The Denver Publishing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jan 31, 1952

97 N.L.R.B. 1454 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

1454 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed by District 65, Distribu-
tive, Processing and Office Workers of America, be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
THE DENVER PUBLISHING COMPANY and DENVER PAPER HANDLERS,
LOCAL No. 17, AFL, PETITIONER. Case No. 30-RC-475. January
31, 1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Clyde F. Waers,
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 power in connection with this case to a three-member
panel [Chairman Herzog and Members Houston and Murdock].
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 organization involved claims to represent employees of
the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section
9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act, for the following
reasons:
The Petitioner seeks, and the Employer opposes, a unit at the Em-
ployer's Denver, Colorado, plant comprising all the maintenance
department employees who handle newsprint rolls and melt linotype
lead. The Denver Newspaper Guild, Local No. 74, herein called the
Guild, which has represented these employees since at least 1939, does
not contest the establishment of such a unit; however, the Guild is
willing to continue to represent them if the Board finds that the Peti-
tioner's requested unit is inappropriate.'
The Employer publishes the Rocky Mountain News, a daily news-
paper. There are seven employees who would fall within the unit
sought; six are called paper handlers and the other a metal melter.
They unload rolls of newsprint from freight cars, load and unload
them into and from trucks, place them in storage in the Employer's
warehouses or in the cellars adjoining the pressroom, and move them
I A representative of the Guild appeared at the hearing and testified on behalf of the
Petitioner but did not intervene or otherwise participate in the proceeding.
97 NLRB No. 214.
THE DENVER PUBLISHING COMPANY 1455
from storage to the pressroom . There they strip the rolls of their
wrappings and of any damaged paper, weigh both, and record the
weights. Then they place the rolls in position on the floor, ready
for use by the pressmen.
The paper handlers also unwind and cut up the newsprint remaining
•on the cores of the rolls after running; they also salvage waste paper.
All of these employees work a shift every week or so melting down
Linotype lead ; and one of them, the metal melter, spends four-fifths
of his time at this work. In addition, all seven do intermittent clean-
up work in the storage cellars adjoining the pressroom. They are
called upon regularly to help move heavy supplies, and occasionally
to help move heavy equipment and furniture.
The record does not support the Petitioner's claim that the paper
handlers are craftsmen .2 New employees are used successfully as
paper handlers without previous training or experience. Moreover,
only simple instructions need be followed to melt linotype lead satis-
factory. No formal apprenticeship or training courses are given to
employees in either kind of work. Although 6 months' experience
is probably required to enable a paper handler to know which size
rolls to place adjacent to which press decks in order to run off news-
papers of varying numbers of pages,3 this fact does not suffice to give
the paper handlers craft status 4
No other factors exist which would justify separate representation
for the paper handlers in this plant. On the contrary, their 12 years'
history of inclusion in a unit, with all other maintenance department
employees, and with circulation, business office , and editorial em-
ployees, militates against their severance.
The Petitioner also seeks to justify a unit of paper handlers on the
ground that similar units have been established voluntarily by other
employers in the newspaper publishing industry. However, it has
not been shown that this practice is characteristic of the industry; nor
does it appear that any such unit has ever been certified by the Board
in a contested case except where it constituted a residual group which
would otherwise have gone without representation.5 The paper han-
dlers at the Employer's plant are in no danger of being left without
representation. They are currently represented by the Guild, which,
2 American Security and Trust Co, 95 NLRB 1423.
The Employer 's paper handlers frequently make such decisions on their own initiative,
in the absence of their foreman.
4 Cf. Davis & Farber Machine Co., 93 NLRB 372, where , although 3 years' experience
and high skill were required of employees, they were nevertheless held not to be craftsmen.
5 The Post Printing & Publishing Co., Case No. 30-RC-363, decided October 30, 1950
(not reported in printed volumes of Board decisions ), upon which the Petitioner relies,
is not a contrary example. There the Board held that because the paper handlers were
"the only employees who have never been represented by any Union," they constituted "an
appropriate residual unit."
1456 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
although willing to release them, is also willing to continue to repre-
sent them.
Accordingly, we find that the unit requested by the Petitioner is
inappropriate, and we shall dismiss the petition.6
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition herein be, and it hereby is,
dismissed.
9 At the hearing the Petitioner expressed its willingness , alternatively , to represent a
unit of paper handlers and truck drivers. Such a unit would be neither a craft group, a
departmental group, nor, in view of the Guild 's continuing willingness to represent the
paper handlers, a group of otherwise unrepresented employees . We find that it, too, is
inappropriate.
SMITHS TRANSFER CORPORATION OF STAUNTON, VA., PETITIONER and
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS , CHAUFFEURS, WARE-
HOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, LOCAL No. 175 (AFL). Case
No. 9-RM-69. January 31, 1952
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Robert Cohn, 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 Herzog and Members Murdock and Styles].
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 Employer is engaged in the transportation of freight by
truck in 7 eastern States,' where it maintains some 14 terminals. Its
operations are divided into 4 divisions,2 each under a division man-
ager. The present proceeding is concerned only with the western divi-
sion, where there are 3 terminals, at Covington, Virginia; Princeton
and Charleston, West Virginia. Covington is 80 miles from Prince-
ton, and the latter is 120 miles from Charleston. There are 120 miles
between Charleston and Covington.
' Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland , New York, New Jersey, District of
Columbia.
2 1-Western Division, containing the three terminals herein involved ; 2-Central Divi-
sion, containing terminals at Winchester, Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and
Staunton all in Virginia ; 3-Eastern Division containing terminals in New York, Eliza-
beth, New Jersey, Trenton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; and 4-Baltimore-
Washington Division with terminals in these cities.
97 NIiRB No. 234.