The McCall Printing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsDec 21, 1970

187 N.L.R.B. 382 (N.L.R.B. 1970)

382 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The McCall Printing Company, Dayton , Ohio Division and Dayton Bookbinders Union Local No. 199, affiliated with International Brotherhood of Book- binders, AFL-CIO, Petitioner . Case 9-RC-8430 December 21, 1970 DECISION AND ORDER BY MEMBERS FANNING, BROWN, AND JENKINS Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, an investigation was conducted by the Regional Director for Region 9. The Regional Director thereafter dismissed the petition without a hearing and, in a letter to the Petitioner , noted that "the unit sought by the Petitioner constitutes an arbitrary grouping of only a segment of the Employer's unrepresented clerical employees and is, therefore, inappropriate." Pursuant to an appeal by the Petitioner under Section 102.71 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations , Series 8 , as amended, the National Labor Relations Board reversed the Regional Direc- tor's dismissal and directed him to issue a notice of hearing. A hearing was held before Joseph T. Perry, Hearing Officer, on June 1 and 9, 1970. Thereafter, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the Board Rules and Regulations, this case was transferred to the Board for decision. The Employer and the Petitioner filed briefs with the Board. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its powers in connection with this case to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. The rulings 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 and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The labor organization involved claims to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concern- ing the representation of certain 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 to represent all employees in i Quality assurance, in turn, is now part of the customer service department the Employer's quality inspection department, which is part of the quality assurance department.' The Employer contends that the inspection department employees do not constitute a separate appropriate unit and that they share a community of interest with other unrepresented clerical employees with whom they should be joined in a single unit. In Case 9-RC-7799 the Regional Director for Region 9, on October 11, 1968, dismissed a petition seeking representation of the same employees in- volved herein. In his decision therein, which was not appealed to the Board, the Regional Director referred to these employees as printing inspection clerks or quality evaluators. He described their tasks as involving "minimal physical activities," as falling within the Employer's clerical grade 2, and as involving contacts principally with the customer service department whose clerical employees were not sought. He concluded that they were engaged in clerical, not production, work, and that the unit sought-by the Pressmen in that case-constituted an arbitrary grouping of the Employer's unrepresented clerical employees inappropriate for collective bar- gaining. In the instant proceeding, the Regional Director's letter dismissing the petition stated that "the Petition- er does not contend that the duties of any of the employees in the unit sought have changed or are any different" from those in 1968. However, the Petition- er, in its request for review, contended that the duties are, in fact, different now. Therefore, we directed a hearing to elicit more clearly what clerical functions are performed by the employees sought by the Petitioner. The record of the hearing herein reveals that the quality inspection department consists of an advertising copy expediter, a trucker, and approxi- mately 15 quality evaluators who select magazines from a small part of the regular press run, a recognized quality cycle, for distribution to such special customers of the Employer as editors, publish- ers, advertising agencies, and advertisers. Better than average copies of the appropriate publication are chosen, but most "rejected" copies are returned to the production process for delivery to subscribers or newsstands. This work entails checking the covers and flipping the pages. A pen, paper clips, filing cards, and rubber bands are the required tools. The regular production quality control function is performed by other employees not sought herein. A comparison of the Regional Director's 1968 decision and the record herein reveals that there has been no change in the employees' duties. We agree with the Regional Director's conclusion in Case 9-RC-7799 that the quality inspection department 187 NLRB No. 47 Mc CALL PRINTING CO., DAYTON, OHIO DIV. 383 employees are engaged in clerical, not production, work. His decision to dismiss the instant petition on essentially the same basis as in 1968 is warranted by the record herein. Accordingly, we find that the work of the employees in the unit sought by the Petitioner is clerical in nature and that the unit constitutes an arbitrary grouping of only a segment of the Employ- er's unrepresented clerical employees and is, there- fore, inappropriate. We shall dismiss the petition herein. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. MEMBER BROWN , dissenting: Contrary to my colleagues, I would permit the quality inspection employees to decide through an election whether they wished to be included in the unit of bindery a #d mailing department employees currently represented by the Petitioner. I consider the quality inspection department employees' work more related to the production process than to the work performed by the Employer's unrepresented clerical employees. Moreover, the employees sought by the Petitioner interrelate with the bindery and mailing department employees it currently represents because the publications which are selected for distribution to advertisers, editors, etc. by the inspectors come from either the bindery or mailing departments.