Golden Belt Manufacturing Co.

164 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD GOLDEN BELT MANUFACTURING COMPANY and DURHAM, N. C., SPECIALTIES & PAPER PRODUCTS LOCAL UNION NO. 595, INTERNATIONAL PRINTING PRESSMEN & AS- SISTANTS' UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, A. F. OF L., Petitioner . Case No. 11-RC-594. April 6, 1954 DECISION AND ORDER Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a hearing was held before Lewis Wolberg, hearing officer.' The hearing officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby af- firmed. Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. z 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, for the following reasons: The Petitioner seeks a unit of all employees in the printing department of the Employer's plant. The Intervenor contends that the employees sought by the Petitioner are not true crafts- men, and urges that the previous history of collective bargain- ing on a more comprehensive basis makes the existing plant- wide unit the only appropriate unit. The Employer takes no position as to the appropriate unit. At its Durham plant the Employer manufactures tobacco bags, print cloth, and cigarette labels. 3 It employes, in all, 500 pro- iThe Petitioner's name appears herein as amended at the hearing. Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, hereinafter called the Intervenor, intervened on the basis of its current contract. The parties agreed that the record of the testimony and the exhibits introduced at the hearing in Golden Belt Manufacturing Company, Case No. 11-RC-495, held on February 5. 1953, be incorporated into the record in the instant case, and that there had been no material changes in the Employer's operations since that date. The Intervenor's motion to dismiss the petition on the ground that the Petitioner does not have a sufficient showing of interest among employees in its requested unit is denied. Showing of interest is a matter for administrative determination and is not subject to col- lateral attack by the parties. Great Southern Chemical Corporation, 96 NLRB 1013. More- over, we are administratively satisfied that the Petitioner has made an adequate showing of interest in this proceeding. 2During the past year the Employer, a New Jersey corporation with its only plant located at Durham, North Carolina, received materials valued in excess of $500,000, which were shipped to it from points outside North Carolina. During the same period the Employer shipped materials valued in excess of $25,000 to out-of-State points. We find that it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction in this case. Federal Dairy Co„ Inc., 91 NLRB 638; Stanislaus Implement and Hardware Company, Limited, 91 NL12B 618. Chairman Farmer and Member Rodgers join in this decision but are not to be deemed there- by as adopting the Board's past jurisdictional standards as a permanent policy. 3A cigarette label is the paper wrapping that encloses a package of cigarettes. 108 NLRB No. 35. GOLDEN BELT MANUFACTURING COMPANY 165 duction and maintenance workers .4 The Employer divides its manufacturing operations into 3 main sections : ( 1) a print cloth mill, with 275 employees; (2) a bag-manufacturing depart- ment, with 125 employees; and (3) a printing department, with 100 employees. The print cloth mill is located in one building; the departments are located on different floors of another build- ing, about 300 feet away from the mill. The printing department includes a printing room, a job-press room, and a cutting room. Employees in the print cloth mill work under the supervision of a superintendent . The record does not further disclose their supervision . Employees in the bag-manufacturing and printing departments work under the common, overall supervision of another superintendent , but each of these departments has separate immediate supervision. The 100 employees in the printing department consist of 16 printing pressmen, 4 job pressmen , 4 assistant pressmen, 7 press helpers , a printing compositor , ahead cutter , 11 cutters, 3 cutter learners , 15 bundlers and straighteners , and a learner, a sweeper , and an undisclosed number of inspectors and paperhangers. There may also be utility employees in the printing department, but the record is not entirely clear on this point. The Employer' s printing pressmen print cigarette labels. The job-pressmen print labels and they also print legends on bags. For the most part, all the pressmen operate presses of standard design and exercise the usual skills of their craft. The printing compositor sets type by hand. The cutters cut labels by machine after they have been printed on large sheets. The bundlers and straighteners prepare labels for shipment. The inspectors inspect sheets of labels for imperfections in printing . The paperhangers hang sheets of labels on racks, so that air may be blown through them. The remaining em- ployees in the printing department --the assistant pressmen, the press helpers, the cutter learners , the learner in the bundler and straightener group , and the sweeper- -perform the duties of their respective classifications. The Employer hires most of its workers from sources outside the plant. After the necessary training, the Employer promotes employees from other classifications to the position of assistant pressman and thereafter , in most cases , to that of pressman. It usually requires about 2 years to train a pressman ; several months to train a cutter; 2 or 3 months to train an inspector ; and a month or 2 to train a bundler and straightener . The training periods for the other classifications in the printing department vary according to the particular classification involved . The record does not disclose their dura- tion. 4The figures given herein are approximate. 166 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD On or about December 27, 1937, following a consent election in Case No. 5-R-128,5 the Regional Director certified Textile Workers Organizing Committee, American Federation of Hosiery Workers, the Intervenor's predecessor, as the ex- clusive collective-bargaining representative of all the Em- ployer's employees, excluding certain categories not im- mediately involved herein. Thereafter, beginning in 1938, the Employer and the Intervenor or its predecessor entered into collective -bargaining agreements covering these employees. The last such contract was executed on March 22, 1949, and is effective for 1 year from that date and from year to year thereafter in the absence of notice. It provides, among other things, for common holiday and vacation schedules, grievance procedures, and leave privileges for all employees, for several areas of seniority in the print cloth mill and in the bag-manufacturing department and a single area of seniority in the printing department, and for permanent and temporary transfers of employees from one department to another. Generally, transfers are based on economic grounds rather than on interchangeability of skills. There have been some transfers between the bag-manufacturing and printing de- partments. The Employer has a medical program at the plant which applies to all its production and maintenance employees, including those sought by the Petitioner. It is clear from the foregoing, and the Petitioner in effect concedes, that many of the employees in the printing depart- ment are not true craftsmen. Under these circumstances, there is no basis for severing that department as a craft group.6 Considered as a departmental group, the unit sought does not meet the requirements established by the Board in the American Potash case for severance of a department. ° Accordingly, we find that the printing department may not constitute an appropriate unit, and, as that is the only unit which the Petitioner seeks, we will dismiss the petition. [The Board dismissed the petition.] Member Beeton took no part in the consideration of the above Decision and Order. 5 Not reported in printed volumes of Board Decisions and Orders. 6American Potash & Chemical Corporation, 107 NLRB 1418. 7 See American Potash & Chemical Corporation, supr, at p. 9.