C. T. Dearing Printing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 27, 1948

79 N.L.R.B. 1020 (N.L.R.B. 1948)

I
In the Matter of C. T. DEARING PRINTING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and
INTERNATIONAL MAILERS UNION, PETITIONER
Case No. 9-RC-109.-Decided September 27,1948
DECISION
AND .
ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed, a hearing was held before a hearing officer
of the National Labor Relations Board. The hearing officer's rulings
made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby
affirmed.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3 (b) of the National Labor
Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with
this case to a panel consisting of Board Members Houston, Reynolds,'
and Gray.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the National Labor Relations Act.
2. The labor organizations named below claim to represent
employees of the Employer.
3. No question of representation 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, for the following reasons :
The Petitioner seeks to represent a unit of shipping department
employees of the Employer.2
The Employer and Louisville Paper Handlers' Union, No. 26,
affiliated with International Printing Pressmen & Assistants' Union
of North America, AFL, herein called the Intervenor, contend that
shipping department employees do not constitute an appropriate unit
1 Board Member Reynolds did not participate in this case.
= The shipping department is also known in the record as the mailing department. The
unit originally sought by the Petitioner included employees currently covered by a bar-
gaining contract between the Employer and International Brotherhood of Bookbinders,
herein called the Bookbinders During the hearing, the Petitioner amended the petition
to exclude specifically the Employer's employees covered under the contract with the Book-
binders, and thus limited the proposed unit to employees working in and under the juris-
diction of the shipping department.
79 N. L . R. B., No. 123. :
1020
C. T. DEARING PRINTING COMPANY 1021
because (1) they are not a true craft group and (2) because the history
of collective bargaining between the Employer and the Intervenor has
been on the basis of a more inclusive unit.
The Employer operates a commercial printing plant in Louisville,
Kentucky, where it prints and distributes magazines of Nation-wide
circulation. In this plant the Employer's shipping department opera-
tions consist of stacking papers or magazines; wrapping bundles of
papers or magazines; tying the bundles with string, wire or rope, using
either hand or power devices; checking; operating automatic address-
ing machines (including the Cheshire machine) ; labeling; sacking
mail in bags; loading freight cars and occasionally trucks; and per-,
forming duties incidental to these operations. Magazines now con-
stitute a major portion of Employer's shipping work.
The stencils or lists of addresses used in the Employer's shipping
operations are usually prepared by the respective publishing houses
or magazines concerned, covering their own subscribers. The stenciled
subscription lists are handled through the Cheshire machine. The
labels for bulk shipments of magazines are prepared either by the pub-
lishing house or by the Employer's traffic department, but not by the
shipping department, except for occasional address labels for odd lots.
For some of the larger bulk shipments of magazines to dealers, one
label will be prepared by the traffic department and the other packages
in the same shipment to the same dealer will not have a pasted label
but will be addressed with a rubber stamp which is kept in the
shipping department.
Employees learn the specific machine and hand operations in the
Employer's shipping department within a few weeks. The Employer
does not have a regular schedule for apprenticeship training of these
employees and there is no standard progression among jobs rated by
skills. Job assignments are made by the shipping department fore-
man to the person who he thinks is best fitted for, and who wants, the
particular job, regardless of the time served or operations learned. A
wage scale obtains for the various operations, which increases accord-
ing to the length of time an employee has served in that operation.
Certain operations, as the Cheshire machine, are paid on a higher
scale, as they require more skill and responsibility. It has been re-
cently agreed that seniority in the shipping department shall determine
the employees to be assigned to the Cheshire machine.
Several operations performed in the shipping department are also
performed in other departments covered by the Intervenor's contract.
For example, electric dollies and conveyors are operated by employees
in other departments, such as the warehouse and the bindery, and are
1022 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
represented by the Intervenor. Counting and stacking is also done by
employees in these other departments.
The Employer has collective bargaining contracts with seven differ-
ent unions covering the various craft operations in its plant, ' such as
press operators, typesetters and proofreaders, photo-engravers, stereo-
type platers, bookbinders, truck drivers, and maintenance machinists.
Before 1940, employees in the warehouse and shipping department and
other residual employees, as roll paper handlers, freight handlers,
metal smelters (known as the paper control employees) were not or-
ganized. In 1940, the Intervenor entered into a 1-year contract with
the Employer for shipping department employees. In 1941 the Inter-
venor and the Employer extended the contract to cover specifically the
shipping department and all other employees not covered in a separate
craft unit, and has bargained for these employees since that time.
Although, absent past bargaining history, we have found appro-
priate units of shipping department employees,3 we will not sever'
shipping department employees from a larger established bargain-
ing unit. The shipping employees in the Employer's plant are clearly
not a craft group nor a closely integrated departmental group of the
type we have held in the past may be appropriately severed from' a
more inclusive, established bargaining unit 4
We shall, accordingly, dismiss the petition.
ORDER
Upon the basis of the above findings of fact and upon the entire
record in the case, the National Labor Relations Board hereby orders
that the petition for investigation and certification of representatives
of employees, of C. T. Dearing Printing Company, Louisville, Ken-
tucky, filed by International Mailers Union, be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
' Matter of Marcellus M. Murdock , 67 N L R B 1426.
& Matter of American Rolling Mills Company , 76 N. L. R. B. 1209; Matter of Allis-
Chalmers Manufacturing Company, 77 N. L . R. B. 719; Matter of Dazey Corporation, 7T
N. L. R. B. 408.