Evening star., 1939-12-10
High Pressuring" Seen.
Leiserson, Board Member,
Called as First Witness
Nv JAMES E. CHINN.

Industrial America will focus its
composite eyes on Washington to-
morrow as a special House commits
tee begins an exhaustive investiga-
ton of the National Labor Rela-
tions Board-the agency created by
Congress to direct the New Deals
emerging labor policy.
The result of the inquiry is be-
lieved to depend largely on the
three Labor Board MEMBERS.
Warren Madden. chairman; Edwin
S. Smith and William M. Leiserson.
The committee, headed by Rep
reSentative Smith, Democrat, OF
Virginia, an anti-New Dealer, has
summoned Mr.. Leiserson as the first
witness, skipping over the two
other members who outrank him
in seniority.
10 Months on Board.
Mr.. Leiserson, a veteran labor
mediator, has been a member of the
board for less than 10 months. He
took the place of Donald Wakefield
Smith, whose reappointment was
opposed by the American Fedora
ton of Labor. Chairman Madden
and Mr.. Smith have served since
1885 when the Wagner Labor Re-
lations Act created the present
board. 1t has been under fire vir-
tually ever since.
Since joining the board. Mr.. Lei
serson several times has diSsented
vigorously with decisions Of his two
colleagues as to the manner for de-
termining appropriate units for
collective bargaining. He has con-
tended the board should be bound
by units established by workers
themselves in pre-existing contracts.
The board majority, however, has
held it was not the laws intent to
"imprison the boards findings" by
the pre-existing unit rule.
Broad Inquiry Expected.
The committees investigation is
not expected to deal entirely with
the activities of the board and its
varying personalities at the top. 1t
probably will be more far-reach-
ing, going into all phases of the
operation of the Wagner Act.
Despite past ,disagreements be-
tween the board members, all three
are champions of labor's rights to
organize and bargain collectively.
They have been interested also in
labor's problems for many years, but
from different angles. And, in spite
of the divergent opinions, the board
has changed the setup of industrys
labor relations. In enforcing the
Wagner Act ban on company unions,
for instance, it destroyed in many
corporations the employe represen-
tation plans which had been in
effect since the World War
The act gave the board the job of
seeing that employees, as a group,
were protected in their rights to ba-
long to union or not. as they de-
sire, and to choose Representatives
to bargain for them without intimi-
dation or coercion from employers.
Since 1885, it has handled more than
$4,000 cases involving charges of un-
fair labor practices or petitions for
representation elections, affecting
more than 5000 900 workers.
30 Initial Witnesses Called.
Aside from Mr.. Leiserson, 80 other
witnesses have been summoned BY
the committee for the initial series
of public hearings, which will run
until a Christmas bolidov rocaee
December 81. Fifteen of these wit
nesses are understood to be con-
nected with N. L. r. B. The others
are reported to be industrial leaders
and coal miners from various Sec
tions of the country.
1t is the present plan of the COM
mittee to resume hearings early in
January and later go on the road"
tc take testimony of witnesses in
San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle,
(see LABOR BOARD, Page ADD