Evening star., 1939-12-11
Leiserson's Move
To Gust Labor Board
Aide Disclosed
Held Witt Unqualified to
Serve as Secretary;
Law Praised
Continued From First PageJ

Low TTOlSe0
Continued From First Page.)
in procedure characteristic Of the
secretary's Office.
"If I could trust the findings of
fact in the case would agree with
the chairman's position"
Cases Are Listed.
Then, on July 26, in a memoran-
dunn to Chairman Madden, Mr..
Leiserson wrote:
Referring to your memorandum
of July 26 (Todd-Johnson R-754)
when I used the phrase usual it,
regularitieS in procedure character
istic of the secretarys Office I had
in mind the irregularities in the
following cases which were called
to your attention: Chrysler, Consoli-
dated Aircraft. Universal Pictures,
Alpena Garment, Chicago Malleable,
General Electric Qetters of protest
against procedure by both pattern
makers and machinists' organiza-
tions).
THE last cases General Electric)
involve the reopening of records of
hearings in two cases that were
definitely closed and consolidation of
cases, the same as in the Chrysler
cases. The minutes of the board
meeting where this consolidation
was ordered do not indicate that the
board approved the issuing of in
structions to ask for the local unions
in all the cities where the plants
are located against which the pat
tern makers and machinists protest,
and which now have been re-
scinded."
The following day, July q, the
intra Office correspondence showed
Chairman Madden wrote Mr..
Leiserson:
please specify on separate sheets
the alleged irregularities in the cases
named in your July 26 communica-
ton, including the Todd-Johnson
case"
LeiSerSOn'S Reply.
Mr.. Leiserson on the same sheet
of paper replied:
Il have nothing to add to my
memorandum of July 26, except to say
that 1 agree with your statement at
the conference Wednesday after
noon that the Universal Pictures
case Smells
Il think it is time we looked
around for a secretary who under
stands the administrative duties Of
the job and sticks to them"
Mr.. LeiserSon was in the midst of
reading excerpts from a prepared
statement, when Charles Fay, gen.
eral counsel for the N. r. L. B., in
terrupted to point out that Commit
tee Counsel Toland had given pho
tostatic copies of the intra office
memoranda to neWspapermen be-
fore it had been formally put into
the record. Committee members
made no comment.
The prepared statement covered
% mimeographed pages, but Repre-
sentative Smith, Democrat, of Vir-
ginia, committee chairman, denied
Mr.. Leiserson the privilege of read
ing it in full.
1--WE are not going to sit here and
listen to a lot of prepared state
ments,' declared Representative
Smith. That's going to be the rule
Of the committee"
Act Called Good Law.
At the outset, Mr.. Leiserson said
he believed the National Labor Re-
lations Act to be "a good law
1--WE shall be proud of it in the
future" he said, "just as we now are
proud of our public schools. COM
pulsory education and workmen's S
compensation acts, all of which
were vigorously denounced as So
cialistic when they were first advo-
Gated and when the first steps were
being taken to put them into prac-
tical effect. I do not think that
the act needs to be amended in any
important respect
Delay Held Greatest Weakness.
Mr.. Leiserson said he believed the
greatest weakness in the work of
the board is the delay in handling
cases
"All the members of the board are
of one mind in believing that the
complaints on this account are
justified" he declared, land all of
us are devoting our energies to
speeding up the process. Progress
is being made in this direction, and
so far as the handling of election
cases is concerned, there has been
a great improvement during the last
few months. But despite all our
efforts there is still very large back
log of cases. This is being re.
duced, however, and our position
a year from now promises to be q
good deal better than it is now, just
as we are now in much better posi-
ton than we were two years ago.
The witness pointed out that sc
far as the complaint cases involv.
ing charges of violations of the Law
are concerned, there is no essen
tial disagreement among the three
members of the board. "At times
of course" he added, I'VE view de-
tails OF evidence differently, but
such disagreements are usually
ironed out in conference, so that
dissenting opinions in these cases
are rarely written. Most of the dis
sents occur in connection with rep
resentation cases and revolve around
the question of the appropriate bar
gaining unit"