Kent Printing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 6, 1962

138 N.L.R.B. 457 (N.L.R.B. 1962)

KENT PRINTING COMPANY 457
and agree, to resolve questions concerning representation more expedi-
tiously. This was achieved by the parties agreeing to the election and
settling, by agreement, all the issues commonly involved in a repre-
sentation case, thereby eliminating a number of steps in the representa-
tion case proceeding, including the hearing on the petition and the
Board's Decision and Direction of Election The cutoff date estab-
lished in A di P also contributed to the expediting process by reducing
the amount of postelection delay involved in objections. However,
under the A cC P cutoff date, the Board still protected the election
processes and the rights of the parties by considering objections based
on any conduct occurring after the execution of the agreement, which
might have unlawfully altered or affected the conditions existing at
the time of the execution of the agreement, under which the parties
had agreed the, election would be held. This, we believe, properly
balanced the competing considerations of speed, administrative con-
venience, and the parties' rights. Thus, in our opinion, there is no
reason for making the further accommodation which our colleagues
have made herein.
Accordingly, we would leave the cutoff date in such cases as the
date of execution of the consent agreement or stipulation.
Kent Printing Company and Printing Pressmen and Assistants
Union No. 13, International Printing Pressmen and Assistants
Union of North America , AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case No.
7-RC-5278. September 6, 1962
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 Marie B. Poston, 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 Leedom and
Brown].
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 certain em-
ployees of the Employer.'
'Grand Rapids Typographical Union , Local No. 39, APL-CIO, Intervened , without
objection, on the basis of its claim to represent the cameraman -platemaker who, the
Petitioner contends, should.be Included In the unit it seeks.
138 NLRB No. 62.
458 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
3. A 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.
4. The Petitioner requests an election in a unit of lithographic press-
men, assistant pressmen , apprentices , and the cameraman -platemaker
at the Employer 's printing plant. The Employer contends that its
letterpressmen should be in the same unit with lithographic pressmen,
but takes no position with regard to the unit placement of the camera-
man-platemaker . The Intervenor contends that the unit requested
by the Petitioner is inappropriate , and that the cameraman -plate-
maker should be excluded on the ground that he is included in the
unit represented by the Intervenor.
The Employer's printing operations occupy the first floor and base-
ment of a building in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On the first floor it
employs two letterpressmen , four offset or lithographic pressmen, two
compositors , and three bindery workers , all of whom perform the
duties and operate the equipment usually associated with their classi-
fications . The cameraman -platemaker works in the basement, and is
responsible for the receipt of copy from the compositors or from
sources outside the plant, and for preparing it for the offset presses.
He photographs the copy, develops and strips the negative, makes
the plate, and does any necessary opaquing.
For more than 7 years, the Petitioner has been the contractual rep-
resentative of the lithographic and letterpressmen , and the Intervenor
of the compositors . Their most recent contracts expired on the same
day, August 31, 1961. Since that time, the Employer has met with
representatives of both Unions but no new agreements have been
consummated , solely because both Unions claim to represent the
cameraman-platemaker . The Employer has refused to recognize either
Union as representative of the cameraman -platemaker , but continues
to recognize the Petitioner as the representative of the pressmen and
the Intervenor as the representative of the compositors.
The unit in which an election is sought by the Petitioner is essen-
tially a lithographic production unit, of a type which the Board has
frequently found to be appropriate for severance , by a qualified union,
from a broader unit represented by a different union 2 However,
where, as here , a petition for severance is filed by the union which
already represents the requested employees as part of a broader unit,
the Board holds that union's status as the recognized representa-
tive of a unit of employees to be inconsistent with an attempt to estab-
lish the existence of a question of representation as to part of that
2 See, e.g., Printing Industry of Delaware , 131 NLRB 1100; Employing Printers of
Peoria, 130 NLRB 1511.
KENT PRINTING COMPANY 459
unit.' Accordingly, we find that it would not effectuate the purposes
of the Act to direct an election in the unit requested by the Petitioner.
However, the Petitioner has for many years represented a unit
including all the pressmen, and has evinced no intent to abandon its
representation of such employees. On the basis of the bargaining
history and all the circumstances of this case, we find that the estab-
lished unit of lithographic and letter pressmen is appropriate a
As indicated above, the Petitioner and the Intervenor disagree on
the unit placement of the cameraman-platemaker. The contract of
neither of these unions specifically refers to the cameraman-plate-
maker. Both contracts, however, contain general language which
could be construed as including this employee in the contract unit.
The camera-platemaker's position has been occupied by the same
employee, Kurylowicz, ever since the Employer began its platemaking
operation in 1957. Kurylowicz became a member of the Intervenor
at that time because he performed some pasteup functions of the type
also performed by the compositors. About a year later, he requested
permission to withdraw his membership in the Intervenor on the
ground that his pasteup duties had been taken over by another
employee and he was reluctant to apprentice himself to the compositor
trade as the Intervenor wished him to do. The Intervenor had no
procedure for withdrawal of membership, however, and, upon the
advice of that Union, Kurylowicz let his dues lapse and was expelled.
He thereupon joined the Petitioner, and was represented by it until
October 1959, when he withdrew and rejoined the Intervenor. After
4 or 5 months, he was again expelled from the Intervenor .for lapse
of dues, joined the Petitioner about March 1960, and has been a mem-
ber of and represented by the latter Union since that time.
The cameraman-platemaker is assisted from time to time by three
or four of the lithographic pressmen represented by the Petitioner,
and, less frequently, by one of the compositors represented by the
Intervenor. Although the cameraman-platemaker occasionally visits
the composing room to have broken type reset, he regularly delivers
plates to the lithographic pressmen and adjusts plates on the offset
presses.
Under all the circumstances, including the facts that the camera-
man-platemaker has been included in the lithographic and letter press-
men unit represented by the Petitioner for the past 2 years, comes in
more frequent contact, and has more employment interests in common,
with the employees in that unit than with other employees, and is the
type of employee normally included in the same unit as other litho-
3 American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation (Louisville Works ), 119 NLRB
204; Hollingsworth & Whitney Division of Scott Paper Company, 115 NLRB 15 . Accord,
F. N. Burt Company, Inc., 130 NLRB 1115.
& In view of this finding, the Intervenor 's motion to dismiss on unit grounds is hereby
denied.
-460 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
graphic production employees,5 we shall include him in the unit found
appropriate herein.
Accordingly, we find that the following employees at the Employer's
Grand Rapids, Michigan, printing plant constitute an appropriate
unit for the purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of
Section 9 (c) of the Act :
All journeymen lithographic pressmen and letterpressmen, assist-
ant pressmen, and apprentices, and all employees performing work in
connection with offset platemaking including camera operation, dark-
room work, stripping, layout, opaquing, and platemaking; but exclud-
ing composing room employees, bindery room employees, shipping and
receiving employees, office clerical employees, janitors, guards, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
6 See Printing Industry of Delaware, supra.
Local Union 429, International Brotherhood of Electrical Work-
ers, AFL-CIO (Sam M. Melson d/b/a Sam Melson , General
Contractor) and Wilson Sims . Case No. 26-CP-2 (formerly
Case No. 10-CP-7). September 7, 1962
DECISION AND ORDER
On July 12, 1960, Trial Examiner John P. von Rohr issued his
Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that
the Respondent had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair
labor practices and recommending that it cease and desist therefrom
and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the attached Inter-
mediate Report. Thereafter, the Respondent and the General Counsel
filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and briefs in support
thereof.
The Board has reviewed the rulings of the Trial Examiner made
at the hearing and finds that no prejudicial error was committed.
The rulings are hereby affirmed. The Board has considered the Inter-
mediate Report, the exceptions and briefs, and the entire record in
the case, and hereby adopts the findings, conclusions, and recommen-
dations of the Trial Examiner with the following exceptions, addi-
tions, and modifications.
The pertinent facts, as set forth more fully in the Intermediate
Report, are as follows: Sam Melson, the Employer herein, is a general
contractor engaged in the construction of a school near Nashville,
Tennessee. On March 16,1960, without any prior communication with
Melson or his employees, the Respondent, Local 429, which is not the
138 NLRB No. 57.