Schmidt's Printery

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 17, 1974

213 N.L.R.B. 312 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

312 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Schmidt's Printery and Wilkes -Barre Typographical
Union No. 187 1 and Wilkes-Barre Printing Press-
men & Assistants' Union, 137,2 Petitioners. Cases
4-UC-61 and 4-UC-62
September 17, 1974
DECISION ON REVIEW
BY CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS FANNING
AND JENKINS
On March 13, 1974, the Regional Director for Re-
gion 4 issued a Decision and Clarification of Bargain-
ing Unit in the above-entitled proceeding in which he
granted Pressmen Local 137's request that its existing
unit of lithographic production employees at the
Employer's commercial printing establishment in
Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania, be clarified to include
the "Compugraphic Compuwriter No. 2 typesetting
machine" operator, hereinafter called the Compuwri-
ter operator, and accordingly denied ITU Local 187's
request that the disputed classification be declared to
be part of its unit at present comprised of one linotype
operator. Thereafter, in accordance with National La-
bor Relations Board Rules and Regulations, ITU Lo-
cal 187 filed a timely request for review of the
Regional Director's decision on the grounds that in
making his clarification determinations he departed
from officially reported precedent and made findings
of fact which are clearly erroneous.
By telegraphic order dated April 5, 1974, the re-
quest for review was granted. Thereafter, Petitioners
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
Petitioners' briefs on review, and makes the following
findings:
In resolving the unit clarification requests before
him, the Regional Director considered not only those
factors normally viewed as relevant to unit composi-
tion issues , but he took into account other matters
which the Board weighs in determining jurisdictional
disputes in Section 10(k) proceedings, factors such as
the assignment of the disputed work by the Employer
and the efficient operation of the Employer's busi-
ness . Although ITU Local 187 does not object to the
Regional Director's treatment of the issue within this
framework and argues only that he improperly
weighed certain factors, we granted its request for
review solely in order to determine from the record
whether the clarification requests were susceptible of
resolution under applicable principles or whether they
must be dismissed on the ground that they involve a
jurisdictional dispute that the Board is empowered to
determine only in Section 10(k) proceedings. For the
reasons below, our review of the record persuades us
that the Regional Director's clarification of the units
involved is correct.
The Employer is engaged in commercial printing;
in the main, by use of the lithographic or photo-offset
process. It has two offset presses. It also has two letter-
press presses, one of which is a proof press, run only
when proofs are printed for use in the lithographic
process. All operations are conducted in one large
room. A linotype operator, who does all the typeset-
ting for the minimal letterpress printing done by the
Employer, is represented by ITU Local 187. Five
press department employees, represented by Press-
men Local 137, operate the presses and perform litho-
graphic preparatory functions. Four finishing
department employees are unrepresented. The disput-
ed Compuwriter operator, who is a member of Press-
men Local 137, operates his machine in a partially
partitioned section of the room, next to the light table
used in offset preparatory work.
The Compuwriter was installed in April 1973. In
common with a linotype machine, the Compuwriter
has a keyboard. There the similarity ends. The Com-
puwriter is wholly ancillary to the lithographic pro-
duction process. Through a process of
computer-controlled operations, the typed material is
properly spaced and collated using the proper facings,
is photographed within the machine, and emerges as
a finished positive proof, which is then utilized in the
traditional lithographic production process. Except
for the typewriting skills involved, the Compuwriter
operator has and exercises none of the skills typically
found in letterpress composition. The Compuwriter
operator employed by the Employer also spends ap-
proximately 10 percent of his time at the light table
performing lithographic preparatory functions nor-
mally performed by the pressmen.
Thus, despite the fact that the Compuwriter substi-
tutes for the letterpress printing of proofs used in the
lithographic process, we conclude, on the facts of this
case, that the Compuwriter operator is performing
essentially a lithographic production function and is
an accretion to the unit represented by Pressmen Lo-
cal 137.
1 Hereinafter called ITU Local 187.
2 Hereinafter called Pressmen Local 137.
SCHMIDT'S PRINTERY 313
Accordingly, we agree with the Regional Director's 137's unit and excluding him from the letterpress
determination clarifying the units involved by includ- composition unit represented by ITU Local 187.
ing the Compuwriter operator in Pressmen Local