Evening star., 1940-08-13

Commons. The letter, which is one
OF the most interesting contribu-
tlons to the discussion of labor
problems in America, follows, in
part:
The issue over the N. L. r. B.
Is really quite simple but hard to
make plain to the public because
1t is concerned with details of ad-
ministration. I would summarize
the whole situation by saying that
there is nothing the matter with the
law at all. The whole trouble and
most of the public clamor, I am
convinced, stems from two things:
One, misconception on the part of
the board and its lawyers as to
the basic purpose of the act; two,
poor administration.
Lacks Management Ability. .
I'VE have 900 employees. half of
them scattered to cover all the
States Of the country. To manage
large, far-flung organization of
this kind is a job all by itself, le-
quiring technical knowledge of man.
agement, organization and admin
istration. There is no one here IN a
responsible position who has any
such technical training or knowl-
edge. The result is that we really
have no organization to manage our
staff at all. There is lacking any
thing like an efficient system of di-
recting or supervising the work of
our large and scattered staff.
The lawyers, who control the ad-
ministrative work of the board as
well as the legal department, have
no conception of how to handle the
mass production job. Their method
is to assign cases to individuals and
leave each one to his own devices.
You have no doubt read of the
Smith Committees recommended
lion to amend the act by separating
the so-called prosecuting from the
judicial functions of the board. This
proposal makes plain the basic mis-
conception regarding the work of
the board. AS matter of fact, we
have neither prosecuting or judi
cial powers We are really branch
of the Congress for investigation
end fact-fnding purposes similar to
the Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion or to the Wisconsin Industrial
Commission. Congress imposed no
penalties on employers for violat-
ing the law. 1t merely adopted a
labor policy for industry engaged
in interstate commerce which
changed the policy that had been
in effect for a century and which
the Supreme Court had surrounded
with constitutional sanctions. Con-
gress knew that it could not make
The old policy a crime or a mis-
demeanor punishable by fine or i'm
prisonment. as it has done in the
Railway Labor Act for the trans
portation industry. Instead, it
merely created the board for the
purpose of investigating and find
ing whether employers are pursuing
the old practices. and if they are,
the board is given authority to order
them to cease those old practices
and to pursue the new practices Of
collective bargaining with free or
ganizations of employees.
Accepts Promise in Defense.
"The board and its lawyers can't
seem to grasp this idea. Essentially
they really agree with the Smith
Committee that we do have prose-
cutting and judicial functions. There
fore, their defense before the Smith
Committee was that the board itself
is very careful to keep in separate
compartments the prosecuting and
judicial functions and not to mix
the two. I warned them that kind
of defense accepts the premise of
the Smith Committee and they are
bound to lose. If thought that we
had prosecuting and judicial func-
tions here, I would not trust myself
to keep them separate, and the evi-
dence before the Smith Committee
showed many instances where what
was considered prosecuting was
mixed with the so-called judicial.
"Thp LAWYERS seem to have the