-6 8/ nurses and public health nurses, and admission clerks, receptionists and social directors were held to be office clerical employees and excluded from رو a nursing home unit. The Board found licensed practical nurses to be non supervisory. unit. 10/ Licensed practical nurses were included in nursing home employees Jurisdiction was asserted over a profit clinic furnishing professional, para-professional, and clinical laboratory technologists to perform services for 11/ In other case, the Board did not assert jurisdiction nonprofit hospitals. over eight doctors engaging in group practice finding it to be essentially 12/ On local in character and that it had no substantial impact on commerce. the other hand it asserted jurisdiction over a large urban medical clinic.13/ - The above cases illustrate the growth of expertise the development of policy, guidelines and experience in the profit hospital and medical field which will facilitate its handling of nonprofit medical institutions. Unexpected problems Likewise, the or issues new to the Board's experience will, of course, arise. field of labor-management relations is dynamic and ever changing; but I have complete confidence in the flexibility and resourcefulness of the Board and its exceptional staff to cope with any uncertainties that may arise. It has proven this many times in the past 37 years. It is for the Congress to determine whether to extend the Act to cover nonprofit hospital workers. If this be done, experience teaches that the Board can find workable solutions for the problems anticipated and for those not yet foreseen. 8/ Visiting Nurse Association, Inc., 188 NLRB No. 21 9/ Riviera Manor Nursing Home 186 No. 113 10/ Jackson Manor Nursing Home, supra 11/ The Permanente Medical Group 187 NLRB No. 143 12/ Alameda Medical Group 196 NLRB No. 57 13/ Ochsner Clinic 196 NLRB No. 4 Address Before the Labor-Management-NLRB Conference "40,000 Cases" The title of this paper is not a prediction. It is here. In our fiscal year ending June 30, 1971 we had estimated 35,000 but we actually received 37,000 cases. 1/ This year we estimate 40,192 and so far we are getting them. For the first ten years of the Taft-Hartley Act we averaged 13,000 a year. 2/ Then from 1957 to 1962 the case load practically doubled. In five years it went from 13,000 to 25,000. Ten years later it is 40,000. 3/ This is phenomenal. What is even a greater phenomenon is the fact that the Agency kept up with the load. Its case load tripled in 15 years yet it did not fall apart. It did not become swamped. In fact it improved. Last year it handled more cases with less help and in less time. And this was achieved with substantially the same basic machinery--the same statutory procedures. We could do this because we have a superb field organization--31 Regional Offices and their satellites, 95 percent of the work. We do this because the Regions handle over Year in and year out 95 percent of the 1/ 23,770 unfair labor practice charges and 13,422 representation cases or a total of 37,212. 2/ An average of 5000 charges and 8000 petitions. 3/ 25,825 charges and 14,367 petitions. a few hundred postal service cases. In addition we expect - 2 charges filed are either withdrawn, dismissed or settled informally- without litigation. The remaining 5 percent are litigated. In representation cases the field offices handle an even higher percentage. They dispose of 99 percent of all petitions filed either by withdrawal, dismissal, elections by agreement or by direction after hearing. Out of 13,000 petitions filed last year the Regions transferred less than 100 cases to the Board for initial decision or less than one percent. And not only do our field offices handle over 90 percent of the cases but they do it fast. Four out of five unfair labor practice cases are disposed of within a median of 45 days. Our field offices also conduct 6000 consent elections every year within 45 days and direct elections after hearing in 2000 cases within a median of 50 days. In addition every Regional Office runs a graduate college for labor lawyers and supplies talent to labor and management, private law firms, EEOC, the Department of Labor, and now the Postal Service! judgments. Our Regional Offices are also highly accurate in their When a Regional Director says a violation has occurred he is proved to be right well over 90 percent of the times if you add up the settlements and the litigated cases in which he is affirmed by Trial Examiner, Board, and the courts. I must add that this is made easier by the large number of clear violations of the Act which our expert Field Examiners do not miss. it up. Now when a Regional Office grows too big we can divide There is no statutory limitation on the number of Regional Offices so we can keep up with the case load in the field by adding |