Allied Products Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 26, 1969

175 N.L.R.B. 105 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

FULTON COTTON MILLS 105
Fulton Cotton Mills , Division of Allied Products
Corporation and Machine Printers and Engravers
Association of the United States , Petitioner. Cases
10-RC-7473 and 10-RC-7474
March 26, 1969
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND BROWN
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of
the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a
hearing was held before Matthew H. Shade,
Hearing Officer. Following the hearing and pursuant
to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations
Board Rules and Regulations , Series 8, as amended,
and by direction of the Regional Director for
Region 10, this case was transferred to the Board
for decision . Thereafter, the Employer and the
Petitioner filed briefs in support of their respective
positions.
Pursuant to Section 3(b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended , the National Labor
Relations Board has delegated its powers in
connection with this case to a three -member panel.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's
rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are
free from prejudicial error. They are hereby
affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case , the Board
finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the
purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to
represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists
concerning the representation of employees of the
Employer, within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks elections in two craft
units: one comprising all roller machine operators
(punters) employed in the company ' s plant, the
other comprising all screen print machine operators
employed in the company ' s plant .' Alternatively, the
Petitioner seeks a single unit including both roller
printers and screen printers.
The Employer manufactures textile products at its
Atlanta, Georgia, plant where it employs a work
force of approximately 1,500. The plant is divided
into three departments : cotton mill , finishing, and
textile printing . Each department is headed by a
superintendent , who reports directly to the assistant
plant manager . The finishing and printing
departments are in the same building adjacent to the
cotton mill. The record does not reflect any history
'As amended at the heanng
of collective bargaining.
The printing department is composed of 67
employees working on three shifts under the
supervision of a superintendent of printing, an
overseer of printing, and nine shift supervisors -
two of whom are combination foremen-printers. The
roller printer unit petitioned for consists of
approximately 10 employees, the screen printer unit
of 3. The remaining employees in the department
are engaged in chrome plating copper rollers for use
in the roller printing machines, working as
backtenders or inspectors on the roller and screen
printing machines, color mixing, flash aging, and
soaping of prints
The Employer has four Rice-Barton printing
machines, each operated by a crew of three
employees: an operator (printer), backtender, and
inspector. The machine prints the desired pattern on
the cloth by means of engraved rollers. Each roller
is engraved with all designs having the same color
and rotates against a brush, which in turn rotates
through a tray of dye. A "doctor blade" removes
the dye from those areas of the roller not intended
to imprint the cloth. As the cloth passes around a
large cylinder, the rollers, geared and timed so that
the designs will strike the cloth in the proper
sequence, rotate against the material and produce
the desired pattern.
The roller machine operator is responsible for
running the machine and normally stands at the
front. He makes adjustments to keep the machine in
register and also gives instructions to the back help
to make various adjustments. From time to time
(approximately every 5 to 15 minutes) the operator
will instruct the inspector to bring him samples of
the printed cloth so that he may examine them for
defects. In setting up the machine, the operator
works as part of a team with the backtender and
inspector, and installs the copper rollers and doctor
blades with their assistance. If short of help, the
operator will also take out the color pans - a job
normally performed by the backtender and
inspector. The operator hones his own doctor
blades; if the doctor blades are installed by the back
help, he will check to see that they are seated
properly.
The Employer has one screen printing machine,
which operates on two shifts, with a crew of three.
operator, backtender and inspector. The same
supervisory personnel are responsible for both the
screen and roller printing operations. There is
occasional interchange between the screen and roller
printing operators and back help, and on occasion
supervisors will operate the screen printing machine.
The Employer has no apprenticeship or training
program, and there is no regular progression to the
position of operator. All of the Employer's
operators, however, had worked previously as
backtenders or inspectors. New employees have
performed the operator's duties within 3 months of
their employment, but have not attained the
175 NLRB No. 17
106 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
operator classification in that period of time. An
operator, Hice, who worked as a spare printer,
before turning down a job as "boss printer" and
being assigned duties as an inspector, testified that
while classified as an operator he worked where
needed, including backtending and inspecting. The
exhibits show approximately 41 instances where 6
nonoperators (other than supervisors), or employees
whose status is open to question, worked as
operators during the period from February to
August 1968. However, 30 of these instances
occurred after July 5, 1968, the date the petition was
filed. Other than Hice, whose situation was unique,
only one roller print operator is shown to have
worked as an inspector, and that was while Hice,
who was then an inspector, was testifying at the
Board hearing.
Operators are the highest paid employees working
on the machines. There is a $1.15 rate range within
the operator classification as compared with a
60-cent range for inspectors and 85 cents for
backtenders. While Employer's counsel instructed its
superintendent of printing not to answer questions
concerning the employees' salaries, it was stipulated
that the highest rate for an inspector is
10-cents-an-hour less than the lowest rate paid an
operator and that the highest rate for a backtender
is the same as the lowest rate for an operator.
With the single exception of Pervel Industries
Inc.,' a craft severance case, the Board has
consistently held that roller machine operators form
a traditional craft unit appropriate for the purposes
of collective bargaining.' While many of the factors
found controlling in Pervel are present here, they
are not to be relied upon mechanically. In Pervel
itself the Board reiterated that it would ". . . in all
cases, regardless of industry, determine the
appropriateness of the craft unit sought in the light
of all factors present in the case," citing E.I.
Dupont de Nemours and Company.' Here we find
the distinctions outweigh the similarities. Thus
Pervel's printers filled in for employees of other
departments and former printers working in other
departments filled in for absent printers. Further, 18
former printers worked elsewhere in the plant, or in
the printing department on other than printer's jobs.
The record here does not establish a similar degree,
'163 NLRB No. 140
'See, e g , Plastic Film Co, 123 NLRB 1635, Southern Bleachery &
Print Works, 115 NLRB 787, Santee Print Works, 111 NLRB 1362;
American Finishing Co, 86 NLRB 412.
'162 NLRB 413
or kind, of transfer and interchange; employees of
other departments do not fill in for printers, printers
do not fill in for employees of other departments,
and no specific instances of printers transferring out
of the printing department were cited.
The Petitioner has traditionally represented
machine printers on a craft basis. The printers here
receive a substantially higher rate of pay than other
employees on the machines and are responsible for
the operation of the machines, directing the
backtenders and inspectors as necessary. While the
record does not establish that there is a regular
progression to the printer classification, all of the
Employer's printers have worked previously as
backtenders or inspectors. As the Employer's
superintendent of printing testified, the printers in
the main perform the same duties as the printers in
American Finishing Co.,' a case in which the Board
sought and obtained enforcement of its bargaining
order following issuance of Pervel. Finally, here
there is no history of plantwide collective bargaining
as there was in Pervel. See Mallinckrodt Chemical
Works, 162 NLRB 387, 392.`
Under all of the above circumstances, we find the
craft unit sought by the Petitioner to be appropriate
for the purposes of collective bargaining.'
We find, therefore, that the following employees
of the Employer constitute a unit appropriate for
the purposes of collective bargaining within the
meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All roller machine operators and all screen print
machine operators employed in the company's
plant, excluding all other employees, watchmen,
guards, and supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election8 omitted from
publication.]
'159 NLRB 976, enfd 389 F 2d 1004 (C.A 6, 1968)
'Member Fanning does not rely on the absence of a history of collective
bargaining on a more comprehensive basis in finding that the employees
herein constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining See his separate opinion in Mallinckrodt Chemical Works,
supra
'in view of the common supervision, interchange , and similarity of work
performed by the screen and roller printers, we shall combine the two units
as alternatively requested by the Petitioner
'An election eligibility list, containing the names and addresses of all the
eligible voters, must be filed by the Employer with the Regional Director
for Region 10 within 7 days after the date of this Decision and Direction
of Election The Regional Director shall make the list available to all
parties to the election No extension of time to file this list shall be granted
by the Regional Director except in extraordinary circumstances Failure to
comply with this requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election
whenever proper objections are filed Excelsior Underwear Inc , 156 NLRB
1236