McCall Corp.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 10, 1957

118 N.L.R.B. 1332 (N.L.R.B. 1957)

1332 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
latches. The welding and burning they are required to do is not as
skilled as that required at the shipyard. We shall not include these
employees in the voting group in which an election is directed.
We shall direct that the question concerning representation which
exists be resolved by an election by secret ballot among the employees
in the following voting group :
All welders and burners, their helpers and leadmen employed by the
Employer in the Houston, Texas, area at its shipyard, shell and gravel
plants, and Columbus gravel pit, excluding all other employees and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
If a majority of the employees in the voting group vote for the
Petitioner, they will be taken to have indicated their desire to con-
stitute a separate bargaining unit, and the Regional Director
conducting the election is instructed to issue a certification of repre-
sentatives to the Petitioner for the employees in the voting group
above, which the Board, in such circumstances, finds to be appropriate
for purposes of collective bargaining. On the other hand, if a majority
do not vote for the Petitioner, these employees shall remain a part of
the existing unit and the Regional Director will issue a certification
of results of election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
CHAIRMAN LEEDOM and MEMBER JENBINS took no part in the con-
sideration of the above Supplemental Decision and Direction of
Election.
McCall Corporation and Local 33, Amalgamated Lithographers
of America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 9-RC-3088. Sep-
tember 10,1957
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Daniel P. Dooley, 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 [Chairman Leedom and Members Rodgers and Bean].
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.
118 NLRB No. 175.
McCALL CORPORATION 1333
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 sever a unit of lithographic production
workers from an existing pressroom unit represented by the Inter-
venor, Dayton Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union, No. 54, for
many years. Both the Employer and the Intervenor contend that
the principle enunciated in the Pacific Press, Inc., case (66 NLRB
458) is applicable and that a separate unit of lithographic employees
is therefore inappropriate.
The Employer is engaged at its Dayton plant in printing maga-
zines and periodicals and manufacturing dress patterns. Originally,
it did all its printing by letterpress. In recent years it has installed
offset presses, which employ the lithographic process. In order to
man the new machines it has given special training to some of its
letter pressmen and transferred them to the operation of the offset
presses. At the present time, it has three groups of employees engaged
in the lithographic process. They are: employees in the offset pre-
paratory division who do the platemaking, stripping, graining, and
camera work; employees in the pattern offset pressroom; and
employees on 2- and 4-color offset presses. The offset preparatory
division is a separate administrative division having its own superin-
tendent; the offset press operators are part of the pressroom division
and are under the same general superintendent as the letter pressmen.
The employees in the offset preparatory division, the pattern offset
pressmen, and the 2- and 4-color offset pressmen are respectively
located in different parts of the plant.
The Employer contends that its lithographic equipment, although
utilizing standard principles, is different from conventional equip-
ment, and that there is constant interchange of men between its letter
and its offset presses. The heart of an offset press is its printing unit;
1In its brief, the Intervenor asserted for the first time that its collective-bargaining
agreement with the Employer entered into on June 1, 1953, and effective to April 22, 1956,
and from year to year thereafter unless 90 days' notice of intention to reopen was given
before the expiration date of the agreement is a bar to this petition . It appears that the
petition was filed on March 29 , 1957, or less than 90 days before the 1957 anniversary
date. However, the Intervenor does not state that the contract was automatically re-
newed . It says simply that, "The record herein is devoid of a notice to terminate or
modify such contract from either the Union or the Employer . Accordingly , it would
appear that established contract bar principles of the Board would operate to preclude a
present direction of election ." The Employer has made no contention that the contract
was automatically renewed or that it is otherwise a bar. In its reply brief (the motion
for permission to file such a brief is hereby granted ), the Petitioner asserts that all the
parties knew that the contract had terminated according to its terms and that the
Intervenor and the Employer were negotiating a new agreement . The Petitioner also
points to testimony at the hearing that, when the Intervenor offered to introduce its
contract in evidence , the Petitioner 's counsel asked the purpose of the proffer and the
Intervenor 's counsel replied that it was to establish the Intervenor 's interest in the pro-
ceeding and its right to intervene. The Intervenor did not assert that the contract was
introduced for bar purposes . In view of the ambiguousness of the Intervenor 's statement
In its brief, and the fact that it made no attempt to raise or litigate the question of the
contract as a bar at the hearing, we find that the contract is not a bar to this proceeding.
Cf. Bupertor Bieeprite Corporation, 106 NLRB 228.
1334 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the other parts-feeding mechanism, delivery and drier units-may be
very like similar units on letterpresses. . The printing units on the
Employer's offset presses use the traditional and customary litho-
graphic processes. The degree of interchange between letter and offset
pressmen is in dispute. The offset pressmen have come from the ranks
of the letter pressmen. But once a transfer has been made and the
employee proves satisfactory, there appears to be comparatively little
interchange between letter and offset pressmen except to fill needs
created by vacationing or ill employees, or because of a special rush
of work in one department or another. This is far from the kind or
degree of interchange present in the Pacific Press case which persuaded
the Board that a unit of lithographic employees was not appropriate.
In that case the Board found a single crew regularly and continuously
worked on both letterpresses and offset presses. "Depending upon
business exigencies, these employees work on each type of press for
varying periods of time during the course of a week. They may
work the major portion of 1 week on newspaper presses, and the next
week the reverse might be true." (66 NLRB at p. 462.) That is not
the situation in the present case. We find, therefore, as we have in
other cases, that, as the Petitioner is a union which traditionally
represent lithographers, the employees engaged in the lithographic
production process may, if they so desire, constitute a separate appro-
priate unit, notwithstanding their previous inclusion in a broader
unit.2
We shall direct an election in the following voting group, which
may constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act:
All lithographic production workers at the Employer's Dayton,
Ohio, plant, including employees in the offset preparatory division,
and employees operating the pattern offset presses and the 2- and
4-color offset presses, but excluding professional employees, guards,
and supervisors as defined in the Act.
If a majority of the employees in the above voting group vote for
the Petitioner they will be taken to have indicated their desire to
constitute a separate appropriate unit, and the Regional Director con-
ducting the election directed herein is instructed to issue a certification
of representatives to the Petitioner for the unit described in paragraph
numbered 4, which the Board, under such circumstances, finds to be
appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining. In the event a
-majority vote for the Intervenor, the Board finds the existing unit to
be appropriate and the Regional Director will issue a certification of
results of election to such effect.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
Desaulniers and Company , 115 NLRB 1025 , 1028; Standard Printing c6 Lithographing
Co., 114 NLRB 1439, 1440 ; McKay Press, 113 NLRB 683 ; Danner Press of Canton, Inc.,
91 NLRB 237, 238.