Sign in Subscribe
News

🗞️ Radiation Therapists Blocked: NLRB Dismisses City of Hope Union Petition

A federal labor board official dismissed SEIU-UHW's bid to add roughly 17 radiation therapists at City of Hope's Duarte, CA hospital to an existing service unit, citing health care bargaining rules and an insufficient community of interest.

onthelaborfront

onthelaborfront

— 3 min read
Share
🗞️ Radiation Therapists Blocked: NLRB Dismisses City of Hope Union Petition

A federal labor official has dealt a setback to one of California's largest hospital unions, dismissing an effort to extend collective bargaining rights to a group of radiation therapists at a prominent cancer treatment center.

On April 29, 2026, David Selder, the acting regional director of the National Labor Relations Board's Region 21, rejected a petition filed by Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers-West seeking to fold approximately 17 radiation therapists at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte into an existing union bargaining unit. The decision, rooted in a decades-old federal rule designed to limit the splintering of labor representation in hospitals, underscores the legal complexity that unions face when trying to organize workers at acute care facilities.

SEIU-UHW had represented a mixed unit of non-professional and technical employees at the Duarte campus for years. Around 2021 and 2022, a small number of radiation therapists from two affiliated outpatient clinics in Corona and Upland were folded into that unit after those clinics came under the National Medical Center's hospital license. The union then moved to leverage that foothold, petitioning for a combined self-determination election that would allow the larger group of Duarte-based radiation therapists to vote on joining the same unit.

The effort ran into two significant obstacles. The NLRB's 1989 Health Care Rule (29 CFR § 103.30), adopted in response to a congressional admonition against the "proliferation" of bargaining units in hospital settings, limits appropriate units at acute care hospitals to eight designated categories. The arrangement the union proposed, blending non-professional employees, technical workers, and only a subset of professional employees, fits none of them. Rather than remedying the existing unit's already non-conforming status, the Regional Director found, granting the petition would deepen it.

Even setting aside the structural barrier, the union's case faltered on the factual merits. Under the Armour-Globe doctrine, a union seeking to add unrepresented workers to an existing unit must show that those workers share a meaningful community of interest with their would-be colleagues. That showing, Mr. Selder concluded, was not made. The Duarte radiation therapists work at a separate facility from the Corona and Upland therapists who anchor the existing unit. They treat more medically complex patients, perform more specialized procedures and work under different day-to-day supervisors. Evidence of regular transfers or functional collaboration between the groups was sparse. The record was further hampered by the absence of any comprehensive account of the job titles and duties that make up the existing service unit, leaving the Regional Director without a clear basis for a systematic comparison.

The ruling does not permanently close the door on union representation for the Duarte therapists. Mr. Selder noted that SEIU-UHW could return with a petition that groups the radiation therapists within a unit that actually conforms to the Health Care Rule, such as a unit of all professional employees at the facility, excluding registered nurses and physicians. Any party wishing to appeal has until May 13, 2026 to request review by the full Board in Washington.

Key Points

  • SEIU-UHW filed its petition in February 2024, seeking a self-determination election for roughly 17 radiation therapists at City of Hope's Duarte acute care hospital.
  • The union already represented a non-conforming service unit at Duarte that included a small number of radiation therapists from the Corona and Upland outpatient clinics, added around 2021 and 2022.
  • The NLRB's 1989 Health Care Rule limits acute care hospitals to eight specific bargaining unit types to prevent proliferation; the petitioned-for unit does not conform to any of them.
  • Under the Armour-Globe doctrine, the union must still demonstrate a community of interest with the existing unit even where the Health Care Rule permits a self-determination election. It failed to meet that standard.
  • Key evidentiary shortfalls included separate worksites, different day-to-day supervisors, limited interchange between facilities and an absence of record evidence describing the existing unit's full composition.
  • A prior unfair labor practice charge (Case 21-CA-330725) and a Board Office of Appeals denial had already signaled that adding the Duarte therapists by accretion, without an election, was not permissible.
  • The union retains the ability to pursue representation through a new petition organized around a professionally conforming unit under the Health Care Rule.
  • The deadline to file a request for Board review is May 13, 2026.

Primary Source Author: David Selder, Acting Regional Director, NLRB Region 21

Primary Source: City of Hope National Medical Center, Case 21-RC-335061, Decision and Order (NLRB Region 21, April 29, 2026)

Primary Source Link: NLRB Case 21-RC-335061 Decision and Order

Read more