Typecraft Press, Inc.

TYPECRAFT PRESS Typecraft Press, Inc. and Graphic Communications International Union, Local No. 24, AFL-CIO, Petitioner and General Teamsters, Chauffeurs and Helpers Local 249 a/w International Broth- erhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousmen and Helpers of America, Petitioner. Cases 6- RC-9389 and 6-RC-9390 28 May 1985 DECISION ON REVIEW, ORDER, AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION BY CHAIRMAN DOTSON AND MEMBERS HUNTER AND DENNIS On 23 September 1983 the Acting Regional Di- rector for Region 6 issued a Decision and Direc- tion of Elections in the above proceeding in which he found that the appropriate unit in Case 6-RC- 9389 consisted of all full-time and regular part-time lithographic production employees, including camera, web press, and sheetfed press department employees employed by-the Employer at its Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania facility.' The Acting Regional Director also found that the appropriate unit in Case 6-RC-9390 consisted of all full-time and regu-, lar part-time drivers employed by the Employer at that facility.2 Accordingly, he directed that elec- tions be held among employees in the above-de- scribed units. The Employer thereafter timely filed with the Board a request for review of the Acting Regional Director's decision contending that the only appro- priate unit for collective-bargaining purposes was a plantwide unit consisting of all its employees. Al- ternatively, it argued that if a lithographic produc- tion employees unit is deemed to be appropriate, as found by the Acting Regional Director in Case 6- RC-9389, then such unit should include its typeset- ting and paste-up department employees who, it contends, share a community of interest with other employees in'that unit. It further argued that, con- trary to the Acting Regional Director's finding in Case 6-RC-9390, its drivers do not share a distinct community of interest -apart from other nonlitho- graphic production employees as to warrant, their inclusion in a separate bargaining unit. By telegraphic order dated 25 October 1983, the Board granted the Employer's request for review both in Case 6-RC-9389 and in Case 6-RC-9390. However, in Case 6-RC-9389 review was limited solely to the question of whether the Employer's ' He excluded .from this unit all typesetting, paste-up, bindery, and shipping department employees, office clerical employees, guards, profes- sional employees , and supervisors as defined in the Act 2 From this unit , the Acting Regional Director excluded all camera, web press, and sheetfed press department employees as well as those em- ployees excluded in Case 6-RC-9389 553 paste-up and. typesetting employees should be ex- cluded from the lithographic unit found to be ap- propriate by the Acting Regional Director.3 - The Board has reviewed the entire record in this case with respect to the issues under review and makes the following findings. The Employer is engaged in the printing, collat- ing, and bindery of various local shopping. newspa- pers and student newspapers at its facility in Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania. GCIU Local No. 24, the Peti- tioner in Case 6-RC-9389, urges us to affirm the Acting Regional Director's finding that the appro-' priate unit in this case should include only the camera, web press, and sheetfed press employees employed by the Employer.' Similarly, Teamsters Local 249, the Petitioner in Case 6-RC-9390, urges us to affirm the Acting Regional Director's finding that a unit composed solely of truckdrivers em- ployed by the Employer constitutes an appropriate unit for collective-bargaining -purposes. The Em- ployer, on the other hand, contends that the litho- -graphic unit which the Acting Regional Director found to be appropriate in -Case 6-RC-9389 should include its paste-up 'and typesetting employees and that a unit consisting solely of truckdrivers, as found in Case 6-RC-9390, is not appropriate. We agree with the Employer. The Employer is owned and operated by three brothers, Edward, John, and Michael Major, and a brother-in-law, Bernard Klein. Its operations are located on two separate floors and are broken down into several different departments each of which is supervised by a working' foreperson with authority to direct and discipline employees.5 The second floor of the Employer's facilities contains the typesetting, paste-up, and camera departments, where all the pre-press operations are performed, as well as the clerical and customer areas. The first floor contains the web press and-sheetfed press de- partments, where the actual press work is per- formed, the bindery department where .the finished product is trimmed, cut, collated, folded, stitched, or otherwise assembled. The Employer's drivers, 3 Chairman Dotson would have granted the Employer's request for review in Case 6-RC-9389 regarding its contention that the only appro- priate unit for collective -bargaining purposes is a plantwide unit consist- ing of all its employees, but he agrees with his colleagues on the disposi- tion of the limited issues covered by the present Decision on Review 4 GCIU Local No 24 initially sought to include in the lithographic unit the Employer's bindery department employees, but agreed at the hearings to proceed to an election if the latter employees were excluded from the requested unit The Acting Regional Director found that the bindery department employees should not be included in any lithographic unit found to be appropriate GCIU Local No 24 has not excepted to this finding It has, however , expressed an interest in representing any unit, other than a wall-to-wall unit, found to be appropriate by the Board 5 The parties stipulated that the Major brothers and Bernard Klein, as well as the working forepersons, are supervisors within the meaning of Sec 2(11) of the Act 275 NLRB No. 78 554 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD whose -main function - appears to be the wrapping, -loading,'and delivering of finished products to cus- tomers6 ' and who constitute the shipping depart- ment, are also b'ased ' on the first floor. The Em- ployer's' lunchro om _is' also situated on the first floor. The record reveals that,' in ,the normal course of its operation`s, ' a typical printing job will be acted on by'each of the Employer's departments before it iscompleted-and shipped to the -customer. Thus, a job order' is `either phoned in or brought "in by cus- tomers 'to the :clerical department, "where the billing is prepared. From'there,'the job order is forwarded to the-.typesetting department where typesetters use ,computers to mechanically set the type. The type- set -copy is then- carried by a typesetter to the paste-up--'department, where it is 'photographed, -stripped, and`' prepareds, into' a printing plate by, -paste-up iernployees: The, printing plate is:then sent either 'to -' the web--press or ' sheetfed press - depart- ment; depending"ori the- nature of;the.work to be performed.'.When the'printing work is` completed, the finished product is sent to the bindery depart- ment where it -is collated,, folded, and generally prepared for shipment, after which it is loaded onto the ,Employer's trucks and--delivered- to 'the custom- ert,by,.the drivers in the-shipping department.,,, The record, in our view, clearly establishes that the paste-up employees share a sufficient communi- ty of interest with. employees in the unit found ap- propriate by, the Acting Regional -Director in Case 6-. RC-9389'to;,warrant1their inclusion 'in-that `unit. -'Like the-employees, in -that unit,. paste-up employ- ees are 'hired'-by- the -Employer" with little or- no printing experience and are trained on the job in the department to - which assigned. They receive the same wage scale and benefits that unit employ- ees receive, share common facilities with them, and like all other employees must punch a timeclock. The record further reveals a significant amount of interchange between the paste-up employees and the camera department employees who, as noted, form part of the bargaining unit. Thus, during the Employer's peak season, which lasts approximately 8 months, the paste-up employees work side by side with the camera department employees prepar- ing layouts and positioning forms for college news-, papers. During this period, camera department em- ployees perform traditional paste-up work approxi- mately six to seven times per week. The record- in- dicates that paste-up employees are required to learn how to use the equipment in the camera de- 6 The number of employees in each department are as follows clerical department (6), typesetting department (9), paste-up department (18), camera department (7), web press department (21), sheetfed press depart- ment (3), bindery department (3), drivers (5). partment and that employees in both departments "move back and forth" between departments. Further, although there is, as noted, a working foreperson in each department directing 'the work, the record indicates that the camera, paste-up, and typesetting departments are under the intermediate supervision' of Bernard Klein and that he, along with the three Major brothers, handle all the per- sonnel and labor-related matters affecting employ- ees in every department. Thus, regardless of which department they are in, an employee's evaluation or wage increase, for example, is determined solely by,the Major brothers and Klein collectively, not the individual foreman. In light of the above facts, we conclude that the paste-up employees share a sufficient community of interest with the employees in the petitioned-for unit in Case 6-RC-9389. Accordingly, we shall'in- clude them in the unit.7 Additionally, on the record before us we find, in agreement with the-Employer, that the typesetters should also be included in the unit. Like other unit employees, the typesetters are hired with little or no experience and receive on-the-job training in the department to which assigned. They receive the same wage scale and benefits as unit employees, share common facilities with them, and must also punch a timeclock. Further, the record clearly in- dicates, and indeed the Acting Regional Director found, that the typesetters have "substantial daily contact ' and interchange" with the paste-up em- ployees.who, as noted, form part of the bargaining unit, and that they frequently assist one, another in the performance of their respective tasks: Thus, the typesetters help prepare galleys in the paste-up de- partment and the paste-up employees will often op- erate the computers in the typesetting department. Further, according to John Major's undisputed tes- timony, camera department employees also help in the typesetting or paste-up departments on a "pretty frequent" basis. In view of the above we find, contrary to the Acting Regional Director, that the typesetters share a sufficient community of interest with the petitioned-for employees in Case 6-RC-9389 and shall, likewise, include them in the unit." ' Contrary to the Acting Regional Director, the Board has previously found that paste-up employees constitute part of the lithographic produc- tion process and has included them in bargaining units with other litho- graphic production employees See Nowels Publications, 219 NLRB 222 (197), Paramount Press, 187 NLRB 586 (1970), Printing Industry of Seattle, 116 NLRB 1883 (1956) 6 In Vowels Publication , supra, cited by the Acting Regional Director in his decision , typesetters were excluded from a bargaining unit of litho- graphic production employees because of a lack of interchange and con- tact between both groups of employees However, the Board in that case did find that one typesetter, who spent a significant amount of time with Continued TYPECRAFT PRESS 555 Finally, we agree with the Employer that the drivers whom Teamsters Local 249 seeks to repre- sent in Case 6-RC-9390 do not constitute such a functionally distinct group to warrant their inclu- sion in a bargaining unit separate and apart from the other nonhthographic employees. The record clearly shows that, in addition to their driving duties, drivers are often' required to assist employ- ees in the bindery department and to perform such other duties as hauling trash; cleaning up, and de- livering messages. Although it is unclear from the record how much time is spent by the drivers in the performance of these nondriving duties, ac- cording to Edward Major's uncontradicted testimo- ny only 55 percent, or at most' 60 percent, -of.the drivers' time is actually spent on driving .- Presum- ably, the remaining portion of the drivers' working time is spent on the above nondriving duties which inevitably bring them in contact with the bindery department and other employees. Further, it is un- disputed that the drivers receive the same wages and fringe benefits as the nondriving employees, share the same facilities, work the same hours, and, like all other employees, are evaluated and, general- ly supervised by the Major brothers and Bernard Klein. Under these circumstances, we find that the Employer's drivers do not share a community of interest sufficiently distinct from the other nonlith- ographic employees to warrant the establishment of a separate unit of drivers, as sought by Teamsters Local 249. Having found a unit of drivers to be in- appropriate, and because Teamsters Local 249 has indicated that it has no interest in representing a unit other than that, petitioned for, we shall order that the petition in Case 6-RC-9390 be dismissed. However, since GCIU ' Local No. 24 has ex- pressed a willingness to proceed to an election in a broader unit found appropriate in Case 6-RC-9389, we shall direct that an election be held in Case 6- RC-9389 among employees in the unit- which we find appropriate, as described below:9 All full-time and regular part-time lithographic production employees, including typesetting, paste-up, camera, web, press, and •sheetfed press department employees, employed by-the Employer at its Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania facili- ty, excluding bindery' department employees, shipping department employees (truckdrivers), office clerical employees, guards, professional employees, and supervisors as defined in the Act. - ORDER The petition in Case 6-RC-9390 is dismissed. [Direction of Second Election omitted from pub- lication.] paste-up and camera department employees , shared a community of inter- est with those employees and included her in the unit Like the one type- setter in bowels, the typesetters here, as noted , have substantial daily con- tact and interchange with the paste-up employees and their inclusion in the unit is therefore appropriate The other cases cited by the Acting Re- gional Director are distinguishable in that they do not raise the question of whether typesetters or paste-up employees should be included in a lith- ographic production unit 9 As the unit we find appropriate in Case 6-RC-9389 is larger than that requested, the Petitioner is accorded a period of 10 days in which to submit the requisite showing of interest to support an election. In the event the Petitioner does not wish to proceed to an election, it may with- draw its petiton'without prejudice by notice to the Regional Director within 7 days from the date of this Decision on Review, Order, and Di- rection of Election r