picture, it is important to note what [the employees at issue] do not do. Telemundo de Puerto Rico, 113 F.3d at 272 (emphasis added). True supervisors are those vested with genuine management prerogatives. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. at 280-81; see also 2 P. Hardin, The Developing Labor Law 1610 (3d ed. 1992) (observing that supervisor status derives from [t]he power to act as an agent of the employer in relations with other employees). The charge and district nurses are not vested with these prerogatives. For instance, they do not speak for the organization, set its policies, assert financial control, or resolve services disputes - all the sort of activities engaged in by those given true managerial and supervisory authority. 62 The claim that the district and charge nurses are supervisors rests on their relationship with the aides, who are a rung below them on the organizational ladder. These charge and district nurses are primarily care givers. The central responsibility of these nurses is to care for their patients, and their supervisory authority over the aides is relatively modest. That there are employees lower on the organizational ladder whom higher level employees evaluate and to whom the higher level employees give some direction surely cannot be enough to make the higher level employees supervisors. The NLRB has generally and correctly said that employees who routinely direct other employees based solely on a higher skill level are not supervisors. 63 The reasons that supervisors are excluded from coverage under the Act are not offended when employees such as the charge and district nurses are covered. The exclusion of supervisors from the Act is thought to be of benefit to both management and labor. It represents the principle [t]hat an employer is entitled to the undivided loyalty of its representatives. NLRB v. Yeshiva Univ., 444 U.S. 672, 682 (1980). The exclusion may also help, in part, to protect employees from supervisor influence within the union's organization. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 40 F.2d at 1178. These concerns are not implicated in this situation. There is no reason to believe that coverage of the district and charge nurses would lead to the inherent conflict of interest which results when a true supervisor must both represent the employer and bargain against it. Further, there is little reason to believe that involvement in collective bargaining will transform these professional nurses into categorically different employees, disloyal in some sense to their employer and unfit for the original purpose for which the employer hired them. Cf. Rabban, 89 Colum. L. Rev. at 1817 (discussing the possibility that a unionized university professor would become a transformed employee, who would sacrific[e] the professionalism for which he was hired to the collective security and adversarial posture of the union movement). 64 The structure of the organization also supports the Board's determination. This is a small nursing home, providing service at full capacity to 112 patients. The management of the home is primarily handled by four nurses: the Director of Nursing and three Unit Managers. Basic, non-professional services are provided by thirty aides. In between are thirteen district and charge nurses. It would be an odd managerial and supervisory structure to have the care of 112 patients entrusted to thirty non-professionals and have seventeen supervisors or managers, all of whom are nurses and professionals. See Children's Habilitation Ctr., Inc. v. NLRB, 887 F.2d 130, 132 (7th Cir. 1989) (using the ratio of supervisory to non-supervisory employees as a guiding light[] in charge-nurse cases); see also Beverly Enterprises--Minnesota, Inc., 148 F.3d at 1047. This case is not in the least like Maine Yankee, where this court reversed a determination of non-supervisory status for six employees who were in overall charge of a nuclear plant's nerve center, accountable for any plant failures and given the responsibility to independently direct the employees in the department. See Maine Yankee, 624 F.2d at 355-65. We do not discount the importance of the role played by district and charge nurses, who care for those in great need. But important roles are played by many people who are not supervisors. 65 For these reasons, we grant the Board's petition and enforce the Board's order.