Opinion ID: 197361
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: assembling the cast

Text: The employees in the bargaining unit are members of the Company's production services department, which has the responsibility for producing live and taped telecasts. During the pendency of the representation proceeding, the department comprised, inter alia, the director (Rivera), the technical supervisor (Corps), three program directors, three TDs, audio and lighting persons, and eighteen studio technicians. Typically, the TS prepared a daily schedule delineating which employees would work on which programs and establishing a specific set of responsibilities for three crews, each headed by a TD and including technicians (e.g., cameramen, a floor manager or coordinator, audio and lighting persons, a character generator operator) assigned to the crew by the TS. In the pre-production stage, the crew's activities are dictated for the most part by the script for the upcoming program. The TD is given the script, sometimes called a run- 4 down, and it is incumbent upon him to ensure that the studio is prepared for production according to the script and that all hands are present and in their places. When the performance begins, a program director takes over and the TD retires to operate the camera control panels in the control room. Some crew members work in the control room alongside the TD; others work on the floor. After the performance ends, the TD again comes to the fore; in the course of an approximately 30-minute process known as the wrap, the TD and his crew store the equipment and other programming paraphernalia in the control room. All three TDs, but no studio technicians, possess keys to the control room, and, after the equipage is stored, the TD assumes responsibility for locking the room. The TD also prepares and files a daily report which memorializes the crew's membership, catalogues the equipment used during production, and relates any problems that occurred with regard to either personnel or equipment. The program director and the floor coordinator likewise file daily reports. To achieve a balanced picture, it is important to note what TDs do not do. They ordinarily do not make disciplinary recommendations in their daily reports; rather, the technical supervisor reads the reports and takes whatever disciplinary action he thinks is appropriate. The TDs neither participate in the disciplining of errant employees nor perform employee evaluations. They do not interview, hire, promote, demote, or 5 terminate other workers. They do not address employee grievances. As in any workplace, absenteeism occurs. In a TD's absence, another TD or the TS will replace him. Technicians who find themselves unable to work must inform the TS, who will secure a replacement. If neither the department director nor the TS is at the station (as frequently occurs on weekends, holidays, and during some night shifts), a TD may be the highest-ranking employee on the premises. As such, he will recruit needed substitutes from another crew or from a list composed by the technical supervisor and posted in the production office. The TS often will pop in on such occasions, and, in any event, the TDs have the home telephone numbers of both the director and the TS, and they are under instructions to call either or both of these individuals in case of an emergency. The TDs have some trappings of a higher echelon. They receive more munificent salaries, larger bonuses, and better benefits than the studio technicians. They rate reserved parking spaces and separate desks (albeit in a common office). They occasionally have been invited to attend supervisors' meetings (including a few meetings at which collective bargaining negotiations were discussed). Sporadically, TDs have initiated meetings among technical personnel but they do not have the power to follow through on such initiatives unassisted. For instance, when a TD notified Rivera of his wish to discuss tardiness, work habits, and care of equipment with the 6 technicians in his crew, Rivera called such a meeting and the TD ran it. On another occasion, a TD drafted (but did not send) a memorandum requesting that technical personnel report to the studios at the entry time set by management even if they had no assigned work then and there. Rivera rewrote the memo for signature by the TS and the TD, adding a reminder about the possible consequences of noncompliance.