CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The National Labor Relations Board in the War.. II. Organizational and Administrative Developments. III. A Statistical Analysis of Cases Filed, Cases Closed, and Elec- Page THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD IN THE WAR The major function of the Board during the fiscal year 1943 through its administration of the National Labor Relations Act has continued to be the protection of the basic statutory rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. Two additional duties which were given the Board during the year are the conducting of strike votes, in accordance with Section 8 of the War Labor Disputes Act,' and the protection of the rights of employees affected by the merger of domestic telegraph carriers, under an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934.2 The tremendous impact of the war upon American industry has created a number of new problems in industrial relations, in the solution of which the Wagner Act has become of increasing importance. For the full and effective use of resources in the production necessary for the successful prosecution of the war, the principal Federal statute defining the rights of employees and providing a forum, integrated with the courts, for the adjudication of controversies over these rights, has played an essential role. In a period of unprecedented employment it has been estimated that membership in labor organizations has risen to a peak in excess of 13 millions. Although workers engaged in the vital war industries have felt the strain of wartime conditions in housing and transportation, the diminishing supply of civilian goods, and the increasing cost of living, morale among the workers has on the whole been good, and the great majority of labor organizations have observed the agreement made at the President's Industry-Labor Conference of 1941 with respect to strikes and stoppages. Nevertheless, the tensions incident to these abnormal economic conditions have made it more essential than ever that the agencies of Government should be utilized to eliminate the sources of friction and poor morale which could develop into serious interruptions of production. The special contribution of the Board under the National Labor Relations Act has been, first, the elimination of unfair labor practices which impede the acceptance of sound collective bargaining practices; 157 Stat. 163 (1943). 57 Stat. 5 (1943). and second, the prompt determination of disputes as to the choice of bargaining agents by employees. Disputes resulting from these organizational questions are still among the most explosive in the industrial field. After these controversies have been resolved and collective bargaining established, it has been the province of the Conciliation Service to assist the parties in working out substantive agreements for wages and other working conditions. When an impasse develops in the negotiation of collective agreements, the War Labor Board has been vested with the duty of issuing decisions with respect to the substantive questions at issue, which are binding on the parties.3 It has sometimes been argued that the investigation of charges of unfair labor practices or the conduct of elections for the choice of bargaining representatives in war industries tends to retard 'production. The experience of the last war, as well as this one, has demonstrated that the contrary is true. During the last war when there was no Wagner Act, labor disputes which caused the greatest concern to the Government arose primarily out of these organizational issues, and one of the first problems which faced the War Labor Board of 1918 was to develop a set of principles for determining such issues. Such controversies would inevitably lead to widespread strikes if there were no statutory procedures for resolving such disputes. The right to select his own representative for collective bargaining is one that is deeply ingrained in the American worker, and any impairment of such right is fraught with the danger of industrial warfare unless the Government affords a legal method of redress. In protecting the exercise of this right in the expanding war industries, the Board has found it important to enforce strictly the limitations on closed-shop agreements in Section 8 (3) of the Act, so as to prevent employers and labor organizations from entering into collusive arrangements which thwarted these rights. While the Act recognizes the legality of closed-shop agreements, it places two definite restrictions upon their validity: (1) That such agreements must be made with a labor organization chosen by the majority in the appropriate bargaining unit; (2) that the contracting labor organization must not be dominated or assisted by the employer. Since many industries have expanded within a period of a few months from a handful of employees to gigantic enterprises employing many thousands, there has been considerable criticism of the practice in some plants of compelling thousands of workers without any union background, as a prerequisite of employment, to join organizations in whose selection they had no choice. The Board has attempted to eliminate such practices from the interstate industries coming within its jurisdiction by refusing to recognize or certify any organization as the bargaining representative until at least 50 percent of the workers to be employed in the appropriate bargaining unit have been hired. The War Labor Board by executive order has also been given the function of determining that wage adjustments will conform with the provisions of the Wage Stabilization Act of 1942. |