The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-07-14
Trumun Has Chance To
Change NLRB This Year


A subcommittee of the House
Labor Committee made vain efforts
to reach agreement on a Taft
Hartley repeater that would be
more or less acceptable to the labor
movement. Despite the defeat pro-
union Legislators suffered in the
Senate some pro-union Congress
men, like Rep. Augustine Kelley
Cd, Pa.) and Rep. Andrew Jacobs
Cd, Ind.) want the House to make
another stab at writing a decent
labor law.
Democratic party leaders in
both Houses of Congress haven't
yet made up their minds whether
they should go along with Kelley
and Jacobs. They recognize the
force of the argument that one
house of Congress should carry out
the November 1948 mandate and
erase Taft Hartley, but many of
them believe that-in view of the
Senate action-the House can do
more for the people by acting on
other bills.
Regardless of the outcome of
the discussions among the Demo
cratic leaders it is clear that Taft
Hartley won't be repealed at this
session of Congress. Perhaps after
spending some time back home the
less resolute anti-union solons will
reconsider their recent votes, and
support a repeater next session.
But at the moment it looks like
Taft Hartley will be with US until
after the 1850 Congressional cleo
tions.
While organized labor's political
league quietly and effectively go
about their task of organizing the
defeat of the Taft Hartleyites, the
spotlight is swinging away from
Congress and back to the NLRB-
the agency which enforces TIL.
Most important problems of
Taft Hartley Interpretation have
already been answered by the
NLRB-but not all. And the bus
mess of applying overall legal
doctrines to particular cases isl
never a cut-and-dried affair.
The NLRB as it stands now is
heavily loaded against unions.
Principal union-hater in the en-
forcement set-up, of course, is Gen
eral Counsel Robert Denham. Fre
quently he has gotten so far out
on the limb in his anti-union cam
paigns that the board itself has un-
rejected his proposals.
But in a number of key cases
the board has divided three to two
against labor. The most consistent
defender, within the terms of the
law, of labor's rights has been John
M. Houston. Frequently Chairman
Paul Herzog has joined Houston in
from the union hamper
ing rulings of their colleagues. The
three pro-employer members of +
the board are Abe Murdock, one
time New Dealer who seems to
have gone sour, James j. Reynolds,
who was appointed as the repre-
of "enlightened manage
ment", but whose light seems to !.
have grown dim since he got the
job, and j. Copeland Gray, an out
and-out conservative.
Houston was just reappointed to
a four year term. Reynolds and
Murdock are in office until after
The 1850 elections-as is Denham.
Herzog's appointment expires next
year, and Gray's this year. II
Perhaps the most effective thing
that President Truman could do
his year to mitigate the ravages
IF the Taft Hartley law upon the
Unions would be to appoint an out
standing, impartial industrial rela-
lions expert to replace Gray on
he NLRB.
Gray, according to some union
awyers who've argued cases be-
fore the board, is the best of the
He is, they say, a
nan of real personal integrity, who ;
;ries to be fair in his judgements.
But he is a conservative legalist-
/ man whose invariable tendency {
S to give the most rigorous inter-
to the law-and the '
Taft Hartley law is harsh law. /
The NLRB today could be vastly I
by the substitution of t
nan whose principal concern is