Republic Communications, Inc.

CONSOLIDATED FILM INDUSTRIES 385 Consolidated Film Industries , a Division of Republic Communications, Inc. and Film Technicians, Local 683, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Opera- tors of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO, Petitioner. Case 31-RC-2433 November 16, 1973 DECISION AND ORDER By CHAIRMAN MILLER AND MEMBERS JENKINS AND KENNEDY Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, a hearing was held before Hearing Officer Max Steinfeld of the National Labor Relations Board. At the close of the hearing, this case was transferred to the Board for decision, pursuant to Section 102.67 of the National Labor Relations Board's Rules and Regulations and Statements of Procedure, Series 8, as amended. Thereafter, the Employer, the Petition- er, and the Intervenors' filed briefs, and the Petitioner also filed a reply letter. 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 Hearing Officer's rulings made at the hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.2 Upon the entire record in the case, including the briefs filed by the parties, the Board finds: 1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of the Act and it will effectuate the policies of the Act to assert jurisdiction herein. 2. The Petitioner, also called Local 683, and IATSE are labor organizations which claim to represent certain employees of the Employer. 3. No question affecting commerce exists con- cerning the representation of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9(c)(1) and Section 2(6) and (7) of the Act for the following reasons: Petitioner seeks to represent in a separate unit employees in the Employer's videotape department.3 The Employer and IATSE contend: (1) a unit limited I International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Moving Picture Machine Operators of the United States and Canada, AFL-CIO, herein called IATSE, was permitted to intervene on the basis of the recent contract it negotiated on behalf of the employees in the unit sought by the Petitioner. Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, Inc, herein called AMPTP, was permitted to intervene as the multiemployer bargaining representative of the Employer. 2 Petitioner's request for oral argument is hereby denied as the record, including the briefs , adequately sets forth the positions and arguments of the parties. to videotape department employees is not appropri- ate; (2) Petitioner is estopped from proceeding with the proceeding because it failed to file its petition before an existing collective-bargaining contract covering the videotape department employees was executed on March 29, 1973; and (3) the dispute is between an international union and one of its locals and the Board should therefore not take cognizance of it. The Employer is engaged in film processing and in videotape services. It employs 650 to 700 employees, including about 37 employees in the videotape department. Until 1971, the Employer was engaged exclusively in film processing. In March 1971, the Employer acquired the videotape department of Acme Film and Videotape Laboratories, Inc., and transferred the department and personnel from Acme's building to its own premises. At the same time Mel Sawelson, an executive of Acme, trans- ferred to the Employer in order to take charge of the videotape department. The Employer is an associate member of the AMPTP and has participated in the multiemployer bargaining between AMPTP and IATSE. For 20 years, AMPTP and IATSE have bargained collec- tively for a multiemployer, multicraft unit of produc- er and laboratory employees. The collective-bargain- ing agreements between the two parties, called the Basic Agreement, have covered such subjects as health and welfare and pensions, leaving to the various local unions of IATSE the negotiation of such specific subjects as wages, hours of employ- ment, and working conditions. However, the Basic Agreement, as well as the local agreements, recites that IATSE is the collective-bargaining agent of all the employees in the multiemployer, multicraft bargaining unit. Prior to 1959, Acme had been engaged in the business of processing motion picture film. In 1954, Acme recognized IATSE as the bargaining represent- ative of its laboratory employees and became a party to the Basic Agreement. In 1959, Acme expanded its business to kinescope recording.4 At that time there were no industry standards or labor agreement provisions covering this type of work and IATSE initially assigned its Sound Techni- cians Local 695 to service the three kinescope 3 "Videotaping" is the recording of the electronic impulses produced by the "video" (picture) and "audio" (sound) portions of a television program on electromagnetic tape by utilizing specialized "videotape" machines or equipment for the purpose. 4 "Kinescoping" is the recording of television program material on 16- mm motion picture film for later broadcasting. The "video" or picture portion of a television signal is converted to film by utilizing a specially built 16 mm motion picture camera to photograph the image displayed on the fluorescent screen of a cathode ray tube. The "audio" or sound portion of the television signal is usually separately recorded by an optical soundtrack recording unit 207 NLRB No. 61 386 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD employees. However, Film Technicians Local 683 was already 'representing Acme's film laboratory employees and Acme complained to IATSE and to the Petitioner of the inconvenience of dealing with two different locals and different business agents. Apparently, to resolve the difficulty, a consent election was held among the three kinescope depart- ment employees and Local 683 was selected as bargaining representative of these employees. Fol- lowing the certification, Local 683 negotiated succes- sive collective-bargaining agreements with the Em- ployer in 1962, 1965, and 1970, covering kinescope and later, videotape employees. None of these agreements was by itself complete. Each of them was negotiated following the conclusion of the general negotiations between IATSE and AMPTP, and each was made subject to the extant Basic Agreement, one provision of which, as set forth previously, makes IATSE the bargaining representative of the employ- ees. After the Employer acquired the videotape depart- ment from Acme in March 1971, it proceeded to apply the terms, of the latest Acme-Local 683 agreement of 1970 to the videotape employees and recognized Local 683 as the proper party to service the employees. Local 683 had been servicing the Employer's film laboratory employees under the AMPTP-IATSE 1969 bargaining agreement to which Petitioner was a party. In November 1972, as the January 31, 1973, expiration date of the Acme-Local 683 videotape department agreement approached, Local 683 made timely demand on the Employer to bargain for a new separate agreement for the videotape employees. The Employer met with Local 683, but no new agreement was negotiated because the Employer insisted that the proper bargaining representative for the videotape department employ- ees was IATSE and not Local 683 because of the integration of the videotape department employees into the Employer's operations and the existence of the Basic Agreement, according to which IATSE was the bargaining representative. Meanwhile negotia- tions were proceeding for a new Basic Agreement between AMPTP and IATSE, with the Employer and Local 683 participating, and a new Basic Agreement was executed by the parties in February 1973, for a 3-year term, covering the employees of the AMPTP members, including the Employer. When the Acme-Local 683, bargaining contract covering videotape employees expired on January 31, 1973, without a new separate agreement having been negotiated, the videotape employees struck on February 1, 1973. They returned to work on February 9, after a back-to-work agreement had been negotiated on their behalf by IATSE with the AMPTP and the Employer. The back-to-work agreement provided, among other things, for the recognition only of IATSE as the bargaining repre- sentative of the videotape employees to negotiate a new collective-bargaining contract, and for the participation of no more than four videotape working employees in the negotiations. The employ- ees at first objected that no Local 683 representative could participate in the negotiations on their behalf but, feeling that they had no other alternative, ultimately acquiesced. The back-to-work agreement was then approved and signed by all 27 employees who had struck. As provided therein, a new collec- tive-bargaining contract between IATSE and the Employer was signed on March 29, 1973, effective from February 1, 1973, to January 31, 1976, after the terms were overwhelmingly ratified in a secret election by the affected employees. The contract specifically provides: The employees covered hereinunder are part of the bargaining unit established by the "Producer- I.A.T.S.E. and M.P.M.O. Basic Agreement of 1973." Meanwhile the Employer had filed with the Board a unit clarification petition which it withdrew on March 6, 1973, after the employees had returned to work and signed the back-to-work agreement. Local 683 filed refusal-to-bargain charges against the Employer which were dismissed by the Regional Director on March 30, 1973. Local 683 then filed the present petition on April 13, 1973. Discussion We agree with the contention of the Employer and the Intervenors that the proposed unit limited to the Employer's videotape department employees is not appropriate. The principal justification for the separate unit is the certificate and the separate bargaining history. However, these factors are more than outweighed by the integration of the -videotape department into the Employer's operations since its acquisition from Acme. When the Employer acquired the videotape depart- ment from Acme, it physically removed the depart- ment from Acme's premises to its own. Videotape employees now work on several different floors of the Employer's buildings; other employees also work on these floors of the Employer's buildings. In some areas, laboratory technicians work closely with videotape employees. For example, in a department called videotape-to-film transfer the videotape em- ployees work hand in hand with employees in the film laboratory because the film material that has been transferred from videotape goes to the laborato- ry for processing. Many of the skills of videotape and CONSOLIDATED FILM INDUSTRIES 387 laboratory technicians are similar- As a result, 30 percent of the present videotape employees have been promoted from laboratory classifications. In fact, under Acme's contract with Local 683, labora- tory employees were given the "right of first refusal" when a videotape job became available. Moreover, the similarity o€ skills is further evidenced by the fact that there is temporary interchange of laboratory and videotape employees during slow,periods of prod- uction and processing. Finally, wages, hours, bene- fits, and working conditions are the same for all employees. Except for the bargaining history created while the department was part of Acme, there is no present basis for -establishing the videotape department 5 Federal Electric Corporation, 167 NLRB 469; Cutler-Hammer, Inc., 161 NLRB 1627. 6 In view of our finding that the proposed unit is inappropriate, we find employees as a separate appropriate bargaining unit. The bargaining history, we believe, has been com- pletely neutralized by the integration of the depart- ment into the Employer's other operations. Accord- ingly, we find that the videotape department is now part of the multiemployer, multicraft unit for which IATSE is the bargaining representative, and that a separate unit of the videotape department employees is not appropriate.5 We shall therefore dismiss the petition.6 ORDER It is hereby ordered that the petition herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed. it unnecessary to consider the other arguments advanced tojustify dismissal of the petition.