Philadelphia Daily News, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Jul 8, 1955

113 N.L.R.B. 91 (N.L.R.B. 1955)

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, INC. 91-
WE WILL NOT perform, enforce , or give effect to our June 1, 1954 , contract
with The Item Company, or to any extension , renewal , modification, or supple-
ment thereof, or to any superseding agreement with said Company , insofar as
said contracts or agreements apply to the wholesalers or street deliverymen,
unless and until the Union shall have been certified by the National Labor
Relations Board as the exclusive bargaining representative of said employees in
an appropriate unit.
WE WILL NOT in any like or related manner restrain or coerce employees of
The Item Company, its successors or assigns , in the exercise of the rights guaran-
teed in Section 7 of the Act , except to the extent that such rights may be affected
by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition
of employment, as authorized in Section 8 (a) (3) of the Act.
Wn WILL reimburse Herman Binder , John Davi, Herbert Kohlmer, Frank
Mancuso, and Morris A. Schneider for the initiation fees and dues each of
them paid to the Union.
INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS,
CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS
OF AMERICA, AFL, LOCAL 270,
Labor Organization.
Dated---------------- By----------------------------------------------
(Representative ) ( Title)
This notice must remain posted for 60 days from the date hereof , and must not be
altered, defaced, or covered by any other material.
Philadelphia Daily News, Inc. and Newspaper Guild of Greater
Philadelphia Local No. 10, affiliated with American Newspa-
per Guild, CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 4-RC-2655. July S, 1955
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 Herbert B. Mintz, hearing
officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from
prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
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 certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. A question affecting commerce exists concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c)
(1) andSection 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. The Petitioner seeks to represent the editorial department, promo-
tion department, and art department employees in a single unit or, in
the alternative, as separate departmental units. The Employer moved
to dismiss the petition on the ground that the unit sought is inappropri-
ate, contending that a broad residual unit of all unrepresented non-
mechanical employees, including editorial, art, promotion, advertising,
accounting, inside circulation, and 3 maintenance and 3 miscellaneous
3 The Daily Press, Incorporated, 116 NLRB 573.
113 NLRB No. 9.
92 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
employees, constitute the only appropriate unit 2 There is no history
of bargaining among the employees sought herein. The motion is
denied for the reasons hereinafter stated.
The editorial, promotion, and art departments are located on the
second floor of the Employer's plant. The employees of the editorial
department, under the supervision of the editor, are engaged in report-
ing, writing, and performing photographic work customarily associ-
ated with the preparation of news. The employees of the promotion
department are engaged in the promotion of newspaper sales under
the promotion manager or director. The art department employees,
under the supervision of the art director, do the Employer's artwork
for the editorial and advertising departments, consisting of the re-
touching of photographs, the preparation of charts, maps, figure draw-
ings, and cartoons. The employees of the three departments are closely
associated in their work. Thus, editorial department employees write
news stories about contests sponsored by the promotion department and
interview and photograph contest winners. All artwork to be used in
the preparation of news is performed by the art department employees
under instructions from the editor. Six of the twelve employees in the
art department are carried on the editorial payroll and two of them
work exclusively for the editorial department. The Employer con-
siders the art department to be a subdivision of the editorial depart-
ment.
While each of the above groups of employees have specialized func-
tions, it is clear from the foregoing that these departments are in-
tegrated and interdependent with respect to the task of preparing
news for portrayal to the public. Moreover, the hours of work and
conditions of employment are generally the same for all these em-
ployees. They work in close proximity to one another, and have close-
ly integrated and coordinated duties which relate primarily to the
editorial phase of the Employer's operations. We are therefore of
the opinion that the group of employees sought by the Petitioner has
a community of interest sufficient to warrant their functioning as a
single appropriate unit for collective-bargaining purposes, especially
in the absence of any labor organization seeking to represent them on
a broader basis or of a history of bargaining on such broader basis.3
The fact that the Board has considered the optimum unit in the news-
paper industry to be one comprising the employees in all nonmechani-
cal departments 4 does not detract from the appropriateness of the
2 Other nonmechanical employees such as paper handlers, chauffeurs, streetmen and
roadmen, and mailers are presently represented by various labor organizations not in-
volved herein
8 See The Register & Tribune Company, 73 NLRB 728 , at 729-730 ; Joseph R. Osherenko
and The Californian Magazine, Inc , 71 NLRB 418, at 421
4 The Chicago Daily News , Inc., 98 NLRB 1235 , at 1237; The Item Company, 108 NLRB
1261, at 1263 ; Home News Publishing Co., 109 NLRB 833, at 834 ; and The Niagara Falls
Gazette Publishing Company, 111 NLRB 264.
ETIWAN FERTILIZER COMPANY 93
unit sought by the Petitioner, which tends to approach the optimum
unit .5 In these circumstances, we find, therefore, that the employees
in the editorial, promotion, and art departments together constitute
a single unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.
The Petitioner would include, as an employee in the editorial de-
partment, a cartoonist who the Employer contends is an independent
contractor. This cartoonist supplies cartoons directly to the Em-
ployer, similar to a syndicated feature. He is not on the Employer's
payroll but has a contract according to the terms of which he sells
three or more cartoons a week to the Employer on a fee-per-cartoon
basis. In these circumstances, we find that the cartoonist is an in-
dependent contractor and we exclude him from the unit.
Accordingly, we find that all employees in the editorial, promotion,
and art departments, at the Employer's Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
plant, but excluding all other employees, the editor, heads of the sports
and. photographic subdivisions, promotion manager or director, the
,art director, the cartoonist, and all supervisors as defined in the Act,
-constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargain-
ing within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Acts
[Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.]
5 The Item Company, supra, at 1263.
sBecause the editor , the heads of the sports and photographic subdivisions of the
editorial department , and the promotion manager or director have the authority to hire
and fire employees , we find that they are supervisors and exclude them from the unit.
Etiwan Fertilizer Company and International Union of Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers (Independent ), Charleston Ferti-
lizer and Chemical Workers Local No. 863. Case No. 11--CA-738.
July 11,1955
DECISION AND ORDER
On November 4, 1954, Trial Examiner Alba B. Martin issued his
Intermediate Report in the above-entitled proceeding, finding that the
Employer had engaged in and was engaging in certain unfair labor
practices and recommending that the Respondent cease and desist
therefrom and take certain affirmative action, as set forth in the copy
of the Intermediate Report attached hereto. Thereafter, the Re-
spondent filed exceptions to the Intermediate Report and a supporting
brief.
On February 8, 1955, the Respondent moved to dismiss the com-
plaint in this proceeding because of the Board's February 1, 1955, de-
termination that International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers, with which the Charging Union is affiliated, was not in com-
113 NLRB No. 11.