Supreme Court Deals Blow to Nursing Unions : Labor: Critics say the ruling on supervisory status, if broadly applied, could put a chill on organizing in other trades.

Union organizing in the nursing field--one of the few industries where organized labor has made relatively deep inroads in recent years--has been dealt a serious setback by a new U.S. Supreme Court ruling, labor law experts said Tuesday.

Some critics of the high court’s ruling Monday also argue that, if broadly applied by lower courts, the decision could chill union organizing and cooperative labor management programs in other trades.

The fundamental legal issue in the case involves defining who is a supervisory employee and who is not. The question is pivotal in some labor disputes because supervisors are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that protects union activities and “concerted” actions by groups of non-supervisory employees.

This week’s Supreme Court ruling stems from a complaint by three nurses fired in 1989 after they protested working conditions at an Urbana, Ohio, nursing home. They challenged their dismissals, arguing that their protest was a “protected concerted activity” safeguarded by the NLRA for non-supervisory employees.

The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that rules on labor disputes, decided in the nurses’ favor. The agency hewed to its long-held view that nurses who make work assignments and exercise independent judgment can still be considered non-supervisory workers.

But an appeal by the employer, Health Care & Retirement Corp. of America, eventually brought the case to the Supreme Court. In its 5-4 ruling, the court rejected the NLRB’s stance, saying nurses who direct lower-level aides are supervisors and therefore can be fired for protesting job conditions.

The ruling “comes at a time of great cost cutting in the health care industry,” said Virginia Trotter Betts, president of the American Nurses Assn. “Now is not the time to tell the front-line care givers in hospitals that they can be fired for complaining about management decisions that are detrimental to patient care.”

However, lawyers said the ruling does not prevent supervisors from suing for wrongful dismissal under other labor laws.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, downplayed the notion that the ruling will have a broad impact outside of nursing. “Any parade of horribles about the meaning of this decision for employees in other industries is thus quite misplaced,” he wrote.

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing the dissenting opinion, warned that the ruling could deny the protection of the NLRA to all but a few professionals in the workplace.

While differing on whether the ruling applies to other industries, labor and management lawyers agreed that it will narrow the number of nursing home and hospital nurses eligible for unions.

The California Nurses Assn., the state’s largest nursing union, exemplifies the recent success organized labor has enjoyed in health care: Its membership has grown by 6,000 since 1989 to more than 25,000.

“This certainly will make it more difficult for unions organizing in nursing homes and hospitals,” said Jerry M. Hunter, a St. Louis management lawyer who until last year served as general counsel of the NLRB.

Times staff writer Anne Michaud in Orange County contributed to this report.