The Meredith Publishing Co.

National Labor Relations Board - Board DecisionsJan 7, 1963

140 N.L.R.B. 509 (N.L.R.B. 1963)

THE MEREDITH PUBLISHING COMPANY, ETC. 509 APPENDIX NOTICE TO ALL EMPLOYEES Pursuant to the recommendations of a Trial Examiner of the National Labor Relations Board , and in order to effectuate the policies of the National Labor Rela- tions Act, we hereby notify our employees that: WE WILL, upon request, bargain collectively with United Furniture Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and its Local 270 as the exclusive representative of all our employees in the appropriate bargaining unit described below, and, if an understanding is reached, embody such understanding in a signed agreement. The appropriate bargaining unit is: All production and maintenance employees at our Fort Smith, Arkansas, plant, including over-the-road truckdrivers, but excluding office clerical and professional employees, inspectors who do no production work, guards, timekeepers, salesmen , foremen , and other supervisory employees as de- fined in the Act. WE WILL NOT refuse to bargain collectively with the above-named Union as the representative of our employees in the above-stated unit, or in any like or related manner interfere with, restrain , or coerce our employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed to them by Section 7 of the Act. All our employees are free to become or remain, or to refrain from becoming or remaining , members of the above-named Union or any other labor organization. MITCHELL STANDARD CORPORATION, Employer. Dated------------------- By------------------------------------------- (Representative) ( Title) This notice must remain posted for 60 consecutive days from the date of posting, and must not be altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. Employees may communicate with the Board's Regional Office, Seventh Floor, Falls Building , 22 North Front Street, Memphis, Tennessee, Telephone No. Jack- son 7-5451, if they have any question concerning this notice or compliance with its provisions. The Meredith Publishing Company and The Meredith Print- ing Company i and Local 37, Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Petitioner . Case No. 18-RC-5034. January 7, 1963 DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National La- bor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Max Rotenberg, 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 Fanning and Brown]. Upon the entire record 2 in this case the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. The name of the Employer appears as amended at the hearing s The Employer 's request for oral argument is denied as, in our opinion , the record and the briefs adequately present the issues and positions of the parties. 140 NLRB No. 47. 510 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD 2. The labor organizations involved claim 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 Sections 9(c) (1) and 2(6) and (7) of the Act. 4. The Petitioner seeks to sever lithographic production employees from a larger unit represented by the Pressmen. The Employer and the Pressmen maintain that the unit sought is inappropriate, not only because of the integrated nature of the Employer's operations, but in view of the fact that it excludes, inter alia, the pasteup employees and a multilith operator employed at the Employer's downtown of- fice building. The Typographical Union took no definitive position on the general unit question, except that it agrees with the Peti- tioner that the pasteup employees, which it represents, are properly excludable from the requested unit. The Employer, which is located in Des Moines, Iowa, is engaged in the printing and selling of magazines and books. Its business is conducted in two separate buildings, the office facility on Locust Street in downtown Des Moines, and the printing plant on Park Avenue, about 5 miles away. The Employer's total work force amounts to approximately 1,800 employees. About 450 of these em- ployees, including those sought herein, are covered by a contract with the Pressmen, which expired March 1, 1962. The Employer also has a contract with the Typographical Union covering the composing room operation, and specifically includes employees engaged in paste makeup. This contract had an expiration date of August 1, 1962. At the Employer's Park Avenue printing plant, there are two pressrooms. One is designated as the "large pressroom," and con- tains only large letterpresses. The other, designated as the "job pressroom," is located at the opposite side of the plant, and contains eight offset presses and seven letterpresses. The middle area is print- ing preparatory, and includes electrotyping, composing, and the print makeready and roll storage departments. Thus, the inner area serves both pressrooms. The Employer's offset platemaking depart- ment is located in the photo department adjacent to the job press- room, and, like the job pressroom, is under Superintendent John Hill. The Lithographers contends that it is seeking its traditional unit consisting of all lithographic production employees, about 35 in number, excluding all others. The record discloses that employees engaged in the lithographic operation are located in the jobpress and photo departments, and include offset pressmen, multilith opera- 8 Des Moines Printing Pressmen and Assistants ' Union, Local No. 86, International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America, AFL-CIO, was permitted to intervene on the basis of a contractual interest. Des Moines Typographical Union Local 118 was permitted to intervene on the basis of its contractual right to represent the Employer 's pasteup employees , whose unit placement was litigated at the hearing. THE MEREDITH PUBLISHING COMPANY, ETC. 511 tors, and those engaged in offset preparatory work such as camera- men, opaquers, strippers, and platemakers, together with various kinds of helpers. These employees utilize the standard lithographic equip- ment, and perform the usual duties and exercise the customary litho- graphic skills used in the traditional lithographic process. All the lithographic press and preparatory equipment is operated by specific, regularly assigned crews of skilled employees, who are required to undergo apprentice training. The Board has frequently granted severance to an appropriate grouping of lithographic employees, where, as here, the record fails to reveal such integration of operation,4 or interchange among em- ployees, as to prevent such separate representation. However, as indicated above, the Employer and Pressmen contend in effect that as the requested unit does not include all lithographic employees-i.e., the pasteup employees and office multilith operator-it is under established Board policy inappropriate. In the circumstances of this case, we cannot agree. The pasteup employees, of which there are five, take reproduction proofs and assemble them into pasteup form ready for the camera, which photographs it for the purpose of making negatives for use on the offset presses. Such work, which occupies some 90 percent of the pasteup employees' time is clearly an early stage of the lithographic preparatory process. However, unlike the employees the Petitioner seeks, the pasteup employees are not a part of the Employer's press- room operations but rather are a part of its composing operations. They are now and have been for over 4 years in the composing room unit represented by the Typographical Union. Furthermore, they are located in a room separate from that used by employees the Petitioner seeks and are under the immediate separate supervision of the composing room manager. We are cognizant of the fact that pasteup employees have in view of the nature of their work been included in units of lithographers.5 However, we believe that the situation here clearly demonstrates the separability of the pasteup employees from the lithographic production employees sought as well as the feasibility of exluding them from a lithographic production unit. Accordingly, in view of the bargaining history for the pasteup employees as part of the composing room unit 6 and their separate location and supervision and as the Petitioner does not seek them, we shall exclude them from the voting group set forth below. The office multilith operator, who is presently unrepresented, works in the Employer's office building which is some 5 miles from the ' Allen, Lane & Scott, et at , 137 NLRB 223 ; Printing Industry of Delaware , 131 NLRB 1100. Cf. Josten Manufacturing Company and Josten Engraving Company, d/b/a Amemcan Yearbook Company , 101 NLRB 189, 191, 192. 5 See, e.g., The Standard Register Company, Pacific Division, 120 NLRB 1361, 1363. a Cf. T. 0. Metcalf Company, 139 NLRB 838; Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc., 116 NLRB 1883, 1885. 512 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD plant where the requested lithographic production employees are all located. Her job involves primarily the operation of a Duplimat, a type of offset press. Unlike the employees in the plant , the office multilith operator is not engaged in regular production work in con- nection with the accounts of the Employer 's customers but rather on work used in the Employer 's own advertising or promotion activities. Furthermore, she is not under plant supervision but rather that of "central supply" located in the office building. Under these circum- stances, we find that the multilith operator does not have such a close community of interest with the lithographic production em- ployees in the plant as to require her placement in the requested unit. Consequently , we shall exclude the office multilith operator from the voting group. In view of the foregoing , we find that the requested unit may be appropriate . However, we shall make no final unit determination at this time but shall direct that an election be conducted in the following voting group of employees at the Employer' s Des Moines, Iowa, operations : All lithographic production employees , including cameramen, strippers , opaquers , platemakers , offset pressmen and their assistants, plant multilith operators , and apprentices in all categories , but ex- cluding all other employees , office clerical employees, professional em- ployees, pasteup employees , office multilith operator , guards, and su- pervisors as defined in the Act. If a majority of the employees in the above -described voting group vote for the Petitioner , they will be taken to have indicated their desire to constitute a separate bargaining unit and the Regional Di- rector conducting the election is instructed to issue a certification of representatives to the Petitioner for that unit . In the event a ma- jority in the voting group do not vote for the Petitioner , they will be taken to have indicated their desire to remain a part of the exist- ing unit represented by the Pressmen, and the Regional Director will issue a certification of results of election to such effect. [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] Sanborn Telephone Company, Inc. and Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case No. 3-RC-4947. .Janu- ary 7, 1963 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 Henry J. Winters, hearing 140 NLRB No. 43.