Milprint, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Sep 28, 1950

91 N.L.R.B. 561 (N.L.R.B. 1950)

In the Matter of MILPRINT, INC., EMPLOYER and MILWAUKEE PHOTO-
ENGRAVERS UNION, LOCAL No. 19, AFL, PETITIONER
Case No.13-KC-1165.Decided September 28, 1950
DECISION AND ORDER
Upon a petition duly filed under Section 9 (c) of the National Labor
Relations Act, a hearing was held before John P. von Rohr, 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 Milwaukee Photoengravers Union, Local No. 19, AFL, and.
the United Paper `Yorkers of America, Local 356, CIO, are labor
organizations claiming to represent employees of the Employer.
3. No question affecting commerce exists 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, for the following
reasons:I
The Petitioner requests that the Board find appropriate a unit con-
sisting of all employees engaged in rotogravure cylinder making in
the rotogravure cylinder department of the Employer's Milwaukee
plant, excluding supervisors as defined in the Act. It contends that
these employees constitute a highly skilled, homogeneous group en-
titled to severance from the established unit of production and main-
tenance employees now represented by the Intervenor, on either a craft-
or departmental basis. The Intervenor and the Employer oppose this
request on the ground that the unit as requested does not include all
employees doing similar work of the same degree of skill.
I United Paper Workers of America, Local 356, CIO, hereinafter termed the Intervenor,
was allowed to intervene at the hearing upon the showing of a contractual interest in the
representation of the employees involved.
. 2 In view of our finding as to the unit issue in this case, we deem it unnecessary to rule
on the contention that the present contract between the Intervenor and the Employer bars
this petition, or the challenge to the legality of certain union-security provisions in the
contract.
91 NLRB No. 94.
561
562 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
The Employer is engaged in job printing and commercial litho-
graphic work and manufactures printed packing materials, boxes,
wrappers, letterheads, catalogs, forms, and display materials. The
Milwaukee plant utilizes three methods of printing in its production
processes, i. e., letterpress, lithographic, and intaglio printing. Each
of these processes, while having the same net result of the transfer of
an image onto paper, cellophane or foil, differs in the manner of
preparation of,a printing surface. Letterpress printing involves the
use of steel or rubber plates on which the image to be transferred is
raised from the plate surface. Lithographic printing is accomplished
by the chemical treatment of a uniformly flat surface; while in intaglio
printing, the image to be printed is indented on a metal cylinder. The
Employer's stereotype, photoengraving, and rubber plate departments
are all concerned with letterpress printing processes. The litho-
graphic department handles the production of all lithographic work,
and the cylinders for intaglio printing are prepared in the rotogravure
cylinder department.
The Intervenor has represented all production and maintenance em-
ployees in the plant, with certain exceptions, since 1937. The roto-
gravure cylinder, department has been a part of the plant-wide unit
during the entire bargaining history. The lithographic department
and the pressmen and assistants in the letterpress department, how-
ever, have been represented in separate units, predating the plant-wide
unit, by the Amalgamated Lithographers of America, CIO, and the
Milwaukee Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union No. 7, AFL,
respectively. Pressmen in the rotogravure and lustro pressrooms are
at present unrepresented.
The Petitioner requests a unit of all employees in the rotogravure
cylinder department. There are 12 employees, classified as either
engravers or assistant roto-cylinder men, at present assigned to the
department. A single foreman is in charge of the department which
is physically segregated from other departments. The cylinders proc-
essed in the department are first ground and plated with copper and
then reground and polished. A sensitized carbon tissue is used to
imprint a photograph on the cylinder following which the cylinder
is developed and dried. All surface space not to be etched is painted
out and the cylinders etched by an acid process. Following inspec-
tion, cleaning, drying, and hand tooling, the cylinder is given a final
coat of chrome and proofed on a small press. All of these processes
are carried out in the enclosed area of the rotogravure cylinder de-
partment with the exception of the proofing which is done in the
adjacent pressroom. When preparation in the rotogravure cylinder
MILPRINT, INC. 563
department is completed, the cylinders go to the rotogravure press
department. -
Ten men are classified as engravers in the rotogravure cylinder
department and two as assistant roto-cylinder men. Employees in
the department specialize in one or more of the operations in the de-
partment and they are not all qualified to perform each process exe-
cuted in the department . The assistant roto-cylinder men assist in
the various stages of preparing the cylinders as well as doing proofing,
cleaning, and other minor duties. The Employer has no apprentice-
ship system and recruits employees for the rotogravure cylinder de-
partment from the remainder of the plant personnel in accordance
with a posting system established by contract with the Intervenor.
No standards of education or prior work experience have been estab-
lished for either the engraving or assistant roto-cylinder man classi-
fications but approximately 11/2 to 3 years experience as an assistant
roto-cylinder man is required for advancement to the position of en-
graver. Interchange of employees between the roto -cylinder depart-
ment and the remainder of the plant is limited to permanent transfers
in cases of expansion or layoffs and occasional temporary transfers
on the basis of seniority when there is a work slowdown.
Employees in the Employer's photoengraving department , stereo-
type department, and rubber plate department are likewise engaged
in processes leading to the preparation of printing surfaces for use
on the presses . The photoengraving department prepares flat plates
which are etched by an electrolic process. The rubber plate depart-
ment makes rubber molds from plates etched in the photoengraving
'department. These rubber plates are then mounted on a cylinder and
used on lustro or aniline print presses . In the stereotyping depart-
ment, a flat or curved plate of nickle plated lead is made through use
of a mat containing an impression of the engraving to be copied.
While the end results of each of these departments and of the roto-
gravure cylinder department are plates for use on the Employer's
presses, work experience in one of the departments does not appre-
ciably lessen the training necessary to become a competent employee
in another , and the departments are separately supervised and sep-
arately located. Pay rates for the rotogravure-cylinder, photoen
graving, and stereotype departments are roughly comparable, while
the rubber plate department is paid on a lower scale.
The Intervenor and the Employer contend that the unit sought by
the Petitioner is inappropriate because it does not include employees
in other departments -exercising comparable skills. Both the roto-
gravure cylinder department and the photoengraving department
include the classification of engraver . While the processes of pre-
917572-51-vol. 91.-37
564 DECISIONS OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
paring a flat plate with a raised image in the photoengraving depart-
ment and a cylinder with an indented image in the rotogravure
cylinder department differ widely, the chief difference in the method
of etching is that the latter department etches by means of acids
while etching in the first department is done by means of electrolysis.
The Petitioner does not seek to include engravers in the photoengrav-
ing department in the instant unit and stated at the hearing that it
did not regard engravers in that department to be qualified for mem-
bership because the department did not produce work of a sufficiently
high degree of difficulty. While it is true that the two classifications
of engravers in the photoengraving and rotogravure cylinder depart-
ments are not interchangeable, the record shows clearly that all the
engravers share the same basic skills despite the difference in special-
ized processes performed and operate at the same degree of com-
petency. Both groups of engravers have the same pay rate and rank
as the highest paid employees in the plant excluding the pressmen
and the composing room employees. While we have granted both
departmental and craft units in the graphic arts industry,3 we have
consistently held that such units may not be severed from an estab-
lished plant-wide bargaining unit where the proposed unit excludes
employees exercising comparable skills.' As the Petitioner does not
seek to represent all engravers at the Employer's plant we find with-
out passing upon the craft status of these engraving employees that
a unit limited to the rotogravure cylinder department is inappro-
priate for purposes of collective bargaining. Accordingly, we shall
dismiss the petition filed herein.
ORDER
The National Labor Relations Board hereby orders that the peti-
tion herein be, and it hereby is, dismissed.
MEMBER MuRDOCK took no part in the consideration of the above
Decision and Order. -
3 See Southern Central Company, 77 NLRB 247; George Grady Press, Inc., 74 NLRB
1372; Pacific Waxed Paper Company, 88 NLRB 1534; Standard Register Company, 73
NLRB 1221.
4 See Milprint, Inc., 90 NLRB 98.