Evening star., 1941-03-06

d " U u pIOAIApV
elections to de- David Lawrence.
termine the bargaining unit. Just
why the board is Indifferent to the
statement of such a claim published
on February by President Green
of the A. F. L. is a mystery.
The board has distributed
mimeographed letter to several
newspapers taking issue with some
of the other statements made by
this correspondent in a dispatch on
February 81, but the communication
In large part is denial of a techni-
cal point and ignores the main issue
the duty of the board to foster
collective bargaining by expeditions
elections.
True it is that in this writer's dis
patch of February 27 one statement
was made which, If read in strictly
technical sense, conveys a wrong
impression. This was that "the
board decided it would keep its
hands off any situations requiring
an election unless the employers and
employees agreed in advance to what
Is known as a consent election" 7"
AS the boards letter points out, no
such decision" was ever made by
the board.
Failure to Exercise Power.
Any one reading the dispatch in
question, however, could not fail to
understand that the main point was
that the board, in many important
cases, is failing to exercise the power
given it by Congress to order elec-
tions, and is failing to administer
the Wagner Act "as an effective
means of preventing major strikes"
at time when national defense
demands an end to such delays.
Indeed, the boards own letter
makes it clear that this assertion
is the fundamental issue, for the
basic claim it repeats throughout
is that "the board does not keep
it's hands off any situation requir-
ing an election" s-- -
Accepting this as the issue-and
certainly it is an issue vital to the
defense program and thus vital also
to millions of Americans-the actual
record of the boards policy regard
ing elections becomes pertinent as
does also the distorted picture of
the boards election policy as pre-
sented by the boards own letter.
Attempting to answer this writer's
statement that nothing is being
done to compel selective bargaining
machinery to function and to keep
the strike weapon from being eXer-
cised unnecessarily" and that "if
the board were to carry out the
spirit of the law, it would insist
that labor unions submit to elections
the moment they make public claim
of majority" the board states
that 'if there is reasonable doubt
as to the unions claim Of a ma
jority or if the majority is contested
by another organization, then the
board holds an election"
Discretion Left to Board.
This is not true; indeed, the board
has drawn its own regulations with
astute care to see that an employer
may not secure an election when
a union is claiming ajority. Only
when two or more unions present
conflicting claims will the board
even permit an employer to file
with it petition requesting an cleo
ton. And it took many years of
public criticism and some congress
sional Investigations before the
board was willing to extend even
this narrowly limited privilege" to
employers
So the board has created situa-
ton in which where one union
claims to represent majority, the
board allows that union to assume
complete control of whether there
shall be an election to determine
the truth of its claim, and probably
more often than not only one union
is involved in the strike situations
which now retard the defense pro-
gram.
The board has created the situa-
ton of refusing to exercise, in the
public interest, the discretionary
power conferred upon it by Con-
gress. For the board does have
ample power if it would only use
1t. The law itself states that when
ever a question affecting commerce
arises concerning representation Of
employees, the board may investigate
such controversy and may take
q secret ballot ."
The board thus has every oppor-
tunity to avoid incipient strikes
growing out of majority representa-
ton claims and need not wait for
action to be initiated by either
union or employers. Because Con-
eress used the word may" how
ever, the board is left with discre-
ton to act or not to act; and it
chooses to exercise this discretion
by taking no initiative at all itself,
and by refusing even to let an en-
ployer file a request for an election
unless at least two unions are max
Ing conflicting claimS-thuS leaving
the control of the situation up to
anv union which chooses to use the
defense program, with its desperate
need for freedom from interruption
to production, as a lever to wedge an
organizing campaign into defense
factory.
Ways of Applying Pressure.
In the boards letter, it is stated
that at is simply not true that the
board requires consent elections
9" e" Perhaps it is true that the
board does not exactly require" an
employer to agree to consent elec-
ton, but the board has several ways
of applying pressure to induce an
employer to agree to consent elec-
ton. In the first place, the board
has long enforced its theory that If
a union claims to represent a ma
jority of employees and seeks to bar
gain with the employer, the en-
ployer is placed under a duty ito
cooperate" in determining whether
the union does represent majority.
Yet, If an employer himself con-
ducts an election, whether by secret
ballot or not, the board holds that
this in itself is a violation of the act.
Thus an employer will find that he