Imperial Valley press., 1937-12-12
News Behind the News
- Hot Water for NLRB

WASHINGTON@The National Labor Rela-
tions Board created to enforce labor's right to
organize freely and bargain collectively through
its own selected agents is under attack-eSpecial-
" by the American Federation of Labor which
charges it with favoritSm toward the C1O.
On that charge the Federation largely bases its
opposition TO the pending minimum wage-maxi-
mum hour bill.
Meanwhile it has gone almost unnoticed that
an NLRB decision involving an A. F. of L.-C1o.
fight has just revealed the boards first split
and first dissenting opinion with to vote
in favor of fundamental A. F. of L. principle.
1t is instructive to examine two recent deci-
sions of the board which have held in effect
That imposition of an A. F. of L. union on
employees by action of employers is no more
legal than imposition of company union"
That craft unions should be permitted to
carve themselves off from industrial unions
even in predominating industrial production
plants.
The board recently ordered the Consolidated
Edison and affiliated companies in New York
not to give effect to contracts with the Inter
national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers "a
F. of L. which gave that union exclusively col
lective bargaining rights, to end its alleged use
of labor spies, to cease persuading employees to
join the IBEW to cease discouragng employees
from joining the United Radio and Electrical
Workers of America (CIO) and to reinstate six
employees allegedly fired for union activity.
The board concluded that the companies
had engaged in unfair labor practices by inter-
fering with restraining and coercing their en-
ployeS: that the granting of the IBEW contracts
was a part of the employers unlawful course
of conduct and that the contracts were hence
invalid.
Chairman Floyd Carlisle of Consolidated Edi-
son branded the findings utterly unwarrant-
ed" and promised to observe the contracts until
a federal court invalidated them, if ever, Pres
ident Dan Tracy of IBEW said the boards action
was biased, bigoted illegal and dictatoria" and
Green said 1.-The decision outrages the provisions
of the Wagner act"
Now it's the CLOS turn TO holler. In the Als-
Chalmers case involving 10000 automobile COM
pany workers the NLRB, with Member Edwin
S. Smith dissenting, has held that two groups
of employees may vote separately whether they
they wish TO be represented as A. F. OF L. craft
units or by the United Automobile Workers
CIO) local covering the whole plant. The two
federation unions the IBEW and the Brother
hood of Firemen and Oilers.
Smiths dissent held that the majority deci-
sion vested in small employe group choice OF
determining whether in production plant,
a complete industrial bargaining unit or one
from which one or most crafts had been severed
was the more appropriate to promote collective
bargaining.
The decision had been left to a group known
to be hostile to industrial organization he said,
and wishes of the great majority were ignored.
Small craft groups, he said, would be enabled
TO throw thousands out of work by striking
and hamper majority attempts to achieve stable
employment through collective bargaining,