The A. B. Hirschfeld Press, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Dec 20, 1962

140 N.L.R.B. 212 (N.L.R.B. 1962)

212 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner interfere with, restrain, or co-
erce our employees in the exercise of their rights to self-organization, to form,
join, or assist any labor organization, to bargain collectively through repre-
sentatives of their own choosing, to engage in other concerted activities for
the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, or
to refrain from any and all such activities, except to the extent that such right
may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization
as a condition of employment, as authorized by Section 8(a)(3) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, as amended.
WE WILL, upon request, meet at reasonable times and bargain collectively
with United Glass and Ceramic Workers of North America, AFL-CIO, as the
exclusive bargaining representative of the employees in the aforementioned ap-
propriate unit, and, if an understanding is reached, embody such understanding
in a signed agreement.
All our employees are free to become, remain, or refrain from becoming or remain-
ing members of any labor organization.
BARTLETT-COLLINS COMPANY,
Employer.
Dated------------------- By-------------------------------------------(Reprenentative) (Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 consecutive days from the date of posting,
and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
Employees may communicate directly with the Board's Regional Office, Sixth
Floor, Meacham Building, 110 West Fifth Street, Fort Worth 2, Texas, Telephone
No. Edison 5-4211, Extension 2131, if they have any question concerning this notice
or compliance with its provisions.
The A. B. Hirschfeld Press, Inc. and Local 15, Amalgamated
Lithographers of America . Case No. 27-RC-2165. December
20, 1962
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Allison E. Nutt, 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 McCulloch and Members Rodgers and Leedom].
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 employees
of the Employer.'
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the represen-
tation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
'The following labor organizations were permitted to intervene on the basis of their
current contracts covering employees of the Employer Offset Workers, Printing Pressmen
& Assistants Union No 40, IPP & AU of N.A., AFL-CIO; Denver Photo-Engravers Union
No 18, IPEU of N.A., AFL-CIO; Denver Typogiaphical Union No 49, ITU, AFL-CIO,
referred to herein respectively as Pressmen, Photo-Engravers, and Typographers Inter-
national Photo-Engravers Union of North America, AFL-CIO, was al.o allowed to inter-
vene separately on its own behalf
140 NLRB No. 35.
THE A. B. HIRSCHFELD PRESS, INC. 213
(c) (1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks to represent all employees of the Employer who
are engaged in lithographic production work, consisting of offset
pressmen, apprentices and assistants, offset preparatory employees,
and employees who do pasteup and other noncreative art work. It
urges that this is a traditional lithographic unit which the Board
has consistently found appropriate. The Employer, the Pressmen,
and the Photo-Engravers contend that the petition must be dismissed
since the unit sought is not coextensive with an established multi-
employer unit. The Petitioner, on the other hand, contends that,
whatever the history of bargaining prior to 1960 may have been, the
Employer has not been a part of any multiemployer group since that
date, but has bargained on an individual employer basis with the
Intervenors for the contracts presently in effect.
The Employer produces printed material using both letterpress and
lithographic processes at its only plant at Denver, Colorado. It em-
ploys almost 200 employees in its printing and related operations, con-
sisting of 6 production departments : art, whose employees are not
represented by any union; 2 composing room, represented by the
Typographers; camera and platemaking, represented by the Photo-
Engravers; pressroom, which includes both letterpress and offset press
employees, represented by the Pressmen; bindery and shipping and
mailing, whose employees are represented by other unions which did
not intervene herein.
There are approximately 35 commercial printing firms in the Denver
area, many of whom are members of an association known as Printing
Industries of Colorado, Inc. (PIC). For at least 15 years prior to
the 1960 negotiations, these employers, whether or not members of
PIC, have signed identical contracts with the Pressmen covering their
letterpress and offset press employees, with the Typographers covering
their composing room employees, and with the Bindery Workers
Union covering bindery employees. Although it had not been a
member of PIC for many years, the Employer has also signed such
contracts. During the same period, the Employer's contracts with
the Photo-Engravers, covering offset preparatory employees, have
been separately negotiated on a single-employer basis.
The pattern of negotiations for the multiemployer contracts with
the Pressmen prior to 1960 was as follows: PIC was not itself au-
thorized to engage in collective bargaining but served as a means
for organizing an employers' negotiating committee. It invited both
its members and printing firms which were not members of PIC to
attend a meeting at which a negotiating committee was selected. Al-
2 The 1960 Typographers contract provides that paste -makeup work utilizing reproduc-
tion proofs of type may not be co%ered by contracts with any other union.
214 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
though not all of the 35 printing firms attended the initial meeting
and thus did not formally authorize negotiations in their behalf, there
was no attempt by the Pressmen to negotiate individually with them.
Once the contract was signed, an official of the Pressmen sent each
employer an original contract for its signature. As soon as the nego-
tiations with a particular union were completed, the committee dis-
banded. In 1956 and 1958, Edward Hirschfeld, president of the
Employer, had attended the negotiation meetings, agreed to the ap-
pointment of an employers' committee, and agreed to be bound by any
contract which that committee might reach. He also participated in
some of the 1956 and 1958 negotiations on behalf of the committee.
In anticipation of negotiations for the 1960 contracts, PIC again
called a meeting of all printing firms in the area. Instead of appoint-
ing a committee to negotiate on behalf of the employers however, it
was decided that bargaining should be conducted by Mountain States
Employers' Council (MSEC), an independent organization which
represents employers and employer organizations in labor relations.
It was announced at the initial meeting that MSEC would negotiate
only on behalf of those employers who joined it and paid its fee.
Thirteen of the eligible firms joined MSEC and from among this
number an advisory committee was appointed to assist the MSEC
negotiator. Hirschfeld was among those who did not join.
Faced with this variation in bargaining technique, the Pressmen
wrote 17 of the firms who had not joined MSEC, asking each of
them if MSEC was negotiating for it and whether it would be will-
ing to abide by and sign the MSEC-Pressmen contract. Further,
it advised these firms, among them Hirschfeld, that if they were will-
ing to form a committee of their own it would be glad to meet with
them. A few days later, McNally, secretary-treasurer of the Press-
men and chairman of its negotiating committee, personally contacted
each of these 17 firms and asked if it would be willing to bargain as
part of a group of employers who were not represented by MSEC.
They all refused to organize or to join a group -which would bargain
with the Pressmen in opposition to MSEC, indicating that though
they preferred not to join MSEC, they would nevertheless sign what-
ever contract the Pressmen eventually negotiated with it. Edward
Hirschfeld specifically told McNally that he would not meet with
him separately or as part of any newly established committee, but
would be bound by the agreement which MSEC and the Pressmen
were able to negotiate. Shortly thereafter, MSEC and the Press-
men reached agreement on a new 2-year contract. It was signed by
those firms which had joined MSEC 3 and by each of the 17 firms
including Hirschfeld, who were not MSEC members. The contract
3 One firm which had joined MSIDC resigned but then signed the identical contract which
had been neootlatad.
THE A. B. HIRSCHFELD PRESS, INC. 215
listed the types of presses operated by the signatory members and in-
cluded three presses which Hirschfeld alone, of all printers in the
Denver area, operated.4
An essential element for establishing a multiemployer unit is the
participation by a group of employers, whether members or nonmem-
bers of an association, either personally or through an authorized
representative, in joint bargaining negotiations unequivocally mani-
festing an intent to be bound by group, rather than by individual,
action.-'
Prior to the 1960 contract negotiations, the authorized representa-
tive of the employers was the committee selected under arrangements
initiated by PIC, but in fact independent of it, since its members
were not required to belong to PIC nor did PIC participate directly
in its negotiations. As to the 1956 and 1958 negotiations, for which
we have specific information in the record, the authorized representa-
tive of the multiemployer group, which consisted of all printing firms
in Denver under contract with the Pressmen, was the negotiating
committee of the employers who were selected at the meeting called
by PIC. The firms attending the meeting orally agreed to be bound
by any agreement reached by the employer committee, and all of the
firms, whether or not they attended the meeting, separately signed
a contract identical with the terms reached through the committee
negotiations.
Without essential change, this was the practice which had been fol-
lowed for at least 15 years, whereby each employer indicated his assent
to negotiation and adoption of a uniform contract, by specific dele-
gation to the negotiating committee or by failure to withdraw from the
multiemployer group which was in contractual relationship with the
Pressmen.
Only the method of selection and authorization of the employers'
bargaining representative was changed in 1960. Although the initial
meeting was again called by PIC and all members of the multi-
employer group were invited, the bargaining functions on behalf of
the group were turned over to MSEC and to those employers who
were willing to affiliate with it formally. A majority of the em-
ployers, among them Hirschfeld, did not choose to join MSEC and
were thereby deprived of the opportunity to become members of the
committee which assisted the MSEC negotiator. Although MSEC
intended to bargain only for its own members, the other printing
firms in the area refused to take any steps to negotiate on their own,
either independently or as members of a separately constituted group
4 The Pressmen then requested Hirschfeld to negotiate wage rates for those presses
which were particular to its operations , but Hirschfeld refused to do so on the ground
that the contract set the rates for all offset printing operations and that these rates
could not be renegotiated
5 Morgan Linen Servioe, Inc ., 131 NLRB 420.
216 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
but, on the contrary, notified the Pressmen that they would accept
whatever agreement the negotiators would reach. Thus, the result
of the 1960 negotiations was the continuation of the multiemployer
group which, previously under PIC auspices, had for many years dele-
gated to an employer committee the authority to reach agreement
with the Pressmen which they bound themselves in advance to accept.
It is true that MSEC neither sought nor asserted the role of rep-
resentative of all the printing firms which had previously signed con-
tracts with the Pressmen. However, despite its apparent intention not
to accept this function, it was nevertheless compelled in effect to per-
form such a function by the action of MSEC nonmembers who, when
invited by the Pressmen to bargain individually or to form a separate
group, refused to take either step but committed themselves to sign
the agreement which MSEC negotiated.
Although the Board will not include in a multiemployer unit an
employer who has not participated in joint bargaining directly or
through an agent, even though it thereafter adopts the contract
negotiated by the multiemployer group,' we find here that the em-
ployers who did not join MSEC specifically indicated by their conduct
at the time of current negotiations that they intended to continue the
long-standing pattern of bargaining with the Pressmen, as part of an
informal multiemployer group. Thus, by their refusal to negotiate
on any other basis, those firms which had not joined MSEC effectively
delegated to it the authority to bargain on their behalf for a contract
with the Pressmen. We find, under these circumstances, that the
existing pattern of collective bargaining between the Pressmen and the
multiemployer group which had in the past signed contracts with it,
was not disrupted by the 1960 negotiations. The unit which Petitioner
seeks, limited as it is to Hirschfeld's offset pressmen, is therefore in-
appropriate because it is not coextensive with the existing multi-
employer unit.
As noted previously, Hirschfeld's offset preparatory employees are
presently represented by Photo-Engravers in a single-employer unit.
As the Petitioner recognizes, offset preparatory employees are part
of an entity of employees engaged in the lithographic process and
may not be represented apart from other employees also engaged in
that process.' Thus, as the Employer's offset pressmen may not be
severed from the established multiemployer unit represented by the
Pressmen, and as the offset preparatory employees do not constitute an
appropriate unit, we shall grant the Employer's motion to dismiss
the petition.
[The Board dismissed the petition.]
O Northern Nevada Chapter, National Electrical Contractors Association and Repre-
sented Employers, 131 NLRB 550, 552.
7A. B. Htrschjeld Press, Inc, 96 NLRB 1068.