George Banta Publishing Co.

In the Matter of GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY, EMPLOYER and INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS, PETITIONER Case No. 13-R-4095.-Decided April 8, 1947 Mr. Edward J. Dempsey, of Oshkosh, Wis., for the Employer. Mr. P. L. Siemiller, of Chicago, Ill., for the Petitioner. Mr. David C. Buchalter, of counsel to the Board. DECISION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES Upon a petition duly filed, the National Labor Relations Board on January 8, 1947, conducted a prehearing election among employees of the Employer in the alleged appropriate unit, to determine whether or not they desired to be represented by the Petitioner for the purposes of collective bargaining. At the close of the election a Tally of Ballots was furnished the parties. The Tally shows that there were approximately 40 eligible voters who cast valid ballots, of which 27 were for, and 8 were against, the Petitioner, and 5 were challenged. Thereafter, a hearing was held at Menasha, Wisconsin, on January 29, 1947, before Gustav B. Erickson, 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 the case, the National Labor Relations Board makes the following : FINDINGS OF FACT I. THE BUSINESS OF THE EMPLOYER George Banta Publishing Company, a Wisconsin corporation, is engaged at both its 450 Ahnaip and Midway plants in Menasha, Wis- consin, in publishing and printing school text books, journals of sci- entific societies and other printed matter. During the calendar year 1946, the Employer purchased for use in these plants materials valued at approximately $2,000,000 of which 20 percent represented ship- ments to it from points outside the State of Wisconsin. During the same period, the Employer's sales were in excess of $3,000,000, of which 80 percent represented shipments to points outside the State. 73 N. L. R. B, No 48. 739926-47-vol 73-18 255 256 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Employer admits and we find that it is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act. H. THE ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED 1 The Petitioner is a labor organization claiming to represent employees of the Employer. III. THE QUESTION CONCERNING REPRESENTATION The Employer refuses to recognize the Petitioner as the exclusive bargaining representative of employees of the Employer until the Petitioner has been certified by the Board in an appropriate unit. We find that a question affecting commerce has arisen concerning the representation of employees of the Employer, within the meaning .of Section 9 (c) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. IV. THE APPROPRIATE UNIT The Petitioner seeks a unit of all maintenance employees 2 at the 450 Ahnaip and Midway plants of the Employer, including balers but excluding office and clerical employees, supervisors, and all other employees. The sole disagreement between the parties relates to the .balers whom the Employer would exclude from the unit. This dis- agreement was reflected at the election in the five ballots which were challenged. The Employer employs, in all, five balers on its three shifts, and .follows the practice of rotating them on a weekly basis among these shifts. The balers' main function is to salvage waste paper trimmings from books and other printed matter. During the day shift, the only shift during which the bindery is in operation, the trimmings are conveyed to the baling room from the bindery by means of an automatic process, and together with trimmings from other parts of the plant gathered by the janitor, are then baled by the balers in hand paper presses. During the other shifts the balers obtain the paper trim- mings by picking them up themselves throughout the plants and cart- ing them to the paper presses for baling. In addition to their duties of baling paper these employees, when working on the night shifts, and ,as firemen, firing three low pressure boilers, and on Saturday and Sunday nights, act as watchmen, performing the same duties required of the watchman during his tour of duty on the other nights of the week. . The record discloses that the balers are under the same supervision and enjoy the same conditions of employment as the other employees ' Although Banta Specialty Union , International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union, AFL, herein called the Pressmen, was served with Notice of Hearing , it failed to appear 2 Included in this group are oilers , janitors, electricians , repairmen, mechanics, and a watchman. GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 257 sought by the Petitioner, that they have functioned, at times, as oilers and janitors, and that they are not sought to be represented by any other labor organization at the plant.3 Under all these circumstances, and particularly in view of the substantial community of interest ex- isting between the balers and the other maintenance employees, we shall include them in the unit hereinafter found appropriate, and shall overrule the challenges to their ballots. Accordingly, we find that all maintenance employees at the 450 Ahnaip and Midway plants of the Employer, including balers, but excluding office and clerical employees, and all supervisory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, constitute a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bar- gaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act. V. TILE DETERMINATION OF REPRESENTATIVES The results of the election held before the hearing show that the Petitioner has secured a majority of the votes cast, and that the chal- lenged ballots are insufficient to affect the results of the election. Under these circumstances we shall not direct that any of the challenged ballots be opened and counted, but instead shall certify the Petitioner as the collective bargaining representative of the employees ui the appropriate unit. CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES IT IS IIEREBY CERTIFIED that International Association of Machinists has been designated and selected by a majority of all maintenance em- ployees at the 450 Ahnaip and Midway plants of George Banta Pub- lishing Company, Mensha, Wisconsin, including balers, but excluding office and clerical employees, and all supervisory employees with authority to hire, promote, discharge, discipline, or otherwise effect changes in the status of employees, or effectively recommend such action, as their representative for the purposes of collective bargain- ing, and that, pursuant to Section 9 (a) of the Act, the said organization is the exclusive representative of all such employees for the purposes of collective bargaining with respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and other conditions of employment. CHAIRMAN HERZOG took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Certification of Representatives. 3 The record discloses that the Pressmen presently represents the Employer's pressmen and is seeking , in Case No 13-R-4061, now pending, to represent employees of the com- po,ang room , that folders are being claimed by the International Brotherhood of Book- binders , and that the off-set press operators are not represented