1 - National Labor Relations Board

56 Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Board
In two cases, the Board approved initial establishment of separate
units of employees engaged in printing operations. In
one 38 the union sought a unit of roller and screen print machine
operators at a textile manufacturing plant. The Board noted that
it had consistently held that roller machine operators form a
traditional craft unit appropriate for the purposes of collective
bargaining, particularily where, as here, there was no interchange
or transfer between printers and employees of other departments,
and no bargaining history on a plantwide basis. The
petitioning union had traditionally represented machine printers
on a craft basis, the printers received a substantially higher
rate of pay than other employees on the machine, they directed
the other employees in operating the machines, and all had previously
worked on the machines as inspectors or backtenders.
In view of the common supervision, interchange, and similarity
of work performed by the screen and roller printers, the Board
found that a unit composed of operators of both types of machines
was appropriate.
The other case 39 involved a request for a separate unit of
employees in the lithography department of a company engaged
in the manufacture of aerosol metal containers. The Board noted
that the employees in question utilized the standard equipment,
performed the usual duties, and exercised the customary skills
utilized by lithographic employees whom the Board had frequently
held to be a cohesive unit appropriate for collective
bargaining. The frequency of transfer of employees into the
lithographic department and the degree of integration of the
employer's operations were insufficient to ,negate the appropriateness
of a separate unit of lithographic department employees
and since the plant involved was not yet fully operative, similarity
of working conditions with other employees could not be relied
on as a determinative factor. Accordingly, the Board directed
a self-determination election among the lithography department
employees.
In Parke Davis & Co., 10 the Board concluded that initial establishment
of a separate unit of powerhouse employees would
be appropriate. The powerhouse employees' work was found to be
functionally distinct, and their supervision separate from that of
other employeE s. They are licensed in their skills, had a separate
line of seniority and job progression, received a different pay
38 Fulton Cotton Mills, Div. of Allied Products Corp. 175 NLRB No. 17.
" Sherwin-Williams Co., 173 NLRB No. 54.
40 173 NLRB No. 53.