Cone Mills Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 8, 1971

187 N.L.R.B. 759 (N.L.R.B. 1971)

CONE MILLS CORP. 759
Cone Mills Corporation , Carlisle Finishing Company case involves the Employer's screen print department
Plant and Machine Printers and Engravers Associa- which embraces the following functions: color shop
tion of the United States , Petitioner . Case or color mixing, screen printing operation, and color
1 I-RC-3054
January 8, 1971
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF
ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER 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 Hearing Officer Charles M. William-
son of the National Labor Relations Board. Follow-
ing the close of the hearing the Regional Director for
Region 11 transferred this case to the Board for
decision. Thereafter, the Employer and the Petitioner
filed briefs.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
Act, the 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 concern-
ing the representation of certain employees of the
Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and
Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The appropriate unit:
Petitioner seeks an election in a departmental unit
composed of all employees in the screen print
department at the Employer's Carlisle, South Caroli-
na, plant, excluding all other employees, watchmen,
guards, and supervisors. The Employer contends that
such a departmental unit is inappropriate because the
screen print department employees do not constitute
a homogeneous readily identifiable group of employ-
ees within its plant. Moreover, the Employer further
contends that the Petitioner has historically represent-
ed only certain roller print and screen print employees
on a craft basis, and that the petitioned-for employees
in the instant case normally constitute portions of
overall production and maintenance units traditional-
ly represented by the Textile Workers Union of
America or the United Textile Workers.
The Employer is a North Carolina corporation and
is engaged in the finishing and sale of textile products
at its plant in Carlisle, South Carolina. The instant
analysis and table strike-off. The Petitioner has had a
contract with the Employer at Carlisle for a number
of years covering a craft unit of machine printers and
apprentices in the roller printing department.
The silk screen machine process is comparatively
recent, and the first silk screen printing machine was
introduced into the United States in 1950. The record
shows that the Employer's screen print department
(which is a distinct and separate operation, utilizing
entirely different processes and machinery than the
roller machine printing department) has a comple-
ment of approximately 107 employees on three shifts.
Three screen print machines are operated on each of
the three shifts. Each machine is manned by a screen
printer machine operator, an assistant operator, and a
machine utility man. The machines are 7 or more feet
wide and may extend to 190 feet in length. The screen
printer and the assistant operator work on opposite
sides of the machine. The screen printer is responsible
for the registration, or "fit" of the pattern. He sets up
the repeat of the pattern and, with the help of the
assistant operator, makes the setting of the print heads
of each succeeding screen. The silk screen prints are
put into the machine by the screen printer, the
assistant, and the utility man. The latter pours colors
into the machines, washes screens, and assists in
removing screens and resetting the machine.
The color shop furnishes the color or dyes which the
screen printing operation uses in the printed applica-
tion of colors in printed patterns. Most of the
requested employees work in the color shop area. The
color analysis and table strike-off area prepares
sample patterns of textile to be sent to a customer
before he decides on an order. This is done by a
physically pasting down cloth of different lengths on a
table, then by hand reproducing the print the
customer wishes.
There is a plant superintendent who supervises 12
production departments. Each production depart-
ment has a general foreman who reports to the plant
superintendent. However, the screen print depart-
ment general foreman is also the assistant superin-
tendent of the plant, with plantwide authority to hire
and fire. A technical supervisor is responsible for
coordinating the technical processes involved in
screen printing, ageing and soaping, and operation of
the laboratory in the screen printing department.
Within the screen print department, there are three
distinct areas, each having its own foreman; i.e., color
mixing, screen printing, and color analysis, or table
strike-off. In the screen printing area the job categor-
ies are utility, assistant machine operator, screen
machine operator, rotary screen operator, and lear-
187 NLRB No. 73
760 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ner. In the table strike-off area there are two table
strike-off operators, one assistant table strike-off
operator, two learners, and two color mixers. There is
one clerk, one screen repairman, one color inventory
control clerk, and one formula paste mixer, who are
assigned to the department rather than to one of the
three areas.
The Employer's plant is three stories high. Screen
printing is located on the first floor and part of the
second or main floor. The screen printing on the
second or main floor is located immediately off the
dyehouse, next to the cloth control department. The
screen printing on the first floor is located immediate-
ly below the cloth control department and the
dyehouse. On the second floor, located adjacent to a
portion of screen printing called the formula paste
mixing room, is warehousing, layout and sew area,
preparation department, roller printing department,
color shop, and dyehouse. The third floor houses the
general offices and staff, the formulation mixing room
for the finishing department and color shop, and a
portion of the inspection and packing department.
A common entrance for all production and mainte-
nance employees, including the screen print employ-
ees, is located on the first floor. The screen print
employees share the same fringe benefits, park in the
same parking lot, are paid in the same manner, hired
by the same personnel office using the same applica-
tion form, work the same hours, and share the same
nursing facilities as other production and mainte-
nance employees.
There are, however, marked distinctions between
the production and maintenance employees and
screen print employees. The screen printing depart-
ment is functionally distinct and physically separate
from the other departments.' It has separate supervi-
sors who hold separate departmental supervisory
meetings to discuss departmental production and
quality problems.2 Separate departmental seniority
obtains. Moreover, despite Employer's claim of great
interchange between production and maintenance
and screen print employees, it is undisputed that
screen print employees work in other departments less
than 1 percent of the time. The record reveals that
over approximately an 8-year period, there were eight
i in determining the degree of integration between the screen print
department and other production departments in the plant , it is significant
to note that there is undisputed record testimony establishing that the
remainder of the plant can operate completely independent of the screen
printing department operations.
2 We have concluded that the screen print department is separately
supervised based , inter a(a, upon uncontroverted evidence that the
department has its own general foreman who is responsible for the overall
direction of that department's operations The mere fact that at the present
time this same general foreman also occupies the position of assistant plant
superintendent is to us a matter of no special significance
3 In view of this evidence, we are unable to perceive any reasonable
basis for our dissenting colleague's expressed concern over "real and
potential interchange" between the employees of the screen print
permanent transfers into screen print and six perma-
nent transfers out.3 There is very little interchange as
the term is generally understood. The interchange
alleged by the Employer appears to involve such
employees as hoist truck operators, expediters, clerks,
mechanics, lab personnel, and sweepers, who work
with all departments. The screen print department has
an on-the-job training program, with the assistants
and leadmen progressing through those positions in
about 3 years to jobs as screen machine print
operators. Because of skill and training factors,
employees in other departments could not inter-
change easily with screen print personnel. The bids
for jobs in screen printing are posted on its bulletin
boards, and although theoretically it is possible after 3
days for other than screen printing employees to bid
on the jobs, in practice unless that employee had prior
screen printing experience and is approved by the
screen printing foreman, he will not get thejob. At the
present time, there is no screen print operator without
prior experience.
The unrepresented employees of the screen print
department work under common supervisors, sepa-
rate from that of all other employees. There is no
substantial interchange on a continuing basis between
screen print employees and employees of other
departments. The screen print employees work in
close contact, and of necessity must work as a team,
thus having a community of interest not shared with
other production workers, and they comprise a
separate functional and departmental group of
employees. The Board has found an analogous
departmental grouping to be appropriate for
bargaining.4 Thus, considering all the factors involved
in this case, we have concluded that the following
employees constitute a separate, identifiable unit
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining
within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the Act:
All employees of the screen print department of
Carlisle Finishing Co. employed at the Company's
plant in Carlisle, South Carolina, excluding all
other employees, watchmen, guards, and supervi-
sors as defined in the Act.
[Direction of Elections omitted from publication.]
department and those of other departments
a Lyman Printing and Finishing Co, 177 N LRB No 117
5 In order to assure that all eligible voters may have the opportunity to
be informed of the issues in the exercise of their statutory right to vote, all
parties to the election should have access to a list of voters and their
addresses which may be used to communicate with them Excelsior
Underwear Inc, 156 NLRB 1236, N L R B v Wyman-Gordon Company,
394 U S 759 Accordingly, it is hereby directed that 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 i i within 7
days of 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
(Continued)
CONE MILLS CORP.
CHAIRMAN M ILLER , dissenting:
Contrary to the majority, I am not persuaded that
the unit sought qualifies for separate representation
on a departmental basis. It does not conform with the
traditional type of departmental units found appro-
priate by the Board in the past, and, as con- 'ded by
Petitioner, groups employees who historically have
been represented as part of an overall production and
maintenance unit. It is significant that the screen print
operation is part of an integrated production process,
which results in frequent contacts with other unrepre-
sented and unsought production employees, and has
resulted in both real and potential interchange on
both a permanent and temporary basis. The common
interests of those sought with other production
employees is established not only by their common
terms and conditions of employment, but also by the
fact that 51 of the screen department employees
requirement shall be grounds for setting aside the election whenever proper
objections are filed
761
occupy classifications having the identicaljob content
as other unsought production employees. There is
also a lack of the type of separate immediate
supervision commonly found in departmental units.
Thus the only supervision common to all three
sections of the screen department is by an individual
whose authority extends to other production and
maintenance employees. Otherwise the screen depart-
ment employees are in three separate supervisory
units. In these circumstances, it is my opinion that the
screen department employees do not constitute a
homogeneous grouping whose interests are sufficient-
ly distinct to warrant representation separate from the
unrepresented production and maintenance employ-
ees. Accordingly, and as this grouping of employees
does not qualify for separate representation on any
other basis, I would dismiss the petition as seeking an
inappropriate unit.