Printing Industry of Seattle, Inc.

National Labor Relations Board - Board Decisions

Mar 20, 1973

202 N.L.R.B. 558 (N.L.R.B. 1973)

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.