Capitol City, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 10, 1974

212 N.L.R.B. 418 (N.L.R.B. 1974)

418 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
Capitol City, Inc. and Topeka Printing Pressmen and
Assistants' Union No. 49, AFL-CIO, affiliated with
the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants'
Union of North America, Petitioner. Case 17-
RC-7237
July 10, 1974
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing
was held before Hearing Officer Raymond E. We-
ghorst. After the hearing and pursuant to Section 102
.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and
Regulations, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of
the Regional Director for Region 17, this proceeding
was transferred to the Board for decision. Thereafter,
the Petitioner filed a brief in support of its position.
The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rul-
ings made at the hearing and finds that they are free
from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board finds:
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce or in an
industry affecting commerce within the meaning of
the Act and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act
to assert jurisdiction herein.
2. The labor organization involved claims to repre-
sent certain employees of the Employer.'
3. A question affecting commerce exists concern-
ing 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 Petitioner seeks an election in a unit com-
prising all pressroom and blueprint employees, ex-
cluding all management, office, and sales employees.
The Employer contends that only an overall unit is
appropriate. There is no previous history of collective
bargaining and no labor organization seeks to repre-
sent the employees in a larger unit.2
i The Employer declined to stipulate that the Petitioner is a labor organiza-
tion within the meaning of the Act The record indicates that the Petitioner
currently represents employees of various employers for the purposes of
collective bargaining and that employees participate in it We conclude that
it is a labor organization within the meaning of Sec 2 (5) of the Act N L R B
v Cabot Carbon Company, 360 U S 203 (1959), Walker Process Equipment,
Inc, 163 NLRB 615
2 The Employer contends that the Petitioner should be disqualified from
seeking an election under Sec 9 (c) of the Act on the ground that its member-
ship policy is invidiously discriminatory Mansion House Center Management
Corporation v NLRB , 473 F 2d 471 (C A 8)
The Board has held that such inquiries are outside the scope of a preelec-
tion hearing Bekins Moving & Storage Company of Florida, Inc, 211 N LRB
No 7 (1974) As noted therein , Chairman Miller and Member Jenkins would
consider objections to a labor organization 's capacity to fairly represent
employees only upon the postelection filing of properly substantiated objec-
tions to the issuance of a certification Member Kennedy concurs substan-
tially with that postelection procedure but would limit consideration to the
The Employer is a Kansas corporation engaged in
the retail sale of office furniture and supplies and
printed material. Its sole place of business is located
in Topeka and consists of a two-story building and a
warehouse, separated by a parking lot. The reproduc-
tion, or printing, department is located in a separate
section on the second floor. Offices used by outside
salesmen and their secretary, a reception area, and
storerooms are also on the second floor. The first floor
is primarily a sales area.
The Employer prints a variety of material, includ-
ing letterheads, pamphlets, and books, using the offset
process. Pictures, half tone and color work, are print-
ed from metal plates made by the Employer's camera
operators in the punting department, who also oper-
ate an "instant print type" camera which produces
plates for less complex printing. There is also a blue-
print machine.
There are seven production employees in the print-
ing department: Two printing press operators, three
camera operators, a blueprint machine operator, and
a helper. In addition, the Employer employs sales-
men, office clericals, and shipping and receiving, de-
livery, and stockroom employees.
The work of the printing department employees is
directly related to reproduction and printing. They
spend little, if any, time on other duties and they are
not assigned work in other areas. Nor do employees
from other departments work in the printing depart-
ment, except in the case of a rush job, when they may
operate the collating machine. Only one employee has
been transferred into the printing department within
the last 5 years, as a helper on the blueprint machine,
and no employee has been transferred out of the
printing department.
With the exception of outside salesmen, who are
paid a guaranty against a commission, the highest
paid printing department employees are paid $70 a
week more than the highest paid employee in other
departments and printing department employees gen-
erally receive higher wages than employees in other
departments. All employees receive the same fringe
benefits. Although salesmen take printing orders,
there is little contact or coordination with other de-
partments or employees. Printing department em-
issue of alleged discrimination on the basis of "race, alienage, or national
origin " Members Fanning and Penello reject the contentions of the Employ-
er herein for the reasons stated in their dissenting opinions in Bekins They
would not consider allegations of discriminatory practices by labor organiza-
tions in a precertification proceeding but would "leave such questions as they
may raise, with respect to the Petitioner 's willingness or capacity to represent
fairly all employees in the bargaining unit, to be resolved in other proceedings
under the Act"
The Petitioner filed a "Petition to Revoke the Right of Respondent to Use
of National Labor Relations Board Processes Because of Denial of Equal
Employment Opportunity by Respondent " The "petition " is hereby denied
as irrelevant to any issue properly raised in this proceeding The Employer
has not invoked the Board's processes
212 NLRB No. 52
CAPITAL CITY, INC. 419
ployees work different hours and the printing depart-
ment foreman does not supervise employees in_ any
other department.
Printing department employees operate presses,
cameras, platemaking and reproduction equipment,
and a blueprint machine. One of the Employer's vice
presidents, and its sole witness, testified that it would
take 6 months to a year to learn to operate the camera,
but that an unskilled person could operate the "first
stage" of the presses with a few hours' instruction. He
also testified that he had hired unskilled employees to
operate presses but was unable to name one. Rob-
inson, a pressman in the printing department, testified
that he had 7 years' experience when he was hired and
that it had taken him 2 years to learn his job, though
he also testified that, depending on aptitude and other
factors; an individual might learn to operate a press
in 6 months to a year.
We conclude that the unit sought by the Petitioner
is appropriate for collective bargaining, particularly
in view of the distinct skills, lack of interchange, sepa-
rate work area and immediate supervision, higher av-
erage wages, and limited contact with other
employees.
In addition to the production employees, the Em-
ployer contends that the reproduction department re-
ceptionist and the foreman should be included in the
reproduction department unit. The Petitioner con-
tends the receptionist should be excluded as an office
clerical and that the printing foreman is either a man-
agerial employee or a supervisor.
The receptionist is located in the second floor re-
ception area adjacent to the printing foreman. Her
duties include answering the phone and taking print-
ing orders from walk-in customers and delivering
them to production employees in the printing depart-
ment, However, she spends 80 percent of her time
"extending, sorting, filing invoices for the entire oper-
ation." We conclude that she is an office clerical em-
ployee whose primary work is not directly related to
production, nor even to the printing department, and
shall exclude her from the Unit .3
The printing foreman is a vice president and mem-
ber of the Employer's board of directors. However,
the Employer contends that he has no authority to
hire or fire, was to be removed from those offices, and
should be included in the unit. The record indicates
that his authority is limited, but that he is the repre-
sentative of management whom employees in the unit
call if they are unable to come to work, that he grants
emergency leave, may assign work priorities, and or-
ders parts for, or arranges for repair of, the presses.
However, we need not determine whether he is a su-
pervisor since, as a vice president and member' of the
board of directors, he is in a position to affect compa-
ny policy 4 We shall exclude him from the unit.
We find that the following employees of the Em-
ployer have a sufficient community of interest to con-
stitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining within the meaning of Section 9(b) of the
Act:
All pressroom and blueprint employees of the
Employer excluding all management, office and
sales employees, guards, and supervisors as de-
fined in the Act.
[Direction of Election and Excelsior footnote omit-
ted from publication.]
3 Beech Aircraft Corporation, 170 NLRB 1595.
a Chester County Beer Distributors Association, 133 NLRB 771.