Cal-Central Press

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Oct 15, 1969

179 N.L.R.B. 162 (N.L.R.B. 1969)

162 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Cal-Central Press and Sacramento Lithograph Sales
and News Publishing of Sacramento' and
Lithographers & Photoengravers International
Union, Local 17-L, AFL-CIO,' Petitioner. Case
20-U C-27
October 15, 1969
DECISION AND ORDER GRANTING
PETITION TO CLARIFY UNCERTIFIED
BARGAINING UNIT
BY CHAIRMAN MCCULLOCH AND MEMBERS
JENKINS AND ZAGORIA
Upon a petition of Lithographers &
Photoengravers International Union, Local 17-L,
AFL-CIO, for clarification of unit duly filed on
March 13, 1969, under Section 9(b) of the National
Labor Relations Act, as amended , a hearing was
held on March 26, 1969, before Hearing Officer
Francis W. Hoeber . On March 26, 1969, the
Regional Director issued an Order transferring the
case to the Board . Thereafter , the Employer,
Petitioner , and Intervenor 3 filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of 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. The rulings are hereby
affirmed
Upon the entire record in this case , the Board
finds-
1. The companies designated in the caption
constitute a single employer engaged in commerce
within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate
the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The Petitioner and the Intervenor are labor
organizations within the meaning of the Act, and
both claim to represent certain employees of the
Employer.
3. The LPIU filed the petition herein , to seek
clarification as to whether two employees referred to
as lithographic preparatory employees should
properly be included in the unit of lithographic
preparatory employees it currently represents under
a collective -bargaining agreement between itself and
'Hereinafter collectively called the Employer
'Hereinafter called LPIU or Petitioner.
'Sacramento Typographical Union No 46, hereinafter called ITU, was
permitted to intervene on the basis of a contractual interest Following the
hearing, Sacramento Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union, Local 60,
filed a letter with the Board, protesting the fact that the Regional Director
had not granted a request it had made to postpone the hearing in the
instant case Local 60 represents other employees of the Employer We
find the Regional Director acted within his discretion in refusing to grant
the requested postponement Local 60 has not otherwise moved to
intervene in this proceeding
Sacramento Lithograph Sales.4 Petitioner takes the
position that the two lithographic preparatory
employees it seeks have become de facto a part of
the lithographic preparatory employees unit it now
represents , and that their inclusion in that unit is
proper , both for functional reasons and because of
their close community of interests with the other
employees in the unit . The Employer in all respects
agrees with the Petitioner ' s position. The
appropriateness of this unit clarification proceeding
is questioned by ITU, which contends that, at most,
a question concerning representation exists among
the employees sought by LPIU. It further contends
that these employees , because of their historic
inclusion therein properly belong in the unit of all
mechanical employees currently represented by ITU
under a collective - bargaining contract with News
Publishing of Sacramento .' The ITU argues in
addition that its current contract with News
Publishing , executed September 1, 1968, includes
language identical to that of prior contracts
pursuant to which the disputed employees were
represented by it.
The three companies named in the caption in the
instant proceeding are an outgrowth through merger
and physical consolidation of four separate
corporations in 1961, and now function in
practically all respects as a single integrated
enterprise engaged in the commercial printing
business in the Sacramento , California , area. While
maintaining separate corporate identities ,' separate
complement of employees and separate books and
records, these companies operate in one location,'
and have a single directorate and management, as
well as, for the most part , common stock holders.
They contract with customers under the name of
Cal-Central Press. ' The separate corporation
designated as Cal-Central , however, is not a
publishing company but a sales company, employing
only a complement of salesmen for its two operating
sisters, News Publishing and Sacramento Litho.
News Publishing is the successor of News
Publishing Company, Inc., and took over that
company's employees and contracts at the time of
the 1961 merger .' For more than half a century,
News Publishing Company, Inc., was engaged in the
commercial printing business . Though News
Publishing Company, Inc., traditionally employed
the hot metal process in its operation , it branched
'Hereinafter called Sacramento Litho
'Hereinafter called News Publishing
'Testimony taken at the hearing establishes that this is done for purposes
of taxation and federal security clearance for employees of Sacramento
Litho working on aerojet contracts
'This will be discussed infra
'Hereinafter called Cal-Central
'Its present complement consists of (a) lithographic and letterpress
bindery employees, represented by the International Bookbinders and
Bindery Women's Union, (b) lithograph press and letterpress operators
(hot type) preparatory employees and two lithographic preparatory
employees (sometimes hereinafter called "litho preparatory" or "litho
prep" employees) who are the subject of the dispute
179 NLRB No. 23
CAL-CENTRAL PRESS 163
out during the 1950's into offset printing, and for a
number of years employed offset printing to produce
color printing and business forms printed in
multiples known as the "pegboard " system, the
mainstay of its offset printing work . The pegboard
system was sold by News Publishing in 1964 with a
resultant transfer of camera and equipment out of
the plant. News Publishing, however, had contracted
with the purchaser , Safeguard, to continue to
perform a certain amount of the pegboard system's
work because Safeguard was not prepared , following
the purchase , to handle all of it. After these short
term contracts ended in about 1966, some of the
regular commercial work in offset printing done by
Sacramento Litho was funnelled into the offset
printing section of News Publishing . This kept the
litho preparatory employees of News Publishing
busy until their physical consolidation in 1968 with
the litho preparatory employees of Sacramento
Litho. In the meantime, however , the number of
litho preparatory employees on the payroll of News
Publishing had decreased from about 5 in 1961 to
only 2 at the time of the consolidation in 1968,
mainly due to the elimination of the pegboard
system's work
There has been a long history of bargaining
between News Publishing and ITU A series of
collective-bargaining agreements between ITU and
News Publishing and its predecessor have contained
language covering employees performing cold type
process printing; such language, in the
understanding of the contracting parties, has covered
lithographic preparatory employees employed by
News Publishing. These contracts have been
negotiated and administered on a multiemployer
basis with the Sacramento Printers Board of Trade
acting on behalf of News Publishing and several
other employers in the Sacramento area. This
association of employer printers signs the labor
contracts on behalf of its members , and such
signatures bind all of the members . The sister
corporation of News Publishing , Sacramento Litho,
is not a member of the Sacramento Printers Board
of Trade, and contracts between this corporation
and LPIU are adopted by letters of agreement
between it and the union directly after negotiations
between the parties
At the time the pegboard system was sold in
1964, discussions took place between News
Publishing and ITU concerning the future
jurisdiction of ITU to represent litho preparatory
employees The ITU maintained that the level of
work for litho prep employees should be continued
and News Publishing at that time so agreed.
Consequently , the following special language was
contained in the 1964 contract , and was continued in
the 1966 and 1968 agreement:
It is recognized that prior to the consolidation of
the physical properties of News Publishing
Company and Sacramento Lithograph Company,
all work in the offset and lithographic process up
to the completion of a printing surface for the
News Publishing Company pressroom has been
performed by employees covered by this
agreement. It is further recognized that after the
consolidation, and the installation of the
equipment formerly operated by Sacramento
Lithograph Company at another location and the
continued employment of employees of the
Sacramento Lithograph Company, it may not be
possible to continue this practice on a 100% basis
as some of such employees are not represented by
the Union. However, it is understood and agreed
that the volume of such work performed by
employees covered by this agreement shall not be
reduced and in the event of an increase in the
volume of such work recognized by the parties as
duplication, employees covered by this agreement
shall be entitled to and shall be assigned a fair
share of the increased volume
It may be noted that the language in the 1964 and
subsequent agreements had not limited the ITU's
representation to hot metal process employees - a
restriction now insisted upon by News Publishing -
but had covered all categories of printing employees
in the plant. The 1964 contract in toto was, by
mutual agreement of the parties, continued in effect
from day to day during the 1968 negotiations and
the 1968 contract did not change the jurisdictional
language of the prior agreements as quoted above.
During the 1968 negotiations, however,
information came to the ITU concerning the
pending physical consolidation of the remaining
litho prep employees into the litho prep employees'
unit of Sacramento Litho (represented by LPIU),
and the ITU orally reasserted its jurisdictional
claim. News Publishing thereupon, for the first time
during negotiations, contended that ITU's
jurisdiction should be restricted to hot metal process
employees. The terms of the 1968 contract simply
left the matter of contract violation to be handled
under the grievance procedure of the contract.
Contemporaneously with the execution of the 1968
contract, however, the parties became signatories to
a special letter of agreement providing that the
contract in all respects, except as to its
union-security clause, shall be applicable to the litho
prep employees pending the outcome of the instant
proceeding; and that, if and when a determination is
made that the employees affected are properly a
part of the ITU's bargaining unit, the newly
negotiated union-security clause shall take effect as
to the remaining two litho prep employees of News
Publishing. During this period the transfer of the
remaining two News Publishing litho prep
employees to the physical location utilized by the
litho prep employees of Sacramento Litho took
place.
As previously indicated, in the years following the
1961 merger the three corporations comprising this
Employer moved into a single building housing
News Publishing, and all now occupy these
164 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
premises The lithographic preparatory work is
located in the central area of the building where,
since the aforementioned transfer of the disputed
employees, all 11 of the lithographic preparatory
employees function This unit, otherwise represented
by LPIU in a series of collective bargaining
agreements since the years prior to the merger, is
presently composed of six strippers, one day shift
cameraman, two platemakers, one night shift
cameraman, and one night shift platemaker
Though Sacramento Litho now employs only
offset printing personnel, prior to the 1961 merger it
employed personnel in both lithographic preparatory
and hot metal process printing. Its hot metal process
personnel were principally typesetters and a few
letter pressmen who apparently were unrepresented.
During the period of physical consolidation of
Sacramento Litho into the News Publishing
building, those employees of Sacramento Litho who
were not represented by LPIU, namely typesetters
and letter pressmen, immediately upon their
relocation joined the two unions representing the
units into which they were merged, and were
covered by ITU and Printing Pressmen contracts
respectively '
As for the two litho prep employees, though they
continued to be carried on the News Publishing
payroll, work is assigned to them in the same
manner as to the other litho prep unit employees, by
the same supervisor, and without regard to the
corporation employing them or the records in which
the job is listed These two and other litho prep
employees perform identical functions and use the
same skills, though the disputed employees do not
have the security clearance required by the United
States for work on the aerojet contract. Hence
special pains are taken by management to screen
this classified work away from these two employees.
This means that the disputed employees are
separated from other unit employees by curtains
when the latter are performing aerojet work, and
they cannot be assigned to overtime work because of
the lack of adequate security measures to screen
them at that time.
'Similarly, though it is not a determinative fact, upon their consolidation
into the litho prep unit in 1968 the two litho prep employees of News
Publishing joined the LPIU and, apparently, remain dues paying members
of that organization
The provisions of the LPIU contract have been
applied to the disputed litho prep employees in all
respects except as to pension and welfare, with the
result that they enjoy the same rates of pay, hours,
and other working conditions which are applicable
to the lithographic unit employees. This also means
that their rate of pay is higher than that of other
employees on the payroll of News Publishing who
remained under the coverage of the ITU contract
provisions. Likewise, the skills employed by the
disputed employees are wholly different from the
skills of the other News Publishing employees, all of
whom are now engaged in the hot metal process as
contrasted with the cold metal or offset printing
employed by these two and other employees in the
litho prep unit.
In light of the foregoing facts, and particularly
the new physical location of the two litho prep
employees, their identical community of interests
with the other litho prep unit employees, their
common supervision, the fact that their skills are
wholly different from other employees of News
Publishing represented by ITU, and their functional
integration into the litho prep unit, we find that they
are properly within the unit of lithographic
preparatory employees represented by LPIU. We
see no justification for perpetuating their historical
inclusion in ITU's unit of mechanical employees
simply for history's sake, when the subsequent
course of events has obliterated whatever
appropriateness once attached to their inclusion in
that unit. Accordingly,10 we find that the Board's
procedures for clarifying units are properly brought
into play in this case, and we shall clarify the unit
represented by LPIU.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the existing unit
represented by Lithographers & Photoengravers
International Union Local 17-L, AFL-CIO be, and
it hereby is , clarified by specifically including the
lithographic preparatory employees previously
included in the unit represented by Sacramento
Typographical Union, No. 46, International
Typographical Union , AFL-CIO.
"See, e g, Libby. McNeill and Libby , 159 NLRB 677, 681