J. Miller Printing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 3, 1959

122 N.L.R.B. 1256 (N.L.R.B. 1959)

1256 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
hour, and other substantive features of its relations with the employees them-
selves, if any, which the latter has established in the performance of this agree-
ment.
Furthermore, since I have found that the Respondents violated the Act by
.coercing the employees to become and remain members of Local 269 and to
authorize deduction of membership dues from their wages, the parties to the illegal
agreement should be held equally responsible for expunging the effect of their
unfair labor practices. I, therefore, find that it will effectuate the policies of the
Act to order the Respondent Company and the Respondent Local 269, jointly and
severally, to refund to the employees all of the amounts deducted from their wages
for that purpose from and after a date 6 months prior to the filing of the charges
herein.22 Dixie Bedding Manufacturing Company, supra; Coast Aluminum Com-
pany, supra; United Association of Journeymen & Apprentices of Plumbing &
Pipefitting Industry, etc., Local 231 (J. S. Brown-E. S. Olds, etc., Corporation),
115 NLRB 594, 599-602; Hibbard Dowel Company, 113 NLRB 28, 30; The
Englander Company, Inc., 114 NLRB 1034, 1047; Broderick Wood Products Com-
pany, 118 NLRB 38, 64.
Upon the basis of the foregoing findings of fact, and upon the entire record in
the case, I make the following:
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The Respondent Company is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The Unions here involved are labor organizations within the meaning of the
Act.
3. By executing, maintaining, and enforcing contracts containing unlawful union-
security provisions, thereby compelling employees to become and remain members
of Local 269 and submit to the involuntary checkoff of union dues from their wages
for payment to the aforesaid Union, the Respondent Company has violated Sec-
tion 8(a)(3) of the Act and the Respondent Local 269, by causing the Company
to discriminate with respect to the hire and tenure of employees in violation of
Section 8(a)(3), has engaged in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Sec-
tion 8(b)(2) of the Act.
4. By assisting Local 269 and its predecessor Local 649 and contributing support
to these organizations the Respondent Company has engaged in and is engaging
in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(a)(2) of the Act.
5. By interfering with, restraining, and coercing the employees in the exercise
of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, the Respondent Company and
the Respondent Local 269 have engaged in and are engaging in unfair labor prac-
tices, the former within the meaning of Section 8(a)(1) and the latter within the
meaning of Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act.
6. The aforesaid unfair labor practices are unfair labor practices within the
meaning of Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act.
[Recommendations omitted from publication.]
za As noted earlier, the financial responsibility of Local 269 for remedying the unfair
labor practices found herein also includes the obligation to reimburse to the employees
all dues received by Local 649, insofar as they were collected by Custen for that par-
ticular predecessor of Local 269 within the 6 months antedating the charges in Case
No. 2-CB-1940.
J. Miller Printing Company Gem Offset Plate Company i and
Local No . 1, Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Peti-
tioner. Case No. 92-RC-9648. February 3, 1959
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTIONS
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held in this case before James J.
'The record Indicates that Gem Offset Plate Company Is not now In operation and has
no employees.
122 NLRB No. 143.
J. MILLER PRINTING COMPANY, ETC. 1257
Graham, hearing officer. 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 Act, the Board
has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-
member panel [Members Rodgers, Jenkins, and Fanning].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain
employees of the Employer.2
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion 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 to represent all lithographic production
employees at the Employer's plant in New York, New York, includ-
ing offset pressmen, assistant offset pressmen, the cameraman, strip-
pers, and assistant strippers. It would include the general floor boy
provided he spends a substantial part of his time doing general floor
work around the lithographic equipment. The Intervenor seeks a
unit of all pressmen and assistant pressmen, including both letter-
press and offset pressmen, the cameraman, strippers, platemakers,
and compositor. Should the Board find appropriate the unit sought
by the Petitioner, the Intervenor desires that a separate election be
ordered for the letterpress pressmen. The Employer contends that
only an overall unit of all printing production employees is appro-
priate. There is no history of collective bargaining.
The Employer is engaged in both letterpress and offset printing
operations. Its shop contains offset, letterpress, and bindery em-
ployees who work on the same floor, but are respectively engaged
in distinct and separate operations. All of the Employer's presses,
both letterpress and offset, are in the same room. The Employer's
pressmen and assistant pressmen are for the most part regularly
assigned to presses of a specific type. Thus, there are 3 employees
who work regularly and exclusively in the letterpress process and
10 who regularly perform offset operations. The offset pressman
foreman works regularly in both processes. Although the offset and
letterpress pressmen can operate both types of presses, they inter-
change only when an employee is absent.
The Board has held that employees engaged in the lithgrophic
(offset) process may constitute a separate appropriate unit .3 As
2 International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America, AFL-CIO,
Local No . 51, herein called the Intervenor , was permitted to intervene at the hearing upon
a sufficient showing of interest.
3 See Robinson Printers , Inc., 118 NLRB 518.
1258 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
there is no history of collective bargaining, and the pressmen inter-
change only on rare occasions, we find that the offset pressmen and
the letterpress pressmen may constitute separate appropriate units .4
With respect to the composition of the two units, we find that the
errand boys 5 and the bindery employees,' who cut, fold, trim, and
bind or punch and collate paper and also pack the finished product,
do not properly belong in either unit because their duties are uncon-
nected with the pressmen's craft. Accordingly, we exclude these
employees.
There remains to be considered the unit placement of Harold
Weiss and Edward Heckler. Weiss is classified as a working fore-
man or offset pressman foreman. He is higher paid than other
pressmen, trains new employees, and spends 75 percent of his time
running an offset press, although he works as a letterpress pressman
when needed. As this employee is engaged primarily in the offset
printing process and has no more power effectively to recommend
the hire or discharge of employees than any other pressman, we
include him in the unit of offset pressmen. Heckler, classified as a
general floor boy, performs such duties as packing, sweeping, clean-
ing and oiling the presses, and running errands. Although at pres-
ent he is incapable of working as pressman in either process, he is
being trained in letterpress work, has been working on the letterpress
machines, and will eventually be promoted to production work in
one of the two processes. We fund that this employee is a letterpress
trainee, and accordingly include him in the unit of letterpress
pressmen.7
Accordingly, we shall direct that separate elections be held in the
following appropriate units of employees of the Employer at its
New York, New York, plant, excluding the bindery employees,
errand boys, guards, professional employees, and supervisors as de-
fined in the Act :
(1) All lithographic production employees, including all offset
pressmen, assistant offset pressmen, the offset pressman foreman,
cameraman, strippers and platemakers.
(2) All letterpress production employees, including the letterpress
pressmen, letterpress compositor, and the letterpress trainee.
[Text of Direction of Elections 8 omitted from publication.]
4 Ad-Press Corporation, 119 NLRB 564.
s Newport News Forms Company, Incorporated, 110 NLRB 471.
o See footnote 4, supra.
I See Continental Can Company, Inc., 110 NLRB 409.
s Should the Intervenor win in both elections herein directed, it will be certified in the
overall unit. Ad-Press Corporation, supra.