Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc.

558 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc. and Graphic Arts International Union, Local 45-L, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 19-UC-92 March 20, 1973 DECISION AND ORDER CLARIFYING CERTIFICATION BY MEMBERS FANNING, KENNEDY, AND PENELLO Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(b) and (c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Lynne C. Litwiller. Following the hearing and pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended, and by direction of the Regional Director for Region 19, this proceeding was transferred to the Board for decision. Thereafter, the Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc., the Graphic Arts International Union, Local 45-L, AFL-CIO, and the Seattle Typographical Union, Local No. 202, AFL-CIO, affiliated with the International Typo- graphical Union, AFL-CIO,' filed briefs in support of their positions. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, the National Labor Relations Board has delegated its authority in this proceeding to a three-member panel. The Board has reviewed the Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing and finds that they are free from prejudicial error. They are hereby affirmed. Upon the entire record in this proceeding the Board finds: 1. PIS and Craftsman Press, Inc., are engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act, and it will effectuate the purposes of the Act to assert jurisdic- tion herein. 2. The labor organizations involved claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. Craftsman Press, a member of PIS, a multiem- ployer bargaining association, is engaged in the printing industry in Seattle, Washington. The Peti- tioner, Graphic Arts, was originally certified in 1956 following an election pursuant to a Decision and Direction of Election,2 in which the Board found the appropriate multiemployer unit to include all litho- graphic production workers covered by contract with Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local 45, AFL-CIO, including artists, paste-makeup workers, cameramen, negative assemblers, strippers, litho- 1 Hereinafter referred to as PIS, Graphic Arts, and ITU, respectively. ITU was permitted to intervene in this proceeding. 2 Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc., 116 NLRB 1883. graphic pressmen, excluding office clerical employ- ees and all other employees. The Board, while including in the unit pasteup (paste-makeup) employees doing work connected with conventional typesetting processes, specifically did not pass on the unit placement of pasteup workers who might in the future be employed in connection with the phototypesetting process, since no such employees were then employed.3 ITU has represented certain members of Craftsman's compos- ing room since 1956. Craftsman's operation consists of basically three stages : the composing room, whose employees are in the ITU unit; the pasteup workers, who are in the Graphic Arts unit; and the lithographers, who are also in the Graphic Arts unit. The composing room employees make reproduc- tion proofs by using various typesetting techniques. These proofs are not of complete pages, but are only proofs of individual stories, charts, headlines, and listings. The pasteup workers then put these proofs, along with any work sent in by the client which bypasses the composing room, into the proper arrangement that the client desires for each page of the job. They physically paste the individual proofs together into the correct arrangement. The pasteup workers' final arrangement is then photographed by the lithographers. Craftsman, pursuant to its contract with TV Guide, is installing phototypesetting equipment. Most of the TV Guide work will be received over the phone system and fed into the phototypesetting machinery, which will produce a finished proof. The proofs will still have to be handled by a pasteup worker before the lithographers photograph it and some of the TV Guide work will still originate from conventional composing room methods. This more efficient phototypesetting equipment will eliminate approximately 11 composing room jobs. Craftsman contracted with ITU to have the 8 to 9 hours per week of pasteup work that will originate from the phototypesetting process assigned to mem- bers of its unit, claiming that this pasteup work will help replace the composing room work the unit lost. Graphic Arts then filed the instant unit clarifica- tion petition claiming that the employees that will do pasteup resulting from the use of phototypesetting equipment will be accretions to its existing unit which already includes pasteup workers doing identical work. ITU then intervened claiming that the work should be done by persons it represents because of its contract, the work will help replace 9 Craftsman is now installing phototypesetting equipment and we now have before us the exact situation the Board did not pass on in its earlier decision. 202 NLRB No. 86 PRINTING INDUSTRY OF SEATTLE, INC. 559 jobs lost, and its members can learn pasteup work by attending ITU schools. Pursuant to Craftsman's proposal to divide the pasteup work according to the technique used in making the reproduction proofs, a TV Guide job would have to be assigned to pasteup workers in ITU's unit for the pasting up of the proofs from phototypesetting equipment and then reassigned to pasteup workers in the Graphic Arts unit for the pasting up of the remaining proofs, even though the proofs may actually be placed side by side or only several inches apart. All paste up work is identical regardless of the composing room method used. Members of the Graphic Arts unit already pasteup proofs originating from phototypesetting equipment owned by certain clients; this work now bypasses the composing room. No members of ITU's unit now perform pasteup work. In these circumstances, and in view of the identical work already being performed by members of the Graphic Arts unit and the integrated nature of all pasteup work, we find that the pasteup workers who will deal with work from the phototypesetting process are accretions to, and should be included in, the Graphic Arts unit. Since Craftsman Press is the only PIS member that is presently installing photo- typesetting equipment and the record deals only with Craftsman Press, we are clarifying the multiemployer unit only as to Craftsman Press. We therefore conclude that the personnel who will perform the pasteup work of material originating from phototype- setting equipment are an accretion to the Graphic Arts unit of Craftsman Press and we shall according- ly clarify its certification and include them. ORDER It is hereby ordered that the certification hereto- fore issued to the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, Local No. 45, AFL-CIO,4 be, and it hereby is, clarified by specifically including therein the employees engaged in the pasteup of material originating from phototypesetting equipment at the Craftsman Press. 4 The Lithographers and Photoengravers International Union and the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders merged to form Graphic Arts International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, effective September 4, 1972.