The National Labor Relations Board in Specialty Healthcare, 357 NLRB No. 83 (2011), overturned precedent as to the appropriateness of units in nonacute health care facilities and, perhaps more significantly, at least arguably fundamentally changed general unit-appropriateness standards.
The regional director there found that a petitioned-for bargaining unit of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) was appropriate under a traditional community-of-interest analysis. The employer, however, contended that the only appropriate unit containing the CNAs consisted of the CNAs plus all other nonprofessional service and maintenance employees in the facility. It argued that the regional director improperly applied Park Manor Care Center, 305 NLRB 872 (1991), in which the board addressed the standard for determining units in nonacute health care facilities in light of the board’s adoption of a rule defining appropriate units in acute-care facilities.
