1. Must the Regional Director follow the precedents established by the Board, or may a Regional Director from time to time make a newand novel representation ruling with a regional perspective for consideration by the Board, if the ruling is appealed?
2. Read the Direction of Election statement of the Regional Director. Note how it deals with the appropriate bargaining unit and the Board’s Comprehensive Rules and Regulations on eligibility to vote. What other important pre-election considerations are dealt with in the decision’s footnotes?

St. Barnabas Hospital (“the Employer”), with a facility located at 183rd Street and Third Avenue, Bronx, New York, herein its facility, is an acute care hospital and not-for-profit corporation providing medical services to the public.

Committee of Interns and Residents, Local 1957, SEIU, (“Petitioner”) filed this petition seeking to represent all Interns, residents, and fellows employed by the Employer, but excluding all other employees, managers and guards and supervisors excluded under the Act. The Employer contends that the petitioned-for employees are students and thus no question concerning representation can be raised. Upon a petition filed under Section 9(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before a hearing officer of the National Labor Relations Board.

Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, the Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to the Regional Director, Region 2.…

I have considered the evidence and the arguments presented by the parties on this issue. As discussed below and based upon the stipulation of the parties, I find the unit sought by the Petitioner is an appropriate unit. As to the issues presented at this hearing, I am bound to decide this case based on Board precedent.… The Board’s decision in Boston Medical overruled… prior holdings concluding that interns and residents are, in fact, employees under the Act. The Board based its conclusions on the fact that interns and residents receive compensation in the form of a stipend, in addition to workers’ compensation, paid vacations, sick leave, and bereavement leave, health, dental, and life insurance, as well asmalpractice insurance. This established the financial relationship these employees had with the hospital.

The Board noted that residents spent up to 80 percent of their time at hospitals engaged in direct patient care. In dealing with the question that the Employer was also providing education and training, the Board held that merely because they receive on-the-job training did not negate their status as employees. Rather, the Board held that they are like apprentices learning production trades or professionals who continue to receive training after they are employed in order to maintain their licenses.…

I cannot find significant that the Employer has asserted minor and inconsequential differences in its training program from that in Boston Medical. The record here clearly establishes that residents perform the same major work functions for this Employer that were performed by the interns and residents at Boston Medical.…

Based on the record … considered as a whole, the Employer has failed to show…any supervisory authority that is vested in, and exercised by, the chief residents.

I therefore find that the following constitutes an appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining:

Included: All interns, residents, and fellows, including chief residents, employed by the Employer.

Excluded: All other employees, managers and guards and supervisors excluded under the Act.

Direction of Election

An election by secret ballot shall be conducted by the Regional Director, Region 2, among the employees in the unit found appropriate at the time* and place set forth in the notice of election** to be issued subsequently, subject to the Board’s Rules and Regulations. Eligible to vote are those in the unit who were employed at the payroll period ending immediately preceding the date of this Decision, including employees who did not work during the period because they were ill, on vacation or temporarily laid off and all employees who meet the criteria described herein as of the date of this decision. Employees engaged in any economic strike, who have retained their status as strikers and who have not been permanently replaced are also eligible to vote. In addition, in an economic strike that commenced less than 12 months before the election date, employees engaged in such strike, who have retained their status as strikers but who have been permanently replaced, as well as their replacements, are eligible to vote. Those in the military services of the United States who are in the unit may vote if they appear in person at the polls. Ineligible to vote are employees who have quit or been discharged for cause since the designated payroll period, employees engaged in a strike who have been discharged for cause since the commencement thereof and who have not been rehired or reinstated before the election date, and employees engaged in an economic strike which commenced more than 12 months before the election date and who have been permanently replaced.*** Those eligible shall vote whether or not they desire to be represented for collective bargaining purposes by Committee of Interns and Residents, Local 1957, SEIU.