National Broadcasting Co., Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 14, 1973

202 N.L.R.B. 396 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

396 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
National Broadcasting Company, Inc. and American
Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Cleve-
land Local
National Broadcasting Company, Inc. and National
Association of Broadcast Employees and Techni-
cians, Local No. 42, AFL-CIO-CLC. Cases
8-RC-8476 and 8-RC-8495
March 14, 1973
DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION
OF ELECTION
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS
FANNING AND JENKINS
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section
9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as
amended, a consolidated hearing was held before
Hearing Officer Marc J. Bloch.' Following the
hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the
National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regula-
tions and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as
amended, these cases were transferred to the Nation-
al Labor Relations Board for decision. The Employ-
er2 filed a brief, and the Petitioners filed a joint brief.
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the
National Labor Relations Board has ,delegated its
authority in this proceeding 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 these cases, the National
Labor Relations Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within
the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the
purposes and policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction
herein.
2. The Petitioners are labor organizations claim-
ing to represent certain employees of the Employer.
3. Questions affecting commerce exist concerning
the representation of employees of the Employer
within the meaning of Sections 9(c)(1) and 2(6) and
(7) of the Act.
4. The Employer is the owner and operator of
Television Station WKYC-TV, in Cleveland, Ohio.
According to the Employer, the basic operations of
the station, each with several subdivisions,3 are as
follows: program, sales, advertising and promotion,
technical or engineering, editorial, news, and busi-
ness.
Case 8-RC-8476
The news operation, with which Case 8-RC-8476
is solely concerned, comprises a newsroom with 54
employees, including 27 newsmen represented by
American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists, Cleveland Local, herein called AFTRA; 23
news film men represented by IATSE,4 not involved
in this proceeding, and 4 unrepresented desk assist-
ants, of whom 2 are full-time employees and 2 are
part-time employees. The newsmen, including an
assignment editor, news producers, and newscasters,
gather, assemble, write, and deliver news over the air.
AFTRA currently seeks to add the four newsroom
desk assistants to its unit on the ground that they are
the only unrepresented employees in the newsroom.
The Employer contends that the desk assistants,
whom it also calls news clerks, are essentially a part
of its unrepresented office force, claimed to number
some 34 employees, other than those involved in this
proceeding, including 17 secretaries, 7 billing clerks,
4 telephone operators, 3 sales service assistants, I
accounts payable clerk, 1 mail clerk, and 1 offset
operator; and that, as AFTRA thus seeks to
represent but an arbitrary segment of the office
clerical group, its unit request is based solely on the
extent of its organization of those employees and its
petition should, therefore, be dismissed.
In June 1965, the Employer commenced hiring
desk assistants, who since that time have engaged in
the following routine newsroom functions previously
handled by the newsmen, in addition to their regular
duties: supplying and pulling copy from teletype
news machines, buying and distributing morning
newspapers to newsmen, distributing mail in the
newsroom, preparing and running copies of assign-
ment sheets, monitoring and checking out police,
fire, and other emergency radio calls for possible
news stories; handling routine sports news items,
such as scores, preparing and distributing fact sheets,
carrying audio cartridges and film headlines to other
departments, shipping and receiving tapes, routinely
assisting in election coverage, and running errands,
which include the delivery of company cars to
garages for repairs and picking them up thereafter
and obtaining airline tickets for management person-
nel.
On weekday nights, and especially on weekend
overnight shifts, including Saturdays and Sundays,
the desk assistants have increased responsibilities,
due to fewer reporters on duty and, at times, the
complete absence of reporters and producers during
I The hearing was held on February 18 and 25, March 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 20, or subdivision thereof, or whether either can strictly be called departments,
22, 23, 24, and April 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 25, 1972 The cases were consolidated a resolution of those questions is not deemed essential to a resolution of the
for purposes of hearing on April 5, 1972 unit issues herein
2 The Employer's name appears as amended at the hearing. 4 International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving
3 Although the parties disagree as to what constitutes a basic operation Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO.
202 NLRB No. 77
NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY
such periods. Thus on Saturday and Sunday night
shifts, the desk assistant may be the only one in the
newsroom, and on such occasions he is responsible
for monitoring fast-breaking news stories, both
within the local area and within a four-state area for
which the newsroom alone is functioning at that
time, and for reporting the same to his supervisor.
The supervisor, in turn, may instruct him to order a
newsroom crew to the scene of a news story, if he
feels that the story is sufficiently newsworthy.
Desk assistants are required merely to have a high
school diploma, whereas the other members of the
news teams require a degree in journalism or some
other type of professional or technical expertise.
Desk assistants are the lowest paid employees in the
newsroom, do not interchange with employees in
other departments, and perform work only for the
newsroom. They have no substantial regular contacts
or a direct community of interest with the office
clerical employees, which include employees outside
the newsroom in sales service, accounts payable and
receivable, payroll, billing, general services, the
telephone and receptionist area, and the secretarial
staff.
In the above circumstances, and in view of
evidence indicating that the desk assistants spend
their time performing newsroom work, act as an
integral part of the newsroom, and are the only
eligible unrepresented employees in the newsroom,
we find that they constitute an appropriate residual
group eligible for inclusion in the existing AFTRA
unit, if they so desire.
Accordingly, we shall direct that an election be
conducted among the employees classified as desk
assistants or desk clerks in the Employer's newsroom,
excluding all other employees and supervisors as
defined in the Act. If a majority of these employees
select AFTRA as their bargaining representative,
they will be taken to have indicated their desire to be
included in the newsroom unit of newsmen currently
represented by AFTRA. If, on the other hand, a
majority of these employees vote against AFTRA,
they will be taken to have indicated their desire to
remain unrepresented.5
Case 8-RC-8495
The program operation division with which Case
8-RC-8495 is concerned comprises approximately 50
employees in the following agreed-upon subdivi-
sions: traffic and compliance, production, and public
affairs. IATSE currently represents the film editor
and approximately seven cameramen in public
affairs.
5 In view of our disposition of this case , we deem it unnecessary to
consider AFTRA's alternative unit request for a separate unit of desk
397
National Association of Broadcast Employees and
Technicians, Local No. 42, AFL-CIO-CLC, herein
called NABET, seeks a unit of the traffic and
compliance employees alone, numbering five individ-
uals. Alternatively, NABET seeks what it describes
as a residual unit of the 16 unrepresented employees
in the programing operation, including the 5 traffic
employees, 4 art employees in production, 2 associate
directors in public affairs department, and 5 secretar-
ies attached to the program operation. The Employer
contends that the employees sought by NABET are
essentially office clerical employees and that, as
NABET thus seeks but an arbitrary segment of the
total unrepresented office clerical force, the request-
ed units are inappropriate and the petition should be
dismissed.
As to NABET's primary request for a unit of traffic
employees, the traffic and compliance subdivision is,
as noted above, but a segment of the program
operation. Traffic employees are responsible for
compiling and updating of the FCC, or Federal
Communications Commission, log to comply with its
rules for the proper running of the Employer's
television station. This log is also used by the
Employer for billing customers and for showing daily
scheduling of commercial promotions and public
service announcements. The traffic and compliance
employees' work requires frequent communication
with employees in the following operations and their
subdivisions: sales service, sales, billing, public
affairs, and promotion. Each of the foregoing
operations has a copy of the log for its own use, and
the various clerks and secretaries in each maintain a
daily dialogue with clerks in traffic over various
aspects of the log.
Of the five traffic and compliance employees, three
are senior traffic clerks, of whom two work at a TV
operations desk and one in receiving and screening
commercials. The other employees include a traffic
copy and program scheduling clerk and a typist.
The two senior TV traffic and compliance clerks
who work at the TV operations desk receive
information regarding the scheduling of commercials
from outside agencies or from the sales division and
receive public affairs and public services announce-
ments and station promotions from their respective
departments. They schedule all commercials telecast
by WKYC-TV in accordance with the agency or
sales department instructions, pull commercials for
rough logs and schedules for time period books and
check them for proper time slotting, indicate unsold
time, and inform the program and public affairs
departments and the sales service department of
unsold time so as to permit those departments to use
assistants
398 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
some of their unsold time. In scheduling, they
indicate the tape, film, and announcer information
on the log, maintain files of the national commercial
television spots, and file telex wire information. They
proofread the log, both before and after the final
copy is run off. They receive and sort mail from
clients regarding inquiries on tapes, films, slides, and
copy, prepare, and update clients' files in that regard.
They receive and screen commercial materials for
compliance with commercial standards; and they
time films, tapes, and copies with the help of a
reeditor or an engineer, and record the time.
The traffic copy and program scheduling clerk
compiles the copy work for logs' and programs,
updates program information and sales availabilities
on the operating log, while in preparation and in use,
adjusts station breaks in accord with program
changes, keeps files of official logs and discrepancy
reports in the log compiled by the engineers, sorts
and delivers telex wires to their destinations, and sees
to the signing of the timesheets by the traffic
employees. The typist types the rough log and the
final log on the master ditto forms and runs off the
log on the ditto machine.
Traffic and compliance, as noted above, is a
segment of the larger program operation headed by
the program manager, under whom are the manager
of traffic and compliance, the production manager,
and the public affairs director. The manager of
traffic and compliance, whose jurisdiction is alone
involved in Case 8-RC-8495, has two immediate
supervisors working under him: the program admin-
istrator coordinator and the supervisor of film
reeditors.
As to the appropriateness of the NABET unit
requests, we find it unnecessary to consider the
Employer's contention that they are inappropriate
because the employees in issue constitute but a
segment of its unrepresented office clerical force, as
in our opinion the units are not appropriate on other
grounds. With regard to the first unit request, namely
for a unit of the traffic and compliance employees
alone, traffic and compliance is, as noted above, but
a subdivision of the larger program operation.
Furthermore, all of the subdivisions of program are
primarily concerned with the common goal of
creating and maintaining the station's program.
Indeed, it is this attribute which distinguishes the
program operation and its segments from the
Employer's other operations. In these circumstances,
including the close community of interest, conceded
by NABET, between the traffic and compliance
employees and those in the other segments of
program, we find inappropriate NABET's primarily
requested unit of traffic and compliance employees
alone, inasmuch as it comprises but a segment of the
employees performing the same or similar work.
As to the alternative NABET request for a residual
unit of the traffic and compliance employees,
together with all other unrepresented employees in
the program operation, we find the request without
merit, as it does not include other groups, such as
sales service and billing employees, who perform
work which is closely coordinated with that of the
traffic and compliance employees. In these circum-
stances, and absent cogent evidence that this group
has any special community of interest, in and of
itself, we find the alternative unit requested by
NABET inappropriate. Accordingly, we shall order
that the petition in Case 8-RC-8495 be dismissed.
ORDER
It is hereby ordered that the petition in Case
8-RC-8495 be, and the same hereby is, dismissed.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote
omitted from publication.]