The Methodist Hospitals, Inc., JD-70-26, 13-CA-333764 (ALJ Decision)
An administrative law judge dismissed allegations that The Methodist Hospitals, Inc. unlawfully discharged a union steward for asserting a contractual time limit and for performing her duties as a steward.
The case centered on Latieeah Hemphill, a longtime health unit partner in the hospital's intensive care unit who also served as a union steward. After her supervisor, Lyndsay Simpson, received complaints about Hemphill's job performance and interactions with coworkers, Simpson twice instructed Hemphill to meet with her, along with a union steward, to discuss the complaints. Both times, Hemphill failed to show up, arguing that the collective-bargaining agreement's ten-working-day limit for imposing discipline had already expired. The hospital eventually charged her with insubordination and, after offering her a last-chance agreement that she declined, discharged her.
The General Counsel argued Hemphill's conduct was protected under the Supreme Court's NLRB v. City Disposal Systems decision and the Board's Interboro Contractors doctrine, which protect an employee's honest and reasonable assertion of a contractual right even if that belief turns out to be mistaken. The judge rejected this argument. He found Hemphill never claimed the agreement excused her from attending investigatory meetings, only that it barred discipline after ten days. More importantly, once Simpson told her on January 2 that the hospital and union had agreed to extend that deadline, any reasonable basis for her continued refusal to meet evaporated. The judge concluded her repeated failure to follow her supervisor's instructions, after being told of the extension, amounted to unprotected insubordination rather than protected enforcement of a contractual right, drawing a comparison to Mead Corp., where a steward's refusal to perform a work assignment was similarly found unprotected.
The judge also rejected the claim that the hospital held animus against Hemphill because of her role as a steward. He found that the labor relations director's comments about never having similar problems with a steward referred specifically to her refusal to meet, not to her general performance as a union representative, and that a passing remark describing her as aggressive did not establish unlawful motive. He also found no suspicious timing linking her discharge to a grievance she had filed, since the complaints that triggered her supervisor's initial meeting request predated that grievance. Because the General Counsel failed to show either protected activity tied to the discipline or animus toward her union role, the judge recommended dismissal of the complaint in its entirety.
Significant Cases Cited
NLRB v. City Disposal Systems, 465 U.S. 822 (1984): An employee's assertion of a right under a collective-bargaining agreement is protected concerted activity if based on a reasonable and honest, even if mistaken, belief that a right exists.
Interboro Contractors, 157 NLRB 1295 (1966): An individual employee's assertion of a right grounded in a collective-bargaining agreement constitutes concerted activity protected by the NLRA.
Wright Line, 251 NLRB 1083 (1980): Sets forth the burden-shifting framework for analyzing whether an adverse employment action was motivated by protected activity.
Mead Corp., 275 NLRB 323 (1985): A steward's outright refusal to follow a work directive, rather than working under protest and grieving later, constitutes unprotected insubordination.
Tschiggfrie Properties Ltd., 368 NLRB No. 120 (2019): Discriminatory motivation can be proven through circumstantial evidence, including timing and shifting justifications for an adverse action.
Batesville Products, Inc, 09-RC-388637 (Regional Election Decision)
A regional director has directed an election among production employees at the Lawrenceburg, Indiana machine shop of Batesville Products, Inc., rejecting the company's argument that workers at its separate Aurora, Indiana foundry had to be included in the same voting unit.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 135, petitioned to represent machinists, polishers, and shipping employees at the Lawrenceburg facility, which handles machining and polishing of aluminum parts. Batesville Products argued that the Lawrenceburg site had become so merged with its Aurora foundry, located nine miles away, that the two locations could no longer be treated as separate for bargaining purposes. The company wanted casters, tooling technicians, polishers, and maintenance workers from Aurora folded into the unit as well.
The regional director applied the Board's long-standing rule that a single-facility unit is presumed appropriate unless the employer can show the facilities are so functionally integrated that the smaller location has lost its separate identity. Weighing factors including centralized control, similarity of job duties, employee interchange, and distance, the director found that while management exercised some centralized oversight and the two sites were close together, the foundry and machine shop performed fundamentally different work, employed largely different job classifications, and had different working conditions and pay differentials. Evidence of employees regularly moving between locations was thin, limited mainly to one shipping clerk and occasional voluntary overtime by a single machinist. As a result, the employer failed to overcome the presumption favoring the single-facility unit.
The director then separately analyzed whether the petitioned-for unit itself was appropriate under the Board's current "overwhelming community of interest" standard from American Steel Construction, Inc., as well as the earlier traditional community-of-interest test from PCC Structurals, Inc. Under both frameworks, the director concluded that Aurora's foundry and maintenance employees did not share a sufficiently close relationship with the Lawrenceburg production workers to require their inclusion, given separate supervision, distinct skills, and limited contact between the two groups. The director ordered an election to proceed among the Lawrenceburg production employees as petitioned.
Significant Cases Cited
American Steel Construction, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 23 (2022): Overruled PCC Structurals and reinstated the "overwhelming community of interest" standard for evaluating whether a petitioned-for unit excluding certain employees is appropriate.
PCC Structurals, Inc., 365 NLRB No. 160 (2017): Established the traditional, multi-factor community-of-interest test for determining appropriate bargaining units, later overruled by American Steel Construction.
The Boeing Company, 368 NLRB No. 67 (2019): Clarified the three-step traditional community-of-interest analysis, including weighing shared and distinct interests of included and excluded employees.
J&L Plate, 310 NLRB 429 (1993): Held that a single-facility unit is presumptively appropriate unless the employer shows the facility has been so merged or integrated that it lost its separate identity.
Hilander Foods, 348 NLRB 1200 (2006): Reaffirmed that the burden of rebutting the single-facility presumption rests on the party opposing it.
The Adler Planetarium, 13-UC-381942 (Regional Election Decision)
A regional director has clarified a bargaining unit at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago to add three job classifications to the union's existing certification, rejecting the museum's argument that one of those classifications should be excluded as supervisory.
Adler Planetarium Workers United, AFSCME Council 31, was certified in January 2026 as the bargaining representative for a unit of museum employees. After the election, the union filed a petition seeking to add the Teen Programs Manager, Senior Manager of Teen Programs, and Senior Coordinator of Education positions to the unit. The parties agreed to include the first two classifications, leaving only the Senior Coordinator of Education, referred to as "Seniors," in dispute. The museum argued Seniors are supervisors under Section 2(11) of the NLRA and should be excluded.
The regional director found the museum failed to prove its case. Seniors work alongside Education Specialists facilitating museum activities but also create daily floor schedules from templates, train and monitor the Specialists, and assign knowledge-development activities on slower days. The museum argued this made Seniors supervisors through effective recommendation of hiring, responsible direction, and assignment of work.
On hiring, the director found Seniors' evaluations of job candidates during practice facilitation sessions carried weight but did not amount to effectively recommending hiring, since a manager separately interviewed candidates and no evidence showed recommendations were adopted without independent review, citing Peacock Productions of NBC Universal Media and Ryder Truck Rental, Inc.
On responsible direction, the director distinguished between Seniors enforcing existing department rules, which involves no independent judgment, and Seniors offering mentorship-style advice on facilitation technique, which involves judgment but isn't enforceable direction. The museum also failed to show Seniors face any real consequences for Specialists' performance, as required to establish accountability under Golden Crest Healthcare Center.
On work assignment, the director found Seniors' creation of daily schedules largely rotates employees through predetermined activity templates set by management, which doesn't require independent judgment, citing Shaw, Inc. Assignments based on employee preference or known skill level likewise don't meet the standard. Training assignments were found to be discrete tasks rather than significant overall duties, and selecting training content was deemed curriculum selection rather than supervisory assignment of employees.
The director also weighed secondary factors against supervisory status, including a one-to-one ratio of Seniors to Specialists, Seniors' inability to deny time-off requests, and the museum's organizational chart placing Seniors and Specialists on the same tier. The certification was ordered clarified to include all three disputed classifications in the bargaining unit.
Significant Cases Cited
NLRB v. Kentucky River Community Care, 532 U.S. 706 (2001): Set out the three-part test for statutory supervisory status under Section 2(11) of the NLRA.
Oakwood Healthcare, Inc., 348 NLRB 686 (2006): Established the Board's framework defining "assign," "responsibly direct," and "independent judgment" for supervisory status analysis.
Golden Crest Healthcare Center, 348 NLRB 727 (2006): Held that evidence must show actual or potential adverse consequences to establish accountability for responsible direction.
Croft Metals, Inc., 348 NLRB 717 (2006): Required specific evidence of the factors weighed in directing employees to establish independent, nonroutine judgment.
Shaw, Inc., 350 NLRB 354 (2007): Found that rotational work assignments do not involve the exercise of independent judgment.
Optum Care Washington, PLLC, 19-RC-388583 (Regional Election Decision)
A regional director for the NLRB has directed a mail-ballot election for diagnostic imaging employees at fourteen Optum Care Washington clinics in the Everett, Washington area, rejecting the employer's bid to split the proposed bargaining unit into separate units by imaging specialty.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000 petitioned to represent a single unit covering all full-time, part-time, and per diem diagnostic imaging employees across the fourteen clinics, including technologists in CT, MRI, ultrasound, X-ray, mammography, nuclear medicine, and dexascan, along with administrative support staff like patient care coordinators. The employer argued the unit should instead be broken into nine separate units organized by modality, with a further carve-out for mammography employees at its Bellevue location, and also sought to exclude per diem employees entirely.
The regional director rejected the employer's modality-based approach, finding that the petitioned-for unit matched the employer's own administrative structure, since all modalities fall under a single diagnostic imaging department with a shared chain of supervision running up through a practice manager and senior director. Although employees in different modalities have distinct certifications and equipment, the director found sufficient interchange between classifications (particularly between dexascan and X-ray), permanent transfers between modalities, frequent patient handoffs, shared facilities, and common terms and conditions of employment, including the same benefits, pay grading, and scheduling systems. Together, these factors established a community of interest spanning all the modalities.
On per diem employees, the director applied the Board's traditional eligibility formula, concluding that because per diem technologists work regularly enough to average more than four hours a week, they share a community of interest with regularly scheduled staff and belong in the unit.
The director also found that the Bellevue location, a recent addition to the employer's network, belongs in the broader unit despite its mammography technologists performing a wider range of cross-trained duties than technologists elsewhere. Centralized supervision, shared administrative grouping, and functional integration outweighed the lack of interchange and limited physical contact between Bellevue staff and employees at other clinics.
Given the geographic spread of the fourteen clinics and employees' varied shift schedules, the director ordered a mail-ballot election rather than an in-person vote, reasoning that mail balloting would enfranchise more eligible voters and make more efficient use of Board resources.
Significant Cases Cited
NLRB v. Action Automotive, 469 U.S. 490 (1985): Established that the Board's unit determinations turn on whether employees share a community of interest.
United Operations, Inc., 338 NLRB 123 (2002): Set out the multi-factor community-of-interest test, including skills, job functions, integration, contact, interchange, terms of employment, and supervision.
Davidson-Paxson Co., 185 NLRB 21 (1970): Established the default formula that employees averaging at least four hours of work per week share a community of interest with full-time counterparts for unit inclusion.
Exemplar, Inc., 363 NLRB 1500 (2016): Set out the factors governing whether a multifacility bargaining unit is appropriate, including centralized supervision and administrative grouping.
San Diego Gas & Electric, 325 NLRB 1143 (1998): Held that a mail ballot election may be appropriate where eligible voters are geographically scattered or work schedules vary significantly.
Total Renal Care, Inc. D/B/a DaVita Visalia Vineyard Dialysis, 32-RC-370127 (Unpublished Board Decision)
The Board denied a hospital-system employer's request for emergency relief seeking to stay the counting of ballots in a union representation election, finding the request moot because the ballot count had already taken place by the time the Board acted on it.
The employer had asked the Board to halt the count, arguing that the Regional Director erred both in overruling challenges to four ballots and in setting the count date only five business days after her decision on those challenges. The Board's order made clear that denying the stay request was not a decision on those underlying arguments. Because the count had already occurred, there was nothing left to stay.
The Board noted that the employer can still raise its objections to the Regional Director's rulings by filing a timely request for review of her decision. Under the Board's rules, such a request may be filed up until ten business days after the proceeding reaches final disposition, which occurs when the Regional Director dismisses the petition or issues a certification of results.