Don Lee Broadcasting System

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 4, 1952

98 N.L.R.B. 453 (N.L.R.B. 1952)

'DON LEE BROADCASTING SYSTEM 453
DON LEE BROADCASTING SYSTEM and NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROAD-
CAST ENGINEERS AND TECHNICIANS, CIO1
DON LEE BROADCASTING SYSTEM ( THOMAS R. LEE ENTERPRISES) and
INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES AND
MOVING PICTURE MACHINE OPERATORS OF THE UNITED STATES AND
CANADA, AFL 2 Cases Nos. 21-RC-.2205 and 21-RC-9217. March
4, 1952
Decision and Direction of Elections
Upon separate petitions duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act,3 a hearing was held before Irving Hel-
bling, hearing officer. The hearing officer's rulings made at the
hearing are free from prejudicial error and are hereby affirmed.
Upon the entire record in this case, the Board finds :
1. The Employer is engaged in commerce within the meaning of
the Act.
2. The labor organizations 4 involved claim to represent certain em-
ployees of the Employer.
3. Questions affecting commerce -exist concerning the representa-
tion of employees of the Employer within the meaning of Section 9 (c)
(1) and Section 2 (6) and (7) of the Act.
4. NABET requests a unit consisting of all engineers and techni-
cians employed by the Employer at its Los Angeles, California, radio
station KHJ and television station KHJ-TV. IATSE seeks to repre-
sent a unit of program employees at these stations. The parties
hereto agree generally as to the scope and composition of the proposed
units. NABET and IBEW, however, contend that employees who
do the lighting work on television shows at KHJ-TV belong in the
technical engineering unit. The Employer and IATSE contend that
these employees should be in the program unit. The Employer would
also exclude certain job classifications from the unit proposed. by
IATSE on the ground that they do not exist, and would also limit
the program unit to its television operations because none of the clas-
sifications set out in the unit description pertainslto employees at its
radio station. As the Employer's position in this latter respect is
supported by the record, the unit proposed by IATSE shall be lim-
ited to those program department job classifications at television sta-
1 Herein called NABET.
2 Herein called IATSE
2 These petitions were consolidated by an order of the Regional Director.
4 Local No 45, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, herein called the IBEW.
was granted intervention in Case No 21-RC-2205 and in Case No 21-RC-2217. NABET
was also granted intervention in Case No 21-RC-2217
98 NLRB No. 70.
998666-vol 98-53--30
454 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
tion KHJ-TV set forth in the description of the appropriate unit
below.
Television station KHJ-TV, formerly known as KFI-TV, was
purchased by the Employer on September 6, 1951. Pursuant to con-
sent elections, IATSE was certified on May 8, 1951, as representative
of a unit including the program department employees at KFI-TV,
and on December 21, 1951, NABET was certified as representative of
a unit including the technical and engineering employees at this sta-
tion. No bargaining contracts were consummated following these
certifications. The IBEW has represented and bargained for the
Employer's technical and engineering employees engaged in its radio
operations. The current contract covering these employees is not
asserted as a bar.
The Employer conducts its operations at KHJ-TV through three
main departments-engineering, program,' and sales. As this case
does not involve any sales employees or procedures, no further ref-
erence will be made to this department. The engineering department
is headed by a chief engineer. A technical director supervises the
engineering crew engaged in studio operations. The crew appears
to consist of the usual classifications, such. as video, audio, camera,
and boom operators. The engineering department is mainly respon-
sible for the transmission of programs over the air and for the opera-
tion and maintenance of the technical equipment used in connection
therewith. Employees in this department have been trained in elec-
tronics and communications at universities, trade schools , or special-
ized radio schools, or have acquired skills in these fields through
self-instruction and long experience. Several of these employees are
required to be licensed by FCC. Qualified applicants for the en-
gineering department are not required to have training in lighting
scenery or in any phase of stage production.
The program department stages and presents shows for transmis-
sion over the air. A program director in charge of a show synthesizes
the selection or writing of a script, the casting and rehearsal of actors,
the design and building of aset, costuming, makeup, and all the other
artistic elements involved in producing a show. None of the persons
engaged in these activities requires electronic or other engineering
skills in the performance of his duties. Approximately five persons,
comprising a facilities group, construct, dress, erect, and light the sets
for the various shows produced s In connection with their functions,
these employees, including the lighting employees, perform the usual
duties of stage hands, that is, stage property men, stage carpenters,
and stage electricians.
6 The program department is also referred to in the record as the production or program
production department.
6 A sixth member of this group does makeup
DON LEE BROADCASTING SYSTEM 455
Until about 3 weeks before the hearing, the lighting of all the Em-
ployer's television shows was the function of the engineering depart-
ment, and was performed exclusively by engineers and technicians
under the supervision of a technical director. At that time, however,
because the Employer believed that the lighting work could be more
effectively accomplished by the program department, this function,
by formal order, was allocated to the program department as its re-
sponsibility. A lighting man, hired to take over this work, was
assigned to the program department and placed under the supervision
of the program director. Although a technical director of the en-
gineering department or other engineering employees may now make
lighting suggestions, the program director has final authority as to
the manner in which a show is lighted and may reject these suggestions.
The employee hired by the Employer to take charge of lighting has
no engineering training or experience. He does have substantial ex-
perience as a lighting man in motion picture studios and on theatrical
stages. In addition, he served the customary 3-year apprenticeship of
a stage hand in which he was trained as a stage electrician, stage carpen-
ter, and'stage property man. In performing his lighting duties for the
Employer, he uses all the techniques and' skills acquired through the
foregoing training and experience and spends about 20 percent of
his time assisting the other members of the facilities group erecting
sets and handling properties. He is assisted by two employees of the
program department. One of these employees was formerly in the
engineering department where he was classified as a technical assistant.
When the Employer reallocated the lighting function, he was trans-
ferred to the program department. The other employee, a man with
extensive background as a scenic designer, has at all times been in the
program department.
In support of its contention that the lighting employees belong in
the technical engineering unit, NABET asserts (a) that television
lighting is intrinsically an engineering function best performed by
employees with technical skills who understand the sensitivities and
capacities of television cameras and transmission equipment; (b) the
lighting function was performed in the past by engineering employees
who were in the unit represented by NABET; and (c) even now
engineering employees participate in this function. The unit place-
ment of the lighting employees is not dependent upon these considera-
tions. Whether lighting can best be accomplished by engineers or
program employees is immaterial to the issue before us.7 What is
significant is the fact that regardless of past operational methods, the
Employer is now satisfied to rely upon program employees, not engi-
neers, to light its television shows. Similarly, no significance is
4 See National Broadcastrong Company, Inc, 89 NLRB 1289.
456 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
attached to the fact that the engineers, represented by NABET, for-
merly did the lighting work, for the employees with whom we are
presently concerned are not these engineers, but program employees
who now do the Employer's lighting work. Finally, the limited
extent to which engineering department employees participate in
lighting does not alter the fact that this work is the responsibility
of the program department and is performed in almost all respects by
employees of this department.
We are convinced that the interests of the Employer's lighting
employees are more closely allied with those of the other program
employees in the unit proposed by IATSE, than with those of the
technical and engineering employees in the NABET unit. In reach-
ing this conclusion, we rely upon the fact that the lighting employees
are in the program department and work under supervisors of that
department, they do not interchange with engineering department
employees, whereas the employee chiefly concerned with lighting
spends an appreciable part of his time performing the duties of other
program employees, and the duties of the lighting employees primarily
involve skills associated with stagecraft rather than electronics -or
other engineering skills. Accordingly, we shall include the lighting
employees in the unit of program employees herein found to be
appropriate.8
We find that the units described below are appropriate for the
purposes of collective bargaining within the meaning of Section 9 (b)
and shall direct that elections by secret ballot be held among the
employees in each of these units.
(a) All engineers and technicians employed by the Don Lee Broad-
casting System in connection with the operation of radio station KHJ,
and television station KHJ-TV, Los Angeles, California, excluding
all other employees, watchmen, guards, professional employees, and
supervisors as defined in the Act.
(b) All stage hands, make-up artists, scenic artists, sign painters,
show card artists, set erectors, set construction workers, lightmen,
property men, and prop makers employed by Don Lee Broadcasting
System at its television station KHJ-TV, Los Angeles, California.
[Text of Direction of Elections omitted from publication in this
volume.] 11
In the recent KTTV case , 97 NLRB 1477, the Board included lighting employees in
a unit of engineering rather than program employees . In that case , however, in contrast
with the instant case, the lighting employees worked as part of an engineering crew under
a technical director , they did not interchange with program employees , and had been
bargained for in the past as part of an engineering department unit.