Evening star., 1947-03-20
Distortion of Powers
By Labor Board Seen
Congress Faces Issue of Coercion
In Study of Wagner Act
By David Laurence

In Study of Wagner Act
By David Laurence
Just how far compulsion and coercion
are to be the vehicles by which Govern
mental agency shall force employers to
agree with unions against their own
better Judgment Is the real issue which
Congress faces in repairing the mischief
done to the American economic system
by the National Relations Board under
the Wagner Act in the last 10 years.
The minded American often Is
lulled by such innocent phrases as col
lective bargaining" into thinking that
all the controversy about the Wagner
Act revolves around q refusal to let
employees form a union. He would be
surprised If he could read the thousands
OF capricious and arbitrary interpreta-
tions rendered by the labor board that
deprive citizens of their fundamental
rights.
No totalitarian government, IN issuing
its DEGREES, has offered any more spe-
cious reasoning than lies behind the
distortion of the powers granted by
Congress under the Wagner Act. This
Is illustrated by the labor boards open
defense of its arbitrary decisions in
the lengthy document 1t submitted re-
Gently to the Senate Labor Committee.
Although the Wagner law does not
compel the employer or the union to
agree on anything when they sit down
to confer and negotiate, the labor board
says, in effect, that the employer must
agree or face charge of unfair labor
practice for refusal to bargain"
Decisions Like Time Tables.
The board denies that In all cases 1t
requires the employer to bargain and
leaves the bewildered citizen to find
out just when he may expect such COM
pulsion and when he may escape from
it. The board has insisted that an
employer must bargain in good faith
but that union need not do so. The
board has recently issued a decision
implying, in effect, that union must
bargain in good faith, but there is no
telling when there will be another
change. Just now, while it is under
fire. the labor boards decisions are
like railroad time tableS-subject to
change without notice.
There is nothing in the law which
makes the reaching of an agreement
compulsory nor does 1t place. on the
employer the obligation to bargain "in
good faith" but the labor board has
read into the law such an obligation.
This does not mean," says the board
in it's statement to the Senate commit
tee, "as is frequently and carelessly as
serted, that an employer must make con-
cessions. A counterproposal and con-
cession are vastly different things; Who'll
ly valid contemporaries may merely
state existing conditions. The failure to
make a counterproposal (as distin-
guished from concession) may be evi.
dence of bad faith-that is, of an intent
under no circumstances to reach an
agreement-but that is all. And we
have found in many cases that an
employer has bargained In good faith
even though he made no counterpro-
prosals, let alone concessions"
What the foregoing means is that
Government agency seeks to apply
mechanical test to a state Of mind"
and that the rights Of a citizen who Is
an employer to decide what he can or
cannot grant in labor union negotia-
ton are limited to what this or some
future labor board may decide Is .
"counterproposal" or concession"
Disingenuous Advice.
When a member of Congress proposes
to amend the Wagner law on the basis
that, if collective bargaining means an
obligation to negotiate in good faith
such an obligation should apply equally
to the labor unions, the labor board
comes forth with this piece OF disin-
genuous advice to Congress:
I'm all candor we must express
doubt whether, in practice, such an
amendment would prove particularly
useful to the employers who urge 1t,
because it merely imposes upon labor
organizations the obligation to perform
the very function that they were cre-
ated to perform"
What the labor board fails te see Is
that its own decisions have been used
as means OF blackmalllng small en-
ployers into submission by union threats
to raise a question of refusal to bar
gain" and few employers can afford to
add to their expenses the costs OF iti-
eating matters before the labor board.
The law, Of course, should not impose
any obligation that could even remotely
be construed as compelling an agree
ment. What is needed is an amendment
prohibiting the labor board from COM
pelling either an employer or union
to be coerced into an agreement through
the use OF threats by either party to
bring charges of unfair labor prac-
tices" before the labor board once the
union has been recognized and negotia-
tions have begun.
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