Opinion ID: 768062
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arroyo's Union Activity

Text: 12 Arroyo worked in the Hospital's housekeeping department, which had 99 employees. Arroyo contacted the union in October 1996 and met with union president Vctor Villalba shortly thereafter. Later, Arroyo, coworker Roberto Cruz, and several other employees met with Villalba at the union office; Arroyo and others signed union authorization cards, and Arroyo was designated the custodian of the cards and the collector of employee signatures. Arroyo and Cruz started distributing cards to other employees in the Hospital's stairways, bathrooms, empty rooms, and machine rooms, but not in plain sight of the supervisors. They also gave out cards at the entrance to the Hospital at the start of work and in the parking lot at lunch, and they met with employees to discuss the union, both at the Hospital and away. Some meetings were held near the cafeteria, close to the Hospital administration office. An election petition for a limited unit of housekeeping employees was filed on November 7, 1996. This petition was withdrawn, however, and the union attempted to gather more cards for a larger unit. The Hospital was well aware at this time that an organizing campaign was underway; it held a meeting with its supervisors to inform them of this fact. 13 On December 17, 1996, the union filed another election petition with the NLRB, this time for a larger unit of all non-professional employees. This petition was also withdrawn, due to insufficient interest. Although Arroyo was on vacation from November 15, 1996, until January 9, 1997, he continued his union organizing activities during this time. In January Villalba asked Arroyo and Cruz to gather more cards. The two gathered roughly another forty-five authorizations, both at and away from the Hospital. 14 A third petition was filed on January 16, but the Hospital did not know about it until after Arroyo was terminated. The union eventually lost the election, which was held in February.