Technicolor Corp.

TECHNICOLOR CORPORATION 49 Technicolor Corporation and Film Technicians, Local 683, of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO and Motion Picture Studio Cinetechnicians, Local 789, of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO. Cases Nos. 21-RC-5020 and 21-RC-5021. March 5, 1958 DECISION, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, a consolidated hearing was held before Fred W. Davis, 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 proceeding to a three-member panel [Chairman Leedom and Members Bean and Fanning]. Upon the entire record in this proceeding, the Board finds : 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. A question affecting commerce exists in Case No. 21-RC-5020 concerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c) (1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act. No such question exists in Case No. 21-RC-5021 for the reasons stated below. 4. The appropriate unit : Case No. 21-RC-5020 In Case No. 21-RC-5020, Local 683 seeks a unit of all employees in the Employer's "amateur color film operation in the county of Los Angeles, California, engaged in handling, processing and servic- ing film and related materials," excluding the cinetechnicians dis- cussed below and certain other categories. The Employer objects to this unit because of its geographical scope, and because it includes certain employees who do not handle film but merely package and ship advertising and merchandising materials. The "amateur color film operation" referred to in the petition, hereinafter called the "amateur division," develops film for non- professional clients. The Employer also has a professional division 120 NLRB No. 6. 453142-59-vol. 120-5 50 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD which processes color film for producers of motion pictures,for com- mercial distribution. In each division, the production operations are directed by -a separate plant manager. Above the plant manager level, the Employer's supervisory hierarchy consists of the corporate officers and the personnel director. Local 683 has a contract covering the production employees in the professional division and Local 789 has a contract covering certain of the maintenance employees (the cinetechnicians) in that division. The Employer's amateur division is located principally at 6311 Romaine -Street in Hollywood, California. That is also the head-- quarters of its professional division.. There, exposed film received by the Employer is processed and packaged, and returned to its cus- tomers. The instant petition seeks about 100 employees at this loca- tion and, in addition, 3 employees who work at 283 North Seward Street, about one-half mile from the Romaine Street operation. These three employees do not handle film but receive and fill orders from the Employer's sales department for the shipment of merchan- dising and advertising materials to retail dealers who collect film from the Employer's -customers. These materials consist of bags to be used by the dealers in-shipping the customers' film to the Employer, display cards, advertising material, and labels. The three employees, together with the employees sought at Romaine Street, are adminis- tratively part of the amateur division, under the immediate supervi- sion of the plant manager for that division. Their rate of pay and other fringe benefits are the same as those of the shipping and packag- ing employees at Romaine Street, whom the parties -would include in the unit. There have been frequent transfers of employees between Seward Street and Romaine Street. Upon the entire record, we find that the employees at Seward Street have sufficient community of - interest with the other employees sought to warrant their inclusion in the unit. The Employer objects to the proposed description of the unit as embracing Los Angeles County, on the ground that the Board does not normally define a unit in terms of a geographical area which, as here, is broader than the area in which the employees sought perform their duties. The Petitioner relies upon contracts executed by itself and some of its sister locals with various employers in Los Angeles County, including the instant Employer, which establish countywide units. However, such contracts are not controlling upon the Board. The Petitioner relies also on several cases in which the Board has found countywide or statewide units to be appropriate in the motion picture 'and television industries. However, in those cases the issue of the geographical scope of the unit was not litigated and there is nothing in those decisions to indicate that the Board or the parties regarded the unit as encompassing anything more than the specific TECHNICOLOR CORPORATION 51 ,operations then in existence within the limits of the county or State designated in the unit finding. Here, the only reason offered by the Petitioner for requesting a countywide unit is that it anticipates some expansion of the Em- ployer's amateur division to new locations within the county. How- ever, it is contrary to Board policy to include in a unit future opera- tions of an employer.' Accordingly, we will limit the scope of our unit finding, in this, case to the establishments at Romaine Street and Seward Street., We find, therefore, that the following unit is appro- priate for purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b) of the Act: All employees in the Employer's amateur color film operation at 6311 Romaine Street and 823 North Seward Street, Hollywood, Cali- fornia, engaged in handling, processing, and servicing film and re- lated materials, including shift bosses or leadmen, shipping, receiving, and packaging employees, pre-splicers, processing machine operators, slitting machine operators, mounting machine operators, quality con- trol inspectors, platform men or chemical mixers, and plant clerical employees, but excluding cinetechnicians, office clerical and accounting employees, truckdrivers, sales, employees, customer service employees not engaged in handling, repairing, or inspecting film, graduate chemists and any other professional employees, guards, watchmen, janitors, and supervisors as defined in the Act. Case No. 21-RC-5021 In Case No. 21-RC-5021, Local 789 seeks a unit consisting of all cinetechnicians employed in the Employer's amateur division in the county of Los Angeles. The Employer in its brief states that it accepts this unit except for the extension of its scope to the county of Los Angeles 2 The Employer would instead limit the scope of the unit to the Romaine Street location, where all the employees sought are employed. The Employer would moreover exclude from the unit those cinetechnicians who spend less than 50 percent of their time in the amateur division. The cinetechnicians are essentially machinists who repair, rebuild and install the Employer's equipment. In 1947, the Board cer- tified Local 789's parent as the representative of the Employer's "machinists." 3 At that time the Employer had no amateur division and the machinists were employed solely in the professional division. Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 110 NLRB 475. s At the hearing, the Petitioner contended that the Employer refused to recognize it as the representative of the employees sought The Employer, on the other hand, contended that the unit sought was merely part of the existing contract unit already represented by Local 789, and that for this reason no question existed concerning the representation of these employees. However, in the Employer's brief, this contention has been abandoned. 9 Technticolor Motion Picture Corporation, Case No. 21-R-3998 ( not published). 52 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD In October 1955, Local 789 and the Employer executed a contract, effective to January 30, 1959, covering all the Employer's cinetechni- cians "in Los Angeles County." Thereafter, in 1956, the Employer established its amateur division and for the first time assigned to work in that division at its Romaine Street location, principally on a part-time basis, various of the cinetechnicians. The record shows that during a sample survey period of 12 weeks, ending November 11, 1957, only 1 of 18 cinetechnicians assigned to ordinary maintenance work in the amateur division worked full time there. Two others spent a major part of their time on such work in the amateur division. Eleven others spent only from 8 to 60 hours in the amateur division during this entire period. (Six others worked full time for a period of several months in 1957 on a special project, which was apparently completed in August 1957.) The record indicates also that the total number of cinetechnicians assigned to the amateur division is a rela- tively small portion of the entire group of 170 cinetechnicians. While so assigned, the cinetechnicians remain under the immediate super- vision of their supervisors in the professional division and, so far as appears from the record, there is no significant difference between their duties in the amateur division and their duties in the profes- sional division. They remain on the payroll of the professional divi- sion, although their services are charged to the amateur division for accounting purposes. The work of the cinetechnicians for the pro- fessional division is done at Romaine Street and Seward Street, and at a location in Burbank, California. In view of the foregoing, we find that the effect of the adoption by the Employer of the practice of assigning cinetechnicians to the amateur division has been merely to augment the scope of the opera- tions of the existing group of cinetechnicians in the professional divi- sion, and not to create a separate, identifiable group of cinetechnicians in the amateur division. Accordingly, we find no basis for treating the cinetechnicians in the amateur division as separate and distinct for unit purposes from the cinetechnicians in the existing contract unit; we therefore find that the unit sought is inappropriate. Local 789 indicates in its brief that, if the Board finds the unit sought inappropriate, it desires an election in such other unit as the Board may find appropriate. At the hearing Local 789 amended its petition to request, as an alternative unit, all the Employer's cinetech- nicians in both the professional and amateur divisions. However, the Employer pleaded surprise and moved for a continuance to permit it to obtain evidence to meet this unit contention. When this motion was granted by the hearing officer, Local 789 withdrew its alternative unit request, and the Employer consequently withdrew its request for a continuance. Under these circumstances, we infer that Local 789 INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS 53 is not now renewing its request for the broader, alternative unit. In any event, as the appropriateness of such unit was not litigated at the hearing, we do not now pass upon that issue. [The Board dismissed the petition in Case No. 21-RC-5021.] [Text of Direction of Election omitted from publication.] International Union of Operating Engineers, Local Union No. 12, AFL-CIO and West Coast Masonry Contractors, Inc. Case No. 21-CD-45. March 6, 1958 DECISION AND DETERMINATION OF DISPUTE STATEMENT OF THE CASE This proceeding arises under Section 10 (k) of the Act, which provides that "Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of paragraph (4) (D) of Section 8 (b), the Board is empowered and directed to hear and determine the dispute out of which such unfair labor practice shall have arisen. . . ." On August 2, 1957, West Coast Masonry Contractors, Inc. (herein- after called the Employer) filed with the Regional Director for the Twenty-First Region a charge alleging that Local No. 12, Inter- national Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO (hereinafter called Local 12) had engaged in and was engaging in certain activities proscribed by Section 8 (b) (4) (D) of the Act. It was charged in substance that Local 12 had induced and encouraged employees of the Employer to engage in a concerted refusal to work with an object of forcing or requiring the Employer to assign certain duties to members of Local 12, rather than to the employees of the Employer who are members of 'Local 300, International Hod Carriers', Building and Common Laborers' Union of America, AFL-CIO (hereinafter called Local 300). Thereafter, pursuant to Section 10 (k) of the Act and Sections 102.71 and 102.72 of the Board's Rules and Regulations, the Regional Director investigated the charge and provided for a hearing upon due notice to all the parties. The hearing was held before Ernest L. Heimann, hearing officer, on September 25 and 26, 1957, in Los Angeles, California. All the parties appeared at the hearing and were afforded full opportunity to be heard, to examine and cross- examine witnesses, and to adduce evidence bearing on the issues. The rulings of the hearing officer made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed. 120 NLRB No. 5.