A unanimous court upheld the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) determination that the employer has the burden to prove that registered nurses are supervisors and therefore excluded from the benefits of collective bargaining. However, the court split five to four in upholding a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that nurses on staff at a Kentucky facility are "supervisors" and therefore ineligible to join a union and participate in collective bargaining activities.

The decision will have a chilling effect on the ability of nurses to form unions and gain valuable workplace protections under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), because employers may now try to claim that many more registered nurses are supervisors, because they direct the work of others, such as nurse's aides and licensed practical nurses.

"With this decision, the Supreme Court just made it easier for employers to cut registered nurses out of the bargaining process," said UAN Chair Cheryl Johnson, RN. "The justices have confused what nurses do as a routine part of their job with who the employer claims they are in the organizational hierarchy. We will continue to assert that the nature of nursing practice falls within the scope of collective bargaining."

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) agrees with ANA's position that nurses should not be classified as supervisors simply because, in the process of carrying out their jobs, they exercise professional judgment in directing the work of others. Registered nurses have long delegated certain tasks -- such as bathing patients -- to nurses's aides and other employees, under state laws and regulations that govern nursing practice, as well as by health care institutions' own policies.

"By limiting the number of nurses who may be a part of a collective bargaining unit, this Supreme Court decision amounts to a partial gag order on nurses who want to protect patients from harmful management practices that routinely lead registered nurses to organize," said ANA President Mary Foley, MS, RN. "Nurses are patients' best advocates. Without guaranteed workplace protections, nurses who continue to speak out on patient safety issues run the risk of losing their livelihoods."

In November 2000, ANA filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the NLRB in the case, "National Labor Relations Board v. Kentucky River Community Care Inc." Kentucky River Community Care Inc., based in Hazard, KY, operates the Caney Creek Rehabilitation Center, a facility for mentally ill persons. In 1997, Caney Creek employees voted to join the Kentucky State District Council of the Carpenters Union, but the rehabilitation center defied an NLRB order to bargain with them, claiming they were supervisors and thus ineligible for union coverage. The rehabilitation center appealed the Board's ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and won. But the NLRB asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, and oral arguments were heard on Feb. 21, 2001.

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