National Blank Book Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 11, 1979

246 N.L.R.B. 921 (N.L.R.B. 1979)

NATIONAL BLANK BOOK COMPANY. IN(C.
National Blank Book Company. Inc. and Graphics
Arts International Union, Local 264, AFL-CIO,'
Petitioner. Case I-UC 269
December I 1979
DECISION ON REVIEW AND ORDER
CLARIFYING UNIT
By CHAIRMAN FANNIN( AND MLEMBt!RS PiNEI.I.O
ANI) TRUTSI)AI.I
On April 9, 1979, the Acting Regional Director for
the Region I issued a Decision and Clarification of
Bargaining Unit in the above-entitled proceeding in
which he denied the Petitioner's request for clarifica-
tion of its contractual unit to include the operator of a
newly installed A. B. Dick Machine 360 (hereinafter
called A. B. Dick), and instead found the operator to
be an accretion to the Intervenor's 2 contractual unit
and clarified that unit accordingly. Thereafter, in ac-
cordance with National Labor Relations Board Rules
and Regulations, Series 8, as amended, the Petitioner
filed a timely request for review of the Acting Re-
gional Director's decision on the ground that he de-
parted from officially reported precedent. The Em-
ployer filed an opposition thereto.
The National Labor Relations Board, by tele-
graphic order dated July 25, 1979. granted the request
for review. Thereafter, the Employer and the Peti-
tioner filed briefs on review.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board has delegated its au-
thority in this proceeding to a three-member panel.
The Board has considered the entire record in this
case with respect to the-issues under review, including
the parties' briefs on review, and makes the following
findings:
The Employer manufactures and sells office and
stationery products at its Holyoke, Massachusetts.
plant. using both letterpress and lithographic pro-
cesses in its printing operations. The Petitioner and
the Intervenor have represented the Employer's litho-
graphic and letterpress production employees, respec-
tively, for more than 25 years. The Petitioner's cur-
rent contract describes the recognized bargaining unit
as "all hourly paid lithographic production employ-
ees .... '' The Intervenor's contract describes the unit
for which it is recognized as "all hourly paid employ-
ees now members . ..or eligible for membership . . .
including Appendix 'A' attached." Appendix A lists
' Ilereinaiter called (iAILL LocaI 264.
l liolyoke Printing Pressman and Assistantl, ninon. I.ocal No 45. Interna-
tional Printing and (Graphic (ommunications I nion. AI. ('10 ( hereinafler
called Pressman l.ocal 45). as permitted Ito Inter.ene on the basis it its
cntract with the Emploser.
pressmen (listing various types of the Employer's let-
terpresses). together with classifications of composing
room employees (group leader. compositors. assistant
compositor. Dirats operator Dirats plate finisher
proofreaders. and phototypesetter). On October 17.
1978, during the term of the Petitioner's current
agreement. the Employer installed an A. B. Dick 360
to replace two of its Miehle letterpresses which had
broken down, and it assigned a former operator of a
replaced Miehle press to operate the A. B. Dick. un-
der the supervision of the foreman of the Miehle press
operations. In late autumn the Employer denied the
Petitioner's requests for recognition as this operator's
representative. Thereafter. the Petitioner filed the in-
stant petition requesting that its unit be clarified to
include the A. B. Dick operator as an accretion
thereto.
As found by the Acting Regional Director. all of
the Employer's printing equipment is located in its
"Main Building." Two lithographic or offset presses
are located in the basement; the remainder of the off-
set presses and all of the letterpresses are on the fifth
floor. The A. B. Dick is located on the fifth floor in a
space termed the "old office services area." not far
from the presses and the lithographic preparatory
area.3
The A. B. Dick is utilized to print the same items
which had been printed by one of the replaced
Miehle presses; i.e.. indexes, linings, and labels.4 The
machine operates on the wet offset principle of print-
ing. It has a plate cylinder, a blanket cylinder, and an
impression cylinder as well as an ink source and
dampening system. It makes its own plate. The paper
proofs used to make the plates at the time of the hear-
ing were supplied by both the lithographic and letter-
press preparatory departments, but it was anticipated
that in the near future none of the preparatory work
for the A. B. Dick would be done by the lithographic
preparatory department.
The A. B. Dick is termed in the industry as an
offset duplicator because it is simple to operate and
does not require craft skills. The operator onlN posi-
tions the paper proof through a viewfinder and
presses a button. The remainder of the process is done
automatically. The A. B. Dick's feed mechanism is
also simpler than that of regular offset presses. It uses
There is al.o a small multllth pre,. similar In operati, n to the ,\ B
l)ick. Hhlch is located in the Emplser', oftice on al separate floor and is used
slely tifor printing material incident.l ito its nternal operalions
I Also on the fifth floor is the )lirats equipmenl. hich utilhzes . dr) ofletl
printing pra'ess When this equipment Aas oblained b, the -mploer in
1965. s a replacement fir one o its lellterpresses. the EImploer issigned the
vsork to a member ot the Intervenor In lustiling this .issignnient ti the
I'etilioner. the Enmployer noled that the new machine produced the s.illle
work a the machine it had replaced and did not require training n offset
skills. adding that It the I)irlatl Aere coneried to ' et otlet It iiuld then
think that Jurisdictin would helong t the Peltiioner
246 NLRB No. 150
921
DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
a plain water solution. Although the operator must
control the ink/water flow, he need not be trained in
offset skills. The operator was trained for the A. B.
Dick in 2 days.
The Acting Regional Director found that because
the A. B. Dick is a simple machine to operate, one not
requiring the skills of the large wet offset press opera-
tors, the A. B. Dick operator is not a skilled litho-
graphic craft employee having a community of inter-
est with other lithographic production employees
represented by the Petitioner. For this reason, and
because the preparatory work will be done by the
letterpress preparatory department, the work done by
the A. B. Dick is the same as that previously done by
a letterpress, the Employer previously assigned the
operation of the Dirats equipment to the Intervenor,
and the Petitioner's contract contains a work-preser-
vation clause,5 the Acting Regional Director found
that the A. B. Dick operator is not an accretion to the
Petitioner's unit and clarified the Intervenor's con-
tract unit to include the operator in that unit. The
Petitioner contends that the Acting Regional Director
erred in making these findings. We agree.
The Intervenor's established contractual unit com-
bines letterpress operators and composing room em-
ployees, each generally found to be a separate skilled
craft group, together with employees engaged in dry
offset printing with Dirats equipment. Inasmuch as
the A. B. Dick utilizes the lithographic printing pro-
cess, the operator of that machine, in our opinion,
cannot be considered an accretion to any of the three
categories of employees covered by the Intervenor's
contractual unit. That the printing done by the A. B.
Dick was previously done by the letterpress process
and that the operator is under the supervision of the
Miehle press foreman clearly do not control the re-
sult. As the Intervenor's unit appears to be multicraft
in nature, the disputed operator should belong to one
of those crafts to justify an accretion finding. Nor do
we give any weight to the Petitioner's apparent acqui-
escence in 1965 to the Employer's assignment of the
Dirats work to a member of the Intervenor, absent
any close relationship between the dry offset process
and the lithographic process which is used by the
' See Nat Linzer and Saul Linzer, copartners doing business as Everlast
Process Printing Co.. 98 NLRB 1313, 1314 (1952).
A. B. Dick. Further. that the letterpress preparatory
department prints the paper proofs for the A. B. Dick
is of no moment because the preparation of such
proofs is generally considered to be anterior to the
lithographic production process. 6 Finally, while the
Petitioner has a work-preservation clause in its con-
tract or, as found by the Acting Regional Director,
the Intervenor and the Employer may have orally
agreed to such a clause in their most recent contract
negotiations, and this may have a bearing on the reso-
lution of a jurisdictional dispute, it is entitled to little,
if any, weight in a unit clarification proceeding where
community-of-interest factors are paramount. 7
Having determined that the A. B. Dick operator is
not an accretion to the Intervenor's unit, we address
the question of whether that operatoi is an accretion
to the Petitioner's unit of lithographic production em-
ployees or has interests more closely akin to those of
the Employer's office clerical employees. While this
issue is close because the A. B. Dick is a relatively
simple type of self-contained lithographic printing
equipment which is commonly found in offices, we
conclude that, on balance, the interests of the A. B.
Dick operator are more closely linked with those of
the lithographic production employees represented by
the Petitioner than with those of the Employer's office
clerical employees. We believe that this conclusion is
supported by the fact that the A. B. Dick utilizes the
lithographic process and is employed by the Em-
ployer as production printing equipment, and not as
part of its office equipment for printing which is inci-
dental to office clerical functions.'
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the A. B. Dick operator is
an accretion to the Petitioner's established unit of
lithographic production employees, and we hereby
clarify that unit to reflect that the A. B. Dick operator
is included therein.
6 See Paramount Press, Inc., 187 NLRB 586 ( 1970).
'See Schmidt's Printery. 213 NLRB 312 1974).
8 See Bank of America, Nalional Trust and Savings Association. 174 NLRB
298 (1969): Sutherland Paper Company, 122 NLRB 1284. 1287 (1959). The
case of Olin Corporation, 229 NLRB 793 (1977). relied on by the Acting
Regional Director to support his contrary conclusion is, in our opinion,
clearly distinguishable See also Schmidtr Printer,. supra
922