Paper Handlers' Local No. 1

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 25, 1981

255 N.L.R.B. 261 (N.L.R.B. 1981)

PAPER HANDLERS' LOCAL NO. 261
Paper Handlers' and Sheet Straighteners' Union
Local No. 1, International Printing and Graphic
Communications Union, AFL-CIO and Ameri-
can Bank Note Company and New York Plate
Printers' Union, Local No. 58, International
Plate Printers', Die Stampers' & Engravers'
Union of North America, AFL-CIO. Case 2-
CD-628
March 25, 1981
DECISION AND DETERMINATION OF
DISPUTE
This is a proceeding under Section 10(k) of the
National Labor Relations Act, as amended, follow-
ing a charge filed by American Bank Note Compa-
ny, herein called the Employer, alleging that Paper
Handlers' and Sheet Straighteners' Union, Local
No. 1, International Printing and Graphic Commu-
nications Union, AFL-CIO, herein called the Re-
spondent or the Paper Handlers, had violated Sec-
tion 8(b)(4)(D) of the Act by engaging in certain
proscribed activity with an object of forcing or re-
quiring the Employer to assign certain work to em-
ployees it represented rather than to employees
represented by New York Plate Printers' Union,
Local No. 58, International Plate Printers', Die
Stampers' & Engravers' Union of North America,
AFL-CIO, herein called Plate Printers.
Pursuant to notice, a hearing was held before
Hearing Officer Michael J. DiMattia on December
5, 1980. All parties appeared and were afforded full
opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross-ex-
amine witnesses, and to adduce evidence bearing
on the issues.
Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the
Board makes the following findings:
I. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER
The parties stipulated, and we find, that the Em-
ployer, a New York corporation with its principal
place of business in Bronx, New York, is engaged
in the printing of securities, bonds, and similar doc-
uments. During the past year, the Employer pur-
chased goods from outside the State of New York
having a value in excess of $50,000. The parties
also stipulated, and we find, that the Employer is
engaged in commerce within the meaning of Sec-
tion 2(6) and (7) of the Act and it will effectuate
the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction
herein.
II. THE LABOR ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED
The parties stipulated, and we find, that Paper
Handlers' and Sheet Straighteners' Union, Local
I By an order dated February 23, 1981, the Board granted the Charg-
ing Party's motion to correct the transcript in certain respects.
255 NLRB No. 38
No. 1, International Printing and Graphic Commu-
nications Union, AFL-CIO, and New York Plate
Printers' Union, Local No. 58, International Plate
Printers', Die Stampers' & Engravers' Union of
North America, AFL-CIO, are labor organizations
within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Act.
III. THE DISPUTE
A. Background and Facts of the Dispute
The Employer recently purchased a Giori print-
ing press, the only one in the New York area, to
use in printing multicolored foreign currency. Most
of the printing presses used by the Employer use
two types of paper: the document paper, on which
the document is printed, and a drying medium of
some sort that separates the printed documents
while they dry. The document paper is fed into
most presses by an automatic feeding mechanism;
the paper is stacked manually on a platform that
rises automatically as the paper is fed from the top
of the stack into the press. Employees represented
by the Plate Printers have traditionally stacked the
document paper on the press and that work is not
in dispute here. The drying medium used in most
presses is a paraffin roll, which is loaded onto a
spindle that feeds the paraffin into the press. This
job has traditionally been performed by employees
represented by the Paper Handlers, and is not in
dispute here. The Giori press does not use paraffin
rolls as a drying medium; rather, it uses sheets of
interleaving tissue paper that are fed into the press
by a mechanism similar to that which feeds the
document paper: the interleaving sheets are stacked
on a platform that rises automatically as the sheets
are fed into the press.
B. The Work in Dispute
The work in dispute involves the stacking of the
sheets of interleaving tissue paper on the automatic
feeding mechanism of the Giori press at the Em-
ployer's Bronx, New York, facility.
C. The Contentions of the Parties
The Employer contends that it has assigned the
stacking of the interleaving sheets on the Giori
press to employees represented by the Plate Print-
ers for reasons of economy and efficiency, and pre-
fers to continue that assignment. According to the
Employer, the press operator, represented by the
Plate Printers, is always at the press and available
to load paper as needed. Moreover, the operator is
responsible generally for the press and is most fa-
miliar with it, and the Employer prefers to have
one employee accountable for any problems occur-
PAPER HANDLERS LOCAL NO.
262 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
ring with the press. The Plate Printers agreed with
the contentions of the Employer.
The Paper Handlers contends that the disputed
work should properly be assigned to employees it
represents because the collective-bargaining agree-
ment with the Employers states that the employees
it represents are responsible for the handling of
paper in the Employer's operation, and this work is
the handling of paper. Traditionally, employees
represented by the Paper Handlers have loaded the
drying medium into presses. The Paper Handlers
denies that assignment of the work to the employ-
ees it represents would be costly or inefficient;
rather, it contends that those employees could per-
form this function in the course of their other
duties, which consist mainly of transporting the
stacks of paper-both document paper and drying
paper-to and from the presses, and that no addi-
tional employees would be needed to stack the in-
terleaving sheets onto the Giori press.
D. Applicability of the Statute
Before the Board may proceed with a determina-
tion of the dispute pursuant to Section 10(k) of the
Act, it must be satisfied that there is reasonable
cause to believe that Section 8(b)(4)(D) has been
violated and that the parties have not agreed upon
a method for the voluntary adjustment of the dis-
pute.
The parties stipulate, and we find, that on or
about October 21, 1980, Patrick Flannery, repre-
senting the Paper Handlers, told George McCon-
nin, director of industrial relations for American
Bank Note Company, that if the disputed work
were not reassigned to employees represented by
the Paper Handlers, the Paper Handlers would take
an unspecified "job action." No party contends that
they have agreed upon a method for the voluntary
adjustment of this dispute. On the basis of the
entire record, we conclude that there is reasonable
cause to believe that a violation of Section
8(b)(4)(D) has occurred and that there exists no
agreed-upon method for the voluntary adjustment
of the dispute within the meaning of Section 10(k)
of the Act. Accordingly, we find that this dispute
is properly before the Board for determination.
E. Merits of the Dispute
Section 10(k) of the Act requires the Board to
make an affirmative award of disputed work after
giving due consideration to various factors.2 The
Board has held that its determination in a jurisdic-
tional dispute is an act of judgment based on com-
2 N.L.R.B. v. Radio & Television Broadcast Engineers Union. Local
1212. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO [Colum-
bia Broadcasting System], 364 U.S. 573 (1961).
monsense and experience reached by balancing
those factors involved in a particular case. 3
The following factors are relevant in making the
determination of the dispute before us:
1. Collective-bargaining agreements, company
practice, and the nature of the work
The Employer is a party to a collective-bargain-
ing agreement between the Printers League Sec-
tion, a multiemployer bargaining agent, and the
Paper Handlers, which defines the work of "Paper
and/or Roll Handlers," the employees here repre-
sented by the Paper Handlers. Section 66 of that
agreement says, "The handling, hauling, packing,
loading or unloading of paper in sheet form,
whether packed in bundles . . . cased, baled, or
upon platforms, printed or unprinted, comes under
this classification . . . provided that this does not
apply to the handling of job press work printed or
unprinted . . . ." The Paper Handlers contends
that this contractual provision entitles the employ-
ees they represent to perform the disputed work.
The contract between the Employer and the Plate
Printers does not specify the tasks to be performed
by employees that Union represents, except to say
that they are "engaged in production as Plate
Printers and as Plate Provers" and that the em-
ployees to whom the disputed work has been as-
signed must be "qualified . . . to operate [Employ-
er's] rotary press equipment." However, it appears
from the record that the employees represented by
the Plate Printers "handle" document paper when
they load it onto the automatic feeding mechanisms
of the presses. It thus appears that the Paper Han-
dlers contractual provision does not include all
handling of paper, but only that which is tradition-
ally the work of paper or roll handlers in the in-
dustry. The word "platform" in this provision
refers, it would seem, to the "skids" on which
stacks of paper are transported by the paper han-
dlers from one part of the plant to another.
Because there is only one Giori press in the New
York area, the only relevant past practice is that of
the Employer. The Giori press is the only press
that uses sheet paper as a drying medium, and the
drying medium is fed into the press from a fixed
platform-as opposed to a removable platform-
automatic feeding mechanism. Where an employer
institutes a new production process, the Board will
determine "company practice" regarding work as-
signment by comparing the nature of the tasks in-
volved in the new process to the tasks traditionally
performed by employees, rather than comparing
3 International Association of Machinists. Lodge No 1743, AFL-CIO (J.
A. Jones Construction Company), 135 NLRB 1402 (1962).
_ , _
PAPER HANDLERS
the function in the production process of the disput-
ed work to that of the employees' traditional
work. 4 Therefore, the important characteristic of
the work disputed here is not that it involves intro-
ducing a drying medium into the press such as the
mounting of paraffin rolls onto spindles-which is
the work of paper handlers-but that it involves
the stacking of sheets of paper onto a platform that
is an integral part of the press. In the latter respect,
the work is no different than stacking document
paper onto the automatic feeding mechanism,
which is traditionally the work of the press opera-
tor, represented by the Plate Printers. Therefore,
we find that these factors favor assignment of the
disputed work to employees represented by the
Plate Printers.
2. Skills, economy, and efficiency
It appears from the record that the disputed
work requires little skill, and that an employee can
be quickly trained to perform it. The Employer
contends that the press operator, represented by
the Plate Printers, can stack the interleaving paper
onto the Giori press in the course of his other
duties, and would be immediately available when
the paper is required. However, it appears from the
record that the same would be true of the employ-
ees represented by the Paper Handlers, inasmuch as
they are ultimately responsible for providing paper
to the presses-thus, they must supply stacks of
paper on skids as it is needed-and their duties in-
clude loading the drying medium onto other
presses. Therefore, these factors do not favor an
award of the disputed work to either group of em-
ployees.
3. The Employer's preference
The Employer prefers to continue assigning the
disputed work to employees represented by the
Plate Printers.
4 Cf. International Union of Operating Engineers. Local 8 and/or 399,
AFL-CIO (Pabst Brewing Co), 238 NLRB 1302, 1304 (1978) (contractual
provision and past practice regarding assignment of tasks involved in old
method of water purification irrelevant to assignment of different tasks
required for a new method).
S' LOCAL NO. 1 263
Conclusion
Upon the record as a whole, and after full con-
sideration of all relevant factors involved, we con-
clude that employees who are represented by the
New York Plate Printers' Union Local No. 58 are
entitled to perform the work in dispute. We reach
this conclusion relying on the nature of the task as
compared to the nature of tasks performed in the
past by the Plate Printers and the Paper Handlers
at the Employer's facility, and on the Employer's
preference. In making this determination, we are
awarding the work in question to employees who
are represented by New York Plate Printers' Union
Local No. 58, but not to that Union or its mem-
bers. The present determination is limited to the
particular controversy which gave rise to this pro-
ceeding.
DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE
Pursuant to Section 10(k) of the National Labor
Relations Act, as amended, and upon the basis of
the foregoing findings and the entire record in this
proceeding, the National Labor Relations Board
makes the following Determination of Dispute:
1. Employees of American Bank Note Company,
who are represented by New York Plate Printers'
Union Local No. 58, are entitled to stack sheets of
interleaving paper onto the platform of the auto-
matic feeding mechanism of the Giori press at the
Employer's Bronx, New York, facility.
2. Paper Handlers' and Sheet Straighteners'
Union Local No. 1, is not entitled by any means
proscribed by Section 8(b)(4)(D) of the Act to
force or require American Bank Note Company to
assign the disputed work to employees represented
by that labor organization.
3. Within 10 days from the date of this Decision
and Determination of Dispute, Paper Handlers' and
Sheet Straighteners' Union Local No. 1, shall
notify the Regional Director for Region 2, in writ-
ing, whether or not it will refrain from forcing or
requiring the Employer, by means proscribed by
Section 8(b)(4)(D) of the Act, to assign the disput-
ed work in a manner inconsistent with the above
determination.