Nurses challenge NLRB head on supervisor rule

Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association challenged the head of the National Labor Relations Board yesterday over a decision that could enable employers to remove nursing supervisors from the ranks of union members.

``If pushed to the wall, we will not tolerate anything like that," said Julie Pinkham , executive director of the 10,000-member MNA, who said that her association would strike if employers attempted to take advantage of the ruling.

Pinkham spoke after listening to Robert J. Battista, the NLRB chairman, who participated in a panel discussion at a meeting attended by more than 100 nurses at the Sturbridge Hotel and Conference Center. Battista cautioned that the board's much-watched ruling Tuesday in a case involving charge nurses at a Kentucky nursing home should not be interpreted too broadly.

While that decision found charge nurses and others who regularly assign and manage the work of others could be classified as supervisors, Battista said two other decisions issued the same day limited the circumstances under which a worker could be considered a manager: Nurses at a Minnesota healthcare center and metalworkers in Mississippi were determined not to be supervisors because they lacked authority.

``I don't think it is fair to portray the system as unfair on the basis of a few cases," Battista said.

Ross Embry , an economist at the Economic Policy Institute , a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., told the group the ruling could affect more than 8 million US employees in a variety of industries, including 69,000 people in Massachusetts.

``This decision is a road map for employers seeking to remove unionized supervisors or keep new ones from joining unions," he said to a round of applause. ``It shows managers how to exclude hundreds of registered nurses and millions of others from collective bargaining."

Angered by the decision, members of the association lined up at microphones to question Battista and two other panelists. ``How do you suggest unions survive with this [decision]?," asked Phil Donahue, a staff nurse at Newton-Wellesley Hospital .

Panelist Steve Early , an organizer for the Communication s Workers of America, urged the nurses to increase support for labor in Congress and overturn the five-member labor board. He said that, in recent years, the board's three Republicans have stripped disabled workers, temporary employees, and graduate students of union representation.

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com.