Moore Business Forms, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 4, 1968

173 N.L.R.B. 1133 (N.L.R.B. 1968)

MOORE BUSINESS FORMS, INC. 1133
Moore Business Forms , Inc. and Bookbinders and
Bindery Women 's Local No . 2, affiliated with
International Brotherhood of Bookbinders,
AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 4-RC-7626
December 4, 1968
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
On March 29, 1968, the Regional Director for
Region 4 issued a Decision and Direction of Election
in the above-entitled proceeding in which he found
the unit sought by the Petitioner to be appropriate.
Thereafter, in accordance with the National Labor
Relations Board Rules and Regulations, the Employer
filed a timely request for review of the Regional
Director's Decision on the grounds that, in reaching
his unit determination, he departed from established
Board policy and made findings of fact which were
clearly erroneous. The Petitioner filed opposition
thereto
On April 25, 1968, the National Labor Relations
Board by telegraphic Order granted the request for
review and stayed the election pending decision on
review.
Upon the entire record in the case, including the
Employer's request for review and brief on review,'
and the Petitioner's brief in opposition to review, the
Board makes the following findings: The Regional
Director found appropriate, in accord with the
Petitioner's request, a unit of all employees in the
collating, carbonizing, slitting, and shipping
departments of the Employer at its Quakertown,
Pennsylvania plant, including collator operators,
collator helpers, slitter operators, carbon coater
operators, manufacturing servicemen, and material
handlers, but excluding pressmen, planning and
preliminary department employees, maintenance
employees, waste handlers, janitors, office clerical,
and professional employees, supervisors, watchmen,
and guards, as defined in the Act. He viewed this
finding to be consistent with the Board's Decision On
Review in Doubleday & Company, Inc., 165 NLRB
No. 41.
The Employer contends that Doubleday is
inapposite and that the record herein does not
support the Regional Director's unit finding. We
agree.
The Employer manufactures a diversified line of
specialized business forms for virtually every type of
business function. At the Quakertown plant here
involved,' it produces two types of business forms,
speedisets, and custom continuous forms. A speediset
is an assembly of papers and carbons cut into a set,
glued and perforated at one end for either manual or
machine use. A custom continuous form is an
assembly of carbons and papers punched so that it
can be fed over an automatic printing device or
computer. The plant has about 180 production and
maintenance employees, 84 of whom the Petitioner
seeks to represent in a separate unit. Essentially, the
employees it seeks comprise all but those performing
the maintenance function and the printing function,
whether by the letterpress or lithographic process.
There is no history of collective bargaining.
All the operations are performed on a single floor
of the plant. In a large open area there are four
sections separated only by open aisles where
manufacturing operations are performed. In the
largest section are a number of "press units". Within
this section are two cage enclosures, one a
maintenance shop, and the other a storage area for
supplies needed for the press operations. In the next
largest section are a number of collator machines.'
The other two sections are relatively small. One has
two slitter machines, and the other two carbonizers or
carbon coating machines. To one side of this large
manufacturing area, adjacent to the slitting and
carbon coating machines, is a large storage and
shipping area. To another side, at a right angle, next
to the collator machines, are a number of
partitioned-off rooms where planning and preliminary
operations are performed for printing by both the
letterpress and lithographic processes.
Under a plant manager, there are four
superintendents, for manufacturing, preliminary
operations, material handling, and maintenance. The
manufacturing superintendent has under him, for
each of the three shifts, a press foreman and a
collating foreman.' There are 40 to 45 press
operators, including manufacturing servicemen; there
are 25 collator operators and 21 collator helpers.
Reporting to the preliminary operations
superintendent are the preliminary foreman and the
planning and service foreman. There are about 25
preparatory employees under the former. It appears
that the latter supervises some 12 planning employees
and some 13 manufacturing service employees. The
warehouse foreman reports to the material handling
superintendent and has under him a storage clerk, one
or more quality control employees, 12 material
handling employees, 6 slitting machine operators and
6 carbon coating machine operators. The maintenance
foreman, under the maintenance superintendent,
' The Employer submitted its brief previously filed with the Regional
Director.
2 The Quakertown plant is one of eight integrated branch plants the
Employer has contructed in the past 10 years specially designed to
produce only one or two types of business forms The Employer also
has three older plants which print a wider range of business forms
3 The collating process at this plant involves the interleaving of paper
and carbons , either in rolls or in pieces.
4 During the second and third shifts , these two foremen are the only
supervisors continuously present in the plant and share certain
plantwide responsibilities.
173 NLRB No. 169
1134 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
supervises 8 maintenance mechanics and several waste
handlers.
Paper is moved from storage for first processing on
the slitting and carbon coating machines. For most
job orders, the next steps in the process are
performed by the press units, which are specially
designed for the production of business forms. These
units incorporate both offset and letterpress printing
elements.' They are also equipped to perform other
operations on the paper fed through them. Depending
on the requirements of the job order, they have
elements which carbonize, collate, apply glue, punch,
perforate, slit, fold, and number' the paper. Some of
the press units produce forms on which there is no
punting. Also, the processing of some job orders is
completed on the press units and then packed in
cartons by the press operators for shipment or
storage. However, most job orders, after being
processed on the press units, are completed on the
collator machines. These machines, in addition to
collating, are equipped to perform other operations
Like the press units, they have elements which punch,
perforate, slit, fold, number, and apply glue. Other
finishing operations are frequently required on job
orders, typical bindery operations such as stitching,
stringing, corner cutting, padding, and others.
However, as the Employer's plant is not equipped to
handle these operations, they are performed by
outside jobbers.
The material handlers move materials from storage
to the carbon coating and slitting machines and from
there to the press units and/or collating machines.
Manufacturing servicemen provide a steady and
continuous flow of materials and supplies for both
the press units and the collating machines. Waste
handlers collect waste materials from the operation of
the various machines in the manufacturing area
and remove them to the bailing machine in the storage
area. The stores clerk, located in the wire enclosure
for stores in the press unit section, issues all types of
parts and supplies for the various machines in the
manufacturing area.
The Employer classifies its employees in labor
grades 3 through 10. In grade 3 are collator helpers,
material handlers, manufacturing servicemen, storage
clerks, waste handlers, and mechanics' helpers; in
grade 4 are slitter operators, in grade 5 are class C
preliminary or preparatory employees, in grade 6 are
Class B preliminary employees, in grade 7 are Class A
preliminary employees; in grade 8-A are carbon
coater operators; in grade 8-B are Class B
maintenance mechanics; in grade 9 are collator
operators; and in grade 10 are press operators,
preliminary specialists, and Class A maintenance
mechanics. New employees receive a short orientation
course. Press operators, collator operators and pre-
liminary specialists receive a 2-week training course,
as well as on-the-job training. After completion of his
3 month-probationary period, an employee is rated at
6-month intervals until he reaches his top rate.
Employees in grade 10 reach their top rate in a
minimum period of 4 years. Those in grade 3 reach
their top rate in 1 year.'
There is no minimum or specified period of
training required before an employee may be assigned
as the operator of a particular machine in the
manufacturing area. The Employer's policy is to
promote from within, primarily on the basis of ability
and length of service. In the 2 months prior to the
hearing, the Employer estimated there were about six
transfers from job to job.
The Regional Director cited Doubleday as his
guideline for determining the appropriateness of this
unit which the Petitioner views as a residual unit of
nonskilled employees who do not perform
preparatory, press and maintenance work, or as a
bindery unit.' The Board in Doubleday recognized
that in printing establishments, collective bargaining
often proceeds on the basis of distinct groups of
production and maintenance employees such as those
engaged in composition and platemaking, those op-
erating letterpress presses, those engaged in bindery
or bookbinding functions (sometimes including
shipping, sometimes both shipping and receiving
employees), and those engaged in the lithographic
production process, where present. With respect to a
bookbinding and/or shipping employee unit, the
Board noted that in each case the particular facts
would govern the appropriateness, particularly in the
absence of a pattern of bargaining on that basis. It
went on to find that, in the Doubleday book
publishing plant, the two, large, adjacently located
departments of binding and shipping, having
substantial employee interchange and separate
immediate supervision, were a well-defined group of
the production and maintenance complement and
shared a community of interest apart from other
employees so as to warrant a separate unit.
On review of the facts of this case as outlined
above, we are unable to agree with the Regional
Director that the requested employees here constitute
a well-defined group of bindery type employees with
' The offset or lithographic process is used for slightly more than half
of the printing done on these units
6 Numbering is accomplished by a printing device which numbers the
forms consecutively.
7 The Employer states in its request for review that the progression
period for slitter operators is 18 months , the periods for Classes A, B,
and C preliminary employees are 30 , 24, and 18 months , respectively,
the period for carbon coater operators is 30 months, and the period for
collator operators is 42 months
8 It is not Board policy to grant "residual " units prospectively,
that is, before the existence of any bargaining unit, whether based on
voluntary recognition or found appropriate in a Board proceeding
MOORE BUSINESS FORMS, INC
a distinct community of interest apart from the other
employees not sought, even though those not sought
include pressmen and maintenance employees, who in
Doubleday were already separately represented. Here,
the operation is not book publishing but the
manufacture of two types of business forms, and all
employees, except preparatory, work together in one
large manufacturing area apparently without
definable departments; press units are specially
designed to perform functions such as collating,
glueing, punching, perforating, and slitting, in
addition to printing, there are also separate collating
machines and separate slitting machines, both the
presses and the collators are serviced and supplied by
employees sought by Petitioner; certain bindery jobs
are sent out to jobbers, and there is no separate
supervision for the employees in question. Thus we
1135
see no basis on which to find this group an
appropriate, well-defined unit such as that found
appropriate in Doubleday.
As our examination of the facts concerning this
unorganized plant leads us to the conclusion that the
unit sought is a heterogeneous grouping of employees,
we find such unit to be inappropriate for purposes of
collective bargaining. Accordingly, as no question
affecting commerce 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, we shall dismiss the petition herein.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, and
it hereby is dismissed