Nurses at two southern West Virginia hospitals will be allowed to unionize despite opposition from their employers, a U.S. Circuit Court ruled last week.
In a decision issued Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of registered nurses at Bluefield Regional Medical Center and Greenbrier Valley Medical Center in Ronceverte, after the nurses challenged the hospitals' refusal to allow the National Nurses Organizing Committee to serve as their bargaining representative. The National Labor Relations Board found the hospitals to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act last year, and joined with the NNOC to challenge the hospitals in court.
Nurses at the hospitals elected representatives from the NNOC in August 2012; the hospitals filed objections to the elections, but did not produce evidence to support their objections, according to court filings. The union was approved to represent the nurses at both hospitals, but when it approached the hospitals to initiate bargaining, both refused, and the union filed charges of unfair labor practices with the labor relations board.
The hospitals argued the NNOC's claim to represent the nurses was invalid because the National Labor Relations Board lacked a quorum when it voted to certify the union to represent the nurses - the terms of three of its five members had expired at the time. The hospitals also argued that although a regional director of the board had authority to certify the union, he lacked that authority when the board did not have a quorum, and because he was appointed during a period when the board's general counsel was "not validly holding his position," his own appointment was not valid.
In its opinion, written by Judge George Steven Agee, the court ruled in favor of the union and the board, and notes the board has given regional directors the power to certify unions since 1961. The board determined the regional director's appointment became final on Dec. 22, 2011, approximately one week before the board lost its quorum.
"The regional director was well within his authority to overrule the objections and rescind the hearings notices, and indeed the board's rules directed him to do so in this circumstance," Agee wrote.
The hospitals also argued that they were not obligated to submit evidence in support of their objections because they had an oral agreement with the union to submit the matter to an arbitrator. The board countered, arguing that it "consistently rejects" employers' claims of "an oral ad hoc agreement between the parties giving exclusive jurisdiction to an arbitrator."
Reach Lydia Nuzum at
lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com,
304-348-5189 or follow
@lydianuzum on Twitter.