Evening star., 1935-04-16
RUBBER SITUATION
TEST Of POWERS
New Concept of Labor and
Emergency Rights Seen
in Court Appeals.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.


the National Labor Relations Board
to order and supervise elections.
Actually, the issues are even more
far-reaching than thus outlined. They
touch the whole question Of the Fed
eral Governments right to regulate
employer and employe relations in
every business or industry which may
"affect" interstate commerce.
The briefs. which have been hled
in the United States Circuit Court OF
Appeals for the sixth circuit ut Gin
cinnati by the 3. F. Goodrich Co. and
by the Department Of Justice, re-
spectively, are printed and q study OF
them will reveal the trend Of the ar
gument being made.
Quote Supreme Court.
The contention of the Goodrich
Co. is that the National Labor Rela-
tions Board has no power over
commerce within State. that rubber
manufacturing is no different from
other kinds of manufacture which the
Supreme Court OF the United States
has held to be outside the power OF
Congress to regulate, and that no re-
lationship has been proved between
collective bargaining negotiation on
the one hand and the movement of
goods in interstate commerce on the
other. In support of this view the
Goodrich Co. lawyers quote the fol-
lowing from a Supreme Court opin-
ion:
What possible legal or logical con-
nection is there between an employees s
membership in a labor organization
and the carrying on Of interstate COM
merce? Such q relation to a labor
organization cannot have, in itself,
and in the eye Of the law, any bear
ing upon the commerce with which
the employe is connected by his labor
and services we hold that there
Is no such connection between inter-
state commerce and membership in a
labor organization as to authorize
Congress to make it crime against
the United States for an agent Of an
interstate carrier to discharge an en-
ploye because Of such membership on
his part"
Products Defined.
Also the Goodrich company quoted
from another Supreme Court opinion
which stated that If the possibility
or indeed certainty Of expectation OF
q product or article from a State de-
ternines it to be in interstate COM
merce before the commencement OF
its movement from the State, 1t would
seem to follow that it is in such COM
merce from the instant Of its growth
or production, and, in the case OF
Goals, as they lie in the ground
The court added that the result
''would be curious" because 1T would
rlationalize all industries, 1t would ma
tionalize and withdraw from State
jurisdiction and deliver to Federal
commercial control the fruits of Cal
icornia and the South, the shoes OF
Massachusetts, and the woolen indus
tries of other States. at the very in
ception of their production or growth
that Is, the fruits unpicked, the cot
ton and wheat ungathered, hides and
hesh of cattle yet on the hoof, wool
yet unshorn and coal yet unmined,
because they are in varying percent
ages destined for and surely to be
exported to States other than those
of their production. However, we
need not proceed further in specula-
tion and argument. Ingenuity and
imagination have been exercised here
tofore upon like contention"
Condition Held Changed.
The Department of Justice brief
doesn't undertake to contradict the
words Of the Supreme Court, but does
declare that things have changed
since the principles were announced
and that now labor relations and in
dustrial unrest have grown to such
proportions as to cause q stagnation
in interstate commerce whenever un-
satisfactory labor conditions exist in
an industry.
The Government lawyers endeavor
to trace the gradual way by which the
courts came to approve Federal con-
troll Of employer and employe relations
on the railroads and how the Supreme
Court upheld the Adsmson eight-hour
law because Nationwide transporta-
tion strike was threatened. There
never, Of course, has been any doubt
about the power of Congress to regu-
late the business Of transportation.
The brief argues that the rubber in
dustry is q far-flung affair and that
collective bargaining is conducive to
industrial peace, whereas absence Of
it Is ruinous to trade and commerce
and that the Federal power to regulate
commerce among the States" should
be construed to mean commerce within
one or more States.
It is evident from an examination
Of both briefs that the Government
attorneys are relying on a new eco
nomic concept of the importance OF
labor relations and also upon the as
sumption that all previous precedents
and principles are eradicated or rem
dered obsolete because national
emergency has existed that brought
forth the national industrial recovery
act,
Power Not Created.
The Supreme Court of the United
States only last year laid down the
rule that emergency does not create
power" and that the Federal Govern.
ment and the States were each power
ful only within their respective
spheres.
In a recent instance-the guide
lamp case-the United States Circuit
Court of Appeals in the second cir
cult denied the power Of the Ma
tional Labor Relations Board to issue
orders with respect to the conduct Of
employer and employe relations. The
controversy therein, however, was moi
the conduct Of an election but whether
the company was bound to accept the
majority rule idea in Its bargaining
with employees.
The Goodrich case raises a more
basic question-did Congress have thu
power to pass law delegating to 9
Federal board the right to order ol
supervise elections in plants engaged
in manufacture, and Is the manufac'
turing process OF o nationally solo
product, like tires, q part Of interstate
commerce or so substantially related
to it as to come under Federal juris'
diction?
When the Circuit Court Of Appeal
renders }ts decision the case probabi,