The Waterbury Tag Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Feb 4, 1953

102 N.L.R.B. 1005 (N.L.R.B. 1953)

THE WATERBURY TAG COMPANY 1005
of various customers of Respondent within a 12 mile radius of Respondent's
plant.
All other proposed findings are rejected. Proposed finding number 1 has been
covered by other findings made herein. All other proposed findings are rejected
either because they are not material to the issues presently under consideration,
or are not supported by the evidence, or are mere conclusions of law and not the
subject of findings of fact. All proposed conclusions of law are rejected because
they are not the legal conclusions that can properly be drawn from the facts
found herein.
[Recommendations omitted from publication in this volume.]
THE WATERBURY TAG COMPANY and WATERBURY PRINTING PRESSMEN
AND ASSISTANTS ' UNION5 LOCAL 150, AFL, PETITIONER . Case No.
1-1C-3035. February 4,1953
Decision and Order
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National
Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Sidney A. Coven,
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 [Members Houston, Styles, and Peterson].
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer 1 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 a unit described as printing pressmen, com-
positors, stonemen, machine setup men, slittermen, and platemaker
at the Employer's Waterbury, Connecticut, operations. The Em-
ployer contends the proposed unit is inappropriate on the grounds
that the employees involved are not craftsmen and that its operations
are so integrated as to preclude other than a plantwide unit. There
has been no history of collective bargaining with respect to the
Employer's employees.
The Employer manufacturers paper tags, some printed and some
not, at the plant here involved. All operations are performed on
I The name of the Employer appears in the caption as amended at the hearing.
102 NLRB No. 97.
1006 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
the third and fourth floors of a rented building. Large paper rolls
are carted by a trucker from the receiving platform to the slitting
machines on the third floor where a slitter cuts them into appropriate
widths. Some rolls then go to blanking machines on the same floor
where part of the unprinted tags are run off. Also on the third floor
are a number of hand stringers who string and wire tags which cannot
be strung automatically.
On the fourth floor, in one large, unpartitioned room the cutting,
printing, and automatic stringing and wiring operations are per-
formed. For those tags which are to bear printing, there are em-
ployees who prepare the type and plates and adjust them for setup
on the machines. A compositor sets type by hand. The Ludlow
machine operator, or occasionally the compositor, runs the machine
which makes slugs to be inserted into a form by the stoneman, who
also helps the machine operators lock the form in a chase for the
printing operations. And a platemaker uses a rubber plate machine,
which electronically duplicates original engravings that are pur-
chased elsewhere 2 Actual printing is done by the tag machines
with printing attachments-New Era presses, upright machines,
and pinticket machines.3 Rolls of paper go to these machines, where
the operator, or a helper, places the roll on the machine which stamps
out the tag, prints on it if required, and makes the holes for stringing,
or on the pintickets, stamps a pin into the tag. The New Eras
account for about one-fourth of Employer' s volume and 50 percent
of this is with printing. The uprights do approximately one-third
of the overall volume and again 50 percent are printed, but these
tags are less complicated than those coming off the New Eras. The
pintickets do very simple printing, or just imprint ruled lines on
the tickets. Three machine setup men prepare the pinticket machines
and the nonprinting machines for operation. After all operations
are performed on the tags, they are transported in blocks to employees
on the third floor who prepare them for packing and shipping.
There are 72 employees in this Employer's employ. Of these, the
Petitioner seeks approximately 25 employees, namely the slittermen,
the compositor, the Ludlow machine operator, the stoneman, the plate-
maker, the combination stoneman-Ludlow operator, the machine setup
men, and only the operators of the New Eras, Hydleburg, and hand-
fitted platen. It appears that the compositor is a skilled worker.
However, the balance of the requested employees are required to have
little experience or training and generally can be trained in a month
2 There is also a combination stoneman and Ludlow operator who performs the duties
of both classifications.
E The Employer also has two printing presses, a Hydleburg and a hand -fitted platen,
which are capable of doing fine printing but account for only 2 percent of Employer's
entire volume.
GOSHEN DIVISION OF GENERAL TIME CORPORATION 1007
or less .4 Almost all orders requiring fine printing are "farmed out"
to job printing concerns. All employees of the Employer are subject
to the same general and immediate supervision, and all appear to
enjoy similar conditions of employment, except for variations in the
hourly wage rate.
The unit requested is clearly inappropriate on a departmental basis.
The unit is also inappropriate on a craft basis as the employees, except
possibly for the single compositor, are not skilled craftsmen. More-
over, the requested employees not only perform diverse functions, but
the Petitioner also seeks to exclude employees such as the upright and
pinticket operators who perform functions related to those of the
operators sought to-be included.
Under all the circumstances, we find, as contended by the Employer,
that the unit sought is inappropriate 5 and we shall, therefore, dismiss
the petition.
Order
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition filed herein be, and it hereby
is, dismissed.
4 The slittermen . can be taught their job in a matter of hours. The Ludlow machine
operator , stoneman, and platemaker jobs can be learned in less than a week. The machine
setup men can do their tasks adequately with 2 weeks ' instruction and require about 6
months for top proficiency . As for the machine operators , the New Era attendants re-
quire less than 1 month of instruction and the other machine tasks require a week or less.
6 See The Standard Register Company , 84 NLRB 93,9.
GOSHEN DIVISION OF GENERAL TIME CORPORATION and DISTRICT No.
103, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS , AFL, PETITIONER.
Case No. 13-RC-3068. February 4,1953
Decision and Direction of Election
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before Frances P. Dom, 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 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.
102 NLRB No. 89,