Evansville 571M recently won an important, precedent-setting desktop jurisdiction case from the National Labor Relations Board. The decision by NLRB's Indianapolis Region and later affirmed by the full NLRB makes it easier for GCIU locals to confirm their jurisdiction over desktop technology, according to attorney Thomas D. Allison.

Until recently, most GCIU locals had to rely on specific contract language to prove jurisdiction in desktop technology disputes, and most relied on arbitration, rather than going to the NLRB. But the new NLRB precedent coming from Local 571M's dispute with Creative Press of Evansville "makes the board a much more feasible alternative to arbitration for GCIU local unions trying to confirm their jurisdiction over desktop technology," Allison explained.

The crux of the NLRB action is that Creative Press must incorporate nonunion workers hired to operate new computer-to-film equipment into the GCIU local. The firm , a GCIU-contracted printer since 1954, hired the nonunion pre-press operators, and Local 571M appealed for a "unit clarification" to the federal board.

Hearings were held in July 1999, and the NLRB Regional Director Roberto G. Chavarry announced his decision in favor of Local 571M in November. The ruling noted the local's existing lithographic unit at Creative Press included other electronic pre-press operators. The company appealed the regional decision to the full NLRB, but the board declined to review the ruling, thereby affirming the decision and establishing it as board precedent.

Chavarry found the electronic pre-press operators at Creative Press perform lithographic pre-press functions that are expressly covered in the Local 471M-Creative Press collective bargaining agreement.

The regional director relied on a September 1999 NLRB full board decision (John P. Scripps Newspaper Corp. d/b/a/ The Sun) that established a doctrine that "the bargaining unit is defined by the work performed."

The Creative Press decision, coupled with the Scripps decision, is very significant since NLRB policy and precedents are now favorable to using that avenue of appeal, Allison said.

Once the union can establish that the bargaining unit is defined by the work performed, and the electronic operators are performing job functions similar to those performed by unit employees, then the NLRB should hold that the desktop employees are included within the unit represented by the union, Allison noted.