A federal labor board recently ruled that hospitals and other employers may restrict union activity by non-employees in public areas of their facilities, according to an article published in The National Law Review.
The ruling from the National Labor Relations Board was issued June 14.
At issue was past labor board precedent regarding a "public space" exception. That precedent required that employers allow solicitation and other promotional activities by non-employee union representatives in "public space" areas such as cafeterias, if the activities were not disorderly, according to the article by representatives from Ballard Spahr law firm.
But the labor board's recent decision in the case involving Pittsburgh-based UPMC and its subsidiary, UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside gets rid of that exception.
In the UPMC case, non-employee union representatives Sarah Fishbein and Amber Stenman met with employees at the cafeteria at the Presbyterian hospital in 2013, at which time they ate lunch and discussed union organizational campaign issues, according to documents cited in the Law Review article.
Hospital security was informed that non-employees were soliciting in the cafeteria and that there were union flyers being passed out. The Law Review article states that union organizers did not comply when requested to leave and were escorted out by police. Service Employees International Union Healthcare Pennsylvania subsequently filed a complaint with the labor board.
Administrative Law Judge Mark Carissimi of the labor board's Pittsburgh office sided with SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania in 2014, but UPMC won on appeal to the full labor board in Washington, D.C., reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
"The NLRB found that because there was no evidence that UPMC knowingly allowed any other promotional or organizational activity by non-employees on its premises, and because the union organizers had other reasonable means of communicating with employees, the exclusion of the union organizers under these circumstances was not discriminatory," the representatives with Ballard Spahr wrote.
The law firm said the labor board also "rejected the union's argument that the hospital's non-ejection of another non-employee cafeteria patron evinced a discriminatory motive."
The decision ultimately means the "public space" exception is no longer in place, and employers such as hospitals may ban union solicitation from their public spaces, unless inaccessibility or activity-based discrimination is proven, the Law Review article states.
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