Evening star., 1939-10-22

a chance" This and other statements
attributed to him aroused teapot
tempest that had reverberations even
here in the East.
The board suspended Nylander pend
ing an investigation of the whole Incl
dent by Prof. James E. Brenner of STAN
ford University Law School. Brenners
report tended to clear Nylander of the
charges that had most irritated Cali
fornians and he was reinstated. This
occurred in February and March. On
July 18 Nylander resigned to return to
the teaching of economics.
Change in California.
He was succeeded by Walter P.
Spreckels, who has had 20 years of ex-
perience in industrial relations both in
private industry and in Government. A
distant connection of the California
sugar family of that name, Spreckels had
served as personnel manager and execu-
tive for several sugar corporations. He
had a great deal to do with the negotia-
ton Of union contracts. In 1886 he went
with the Works Progress Administration,
after a brief period with NJ R. A., to
serve as labor relations director in New
York City. During this time he had
direction of labor at the recently COM
pleted North Beach Airport, where more
than $1,000 men were employed.
At the time that Nylander resigned
other important changes were made in
the Los Angeles Office. The opposition"
to Nylander was either dismissed or
transferred elsewhere. In short, the
whole Office was put on new basis.
At Kansas City. Hugh E. Sperry was
named regional director. Sperry has
had long experience in the oil business,
having been operator of service stations
and for several years an assistant super
visor of the National Refining Co. at st.
Louis. Beginning in 1884 he was asso-
ciated with Leiserson on the Petroleum
Labor Policy Board, of which Leiserson
was chairman and Sperry an investi-
gator and mediator.
Shift in Cleveland.
At Cleveland the board named Oscar
S. Smith as regional director. Smith
was associated with Leiserson first at
Antioch College. AS an undergraduate,
in accord with the Antioch plan of half
work and half study, he was employed
by Dayton, Ohio, construction COM
pany. On graduation he became super
visor for the same company and later
served as mediator on the Petroleum
Board. Since 1887 he has been in the
N. L. R. B. Office in Chicago, where he
was intrusted with the handling of many
important cases.
These men are the type that Leiserson
hopes to recruit through the new per-
sonnel officer, for the service of the
board. Above all he is interested in find
ing assistants who have had practical
experience in directing labor relations.
Particularly, he wants such men in the
field, where flrst-hand experience and
the ability to meet employer and en-
ploye on understanding terms are i'm
portant.
In short, it is the present ambition to
build up staff of expert mediators who
look at the problems of labor more or
less as does this mild little trouble-fixer.
Distrustful of legalistic and logical for
mulas, Leiserson, during his successful
career as a mediator, has developed a
shrewd understanding of human motives.
He believes in looking behind the logic
and around the formula to see what peo-
pie really are up to.
Others Agree on Changes.
To say that other members of the
board-Chairman j. Warren Madden and
Edwin S. Smith-are opposed to the
changes that Leiserson has been largely
instrumental in bringing about would be
inaccurate. There is a general recogni-
ton of the need for notifications. On
what are perhaps profounder issues of
policy Leiserson has broken with Mad
den and Smith, as was shown most clear
ly in the majority opinion and Leiser-
sons dissent in the Pittsburgh Plate
Glass Co. decision.
In that highly significant decision
Madden and Smith ruled that for pur-
poses of collective bargaining all the
plants of the company should be regarded
as a single unit. including the largest
plant. Although in this latter plant, at
Crystal City. Mo-, no election had ever
been held to determine the bargaining
agent desired by the union and the union
acknowledged 1t had very few members,
the union did have substantial ma
jority in all the plants of the company.
This majority, Madden and Smith de-
clared was the ruling factor in Jumping
together the company's employees in every
part of the country.
But Leiserson in q lengthy dissent
argued that this amounted to imposing
. bargaining agent on workers who had
never had any opportunity to chose,
through IN election, between the g. !. O.,