Cuneo Eastern Press, Inc. of Pennsylvania

CUNEO EASTERN PRESS, INC. OF PENNSYLVANIA 343 CUNEO EASTERN PRESS, INC. OF PENNSYLVANIA and PHILADELPHIA MAILERS UNION NO. 14 AFFILIATED WITH INTERNATIONAL MAILERS UNION, Petitioner. Case No. 4-RC-1907. July 22, 1953 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before William Naimark, 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 [Members Murdock, Styles, and Peterson]. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the mean- ing of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the mean- ing of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. The Employer and the intervening Bookbinders i contend that their current bargaining agreement , which was executed and effective December 4, 1950, and which has an expiration date of October 15, 1953, is a bar to this proceeding. The Petitioner contends that the agreement is not a bar because it is of unreasonable duration, and has passed its second anniversary and also because the agreement 's "Mill B" date of July 15, 1953, is only several weeks away. In view of the fact that the "Mill B" date of the foregoing agreement is less than 30 days from the date of this decision, we find that the agreement is not a bar.' Accordingly, we do not find it necessary to consider the merits of the various contentions regarding the reasonable- ness of the duration of the agreement in question. The Petitioner seeks a unit comprising all of the female employees in the Employer's bindery who work only on the first and second shifts and who are currently represented by the Bookbinders as part of a multiemployer unit. In the alternative, if the Board finds the foregoing unit to be inappro- priate, the Petitioner seeks to represent all of the female employees of the Employer and other employers comprising the multiemployer unit, currently represented by the Book- binders pursuant to an agreement between it and a multiem- ployer association known as Allied Printing Employers' Asso- ciation.3 [Bookbinders & Bindery Women's Local No. 2, affiliated with international Brotherhood of Bookbinders, AFL. The Printing & Paper Trades Auxiliary Workers, Local Industrial Union No. 520, CIO, herein called the Auxiliary Workers, was also permitted to intervene on the basis of a current contract covering certain of the Employer's bindery employees. 2 Union Oil Company of California, 96 NLRB 1016. 3 This agreement is the one which the Employer and the Bookbinders would assert as a bar. 106 NLRB No. 48. 344 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD The Employer and both of the intervening unions contend that a single employer unit of the Employer's first- and second- shift female employees, as sought by the Petitioner, is in- appropriate because of a history of collective bargaining for these employees as part of the multiemployer unit. The Intervenors further maintain that this historical unit is the only appropriate unit insofar as these particular employees are concerned. The Employer, although agreeing with the Inter- venors that the multiemployer unit is appropriate, also con- tends that if the collective -bargaining history is not controlling, the only other appropriate unit would be a single employer departmental unit embracing all of the Employer's male and female bindery workers employed on all shifts, with the possi- ble exception of male journeymen. The Employer is engaged in the printing and binding of periodicals, magazines, and like products. Since about 1933, the Employer has been a member of successive organizations of printing firms formed for the purpose of bargaining with the various unions representing their employees. Since 1945, most of these firms, including the Employer, have been members of the Allied Printing Employers' Association, the present contracting organization, which negotiates with the Bookbinders regarding the employees herein involved. The first contract of record between an employer association, of which the instant Employer was a member, and the Bookbinders was executed in 1940 and recognized the Bookbinders as the exclusive bargaining representative of all Bookbinders male members employed in the various binderies of the Association's members. In 1943, the Bookbinders female members were covered by a similar contract between the same contracting parties which established the present associationwide female unit of which the Employer's first- and second-shift female bindery employees are a part. This division into male and female units, with separate bargaining agreements for each unit, has continued to date. However, for reasons which are not apparent on the record, and at a time which the record fails to reveal, jurisdiction over the Employer's third-shift male and female bindery employees was vested in the Auxiliary Workers, and at least as early as 1943 these third-shift employees were bargained for as a separate, single employer unit. As a result, for at least the last 10 years the Employer's female bindery employees of the first and second shift have been represented by the Bookbinders as a part of an associa- tionwide unit. Whereas the third-shift bindery employees, both male and female, who, with only a few minor exceptions, perform the same work and exercise the same skills as the first- and second-shift females, have been represented by an entirely different bargaining representative, the Auxiliary Workers, in a separate, single employer unit. The unit of first- and second-shift female employees sought by the Petitioner as a separate, single employer unit does not conform to department or craft lines. As noted above, the employees on the third shift, whom the Petitioner does not seek and would specifically exclude from the proposed unit, F. E. SCHUNDLER & CO., INC. 345 perform the same work in the same department and exercise substantially the same skills as do the employees comprising the unit sought. Because the proposed unit comprises only a segment of a group of employees who possess similar skills and perform comparable work, we find that it is inappropriate.4 With regard to the Petitioner's alternate request for an associationwide unit identical with the present, long-established contract unit, it appears that such unit is confined to female employees. The Board has held that units based upon sex are inappropriate,' and absent a showing that there exists a sub- stantial difference in skills between male and female em- ployees,' the Board will dismiss a petition requesting a unit so predicated. But even if we assume that the contract unit can be justified on the basis of difference in skills between sexes--and the record suggests that such difference may exist, at least at the Employer's plant--we would not order an election in the requested unit because the Petitioner does not possess sufficient showing of interest among the employees composing said unit and because one of the essential con- tracting parties, Allied Printing Employers Association, was not made a party to this proceeding, nor was it given notice of hearing. Accordingly, by reason of all of the foregoing, and upon the entire record, we shall dismiss the petition herein. [The Board dismissed the petition.] 4lnternational Harvester Company, 100 NLRB 1345. 5 Underwriters Salvage Company of New York,'99 NLRB 337. 6Cf. Lloyd Hollister, Inc., 55 NLRB 32; H. W. Wilson Company, 48 NLRB 938. F. E. SCHUNDLER & CO., INC. and INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, LOCAL UNION 953, Petitioner F. E. SCHUNDLER & CO., INC. and CHAUFFEURS, TEAM- STERS & HELPERS LOCAL UNION NO. 492, AFL, Petitioner. Cases Nos . 33-RC-448 and 33-RC-450 . July 22, 1953 DECISION AND ORDER Upon separate petitions duly filed, a consolidated hearing was held in the above-entitled cases before Byron Guse, 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 National Labor Relations Act, the Board has delegated its powers in connection with these cases to a three-member panel [Members Houston, Styles, and Peterson]. Upon the entire record in these cases, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 106 NLRB No. 58.