## Facts

- Mercy Hospital of Buffalo operated within a multi-hospital health system and previously sent MRI scans to an off-site medical park where MRI technologists were represented by a union under a collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) involving Mercy.
- Mercy, Our Lady of Victory Hospital, and Abbott Radiology Associates formed a joint venture to acquire and operate a new MRI facility with updated equipment.
- Two entities were created: MRI Associates, LLC (to own the equipment/building) and Southtowns (to lease the facility/equipment and provide MRI services).
- Abbott, through a wholly owned subsidiary (Orchard Park), managed day-to-day MRI operations at the new facility and employed the MRI technologists working there.
- After the new facility opened, Mercy routed its MRI scans to the new site and ceased using the former medical park, resulting in the elimination of two full-time MRI technologist positions at the prior location.
- The union filed a grievance and then an unfair labor practice charge alleging Mercy was required to apply the CBA to the new facility’s technologists and unlawfully shifted bargaining-unit work.

## Issues

1. Whether Mercy and the new MRI operation constituted a single employer such that Mercy’s bargaining obligations and CBA extended to technologists at the new facility.
2. Whether Mercy was a joint employer of the new facility’s technologists based on control over essential terms and conditions of employment.
3. If single- or joint-employer status existed, whether Mercy violated NLRA § 8(a)(5) and (1) by failing to recognize/bargain with the union and by failing to apply the CBA to the new facility’s technologists.

## Decision

- The Board reversed the administrative law judge’s finding that Mercy and Southtowns lacked separate corporate identity and were a single employer.
- The Board found the evidence insufficient to establish single-employer status under the traditional factors, particularly centralized control of labor relations.
- The Board found Mercy did not exercise the type of direct control over hiring, discipline, supervision, wages, or scheduling necessary to be a joint employer of the technologists employed by Orchard Park.
- The Board declined to extend Mercy’s CBA to the new facility’s technologists and dismissed the unfair labor practice theory dependent on single- or joint-employer status.

## Legal Principles

- Single-employer status turns on common ownership, common management, interrelation of operations, and centralized control of labor relations, with labor-relations control commonly carrying the most weight.
- Shared ownership and a close business relationship, without substantial operational integration and centralized labor-relations authority, do not establish a single employer.
- Joint-employer status requires possession and exercise of direct and immediate control over essential terms and conditions of employment; indirect economic influence as a customer is generally insufficient.
- Absent single- or joint-employer status, a CBA does not automatically bind affiliated or contracted entities’ employees, and the original employer generally lacks a duty to bargain over the contractor’s employees’ terms and conditions.

## Conclusion

The Board held that the hospital’s ownership interests and referral of MRI work to a jointly arranged facility did not make it a single or joint employer of the facility’s MRI technologists; accordingly, the hospital had no obligation to apply its CBA to those technologists or bargain for them on that basis.


Mercy Hosp. of Buffalo, 336 N.L.R.B. 1282 (2001)