Evening star., 1949-02-07
Flaw in Labor Policy
Laid 10 Biased Rulings
By Pro-Union NLRB
Employers Seen Fearing
Revival Of Precedents Set
By Bourd in Other Years
By David Laurence

prejudiced board or tribunal deal
ing with human rights and prop
erty rights.
There would not today be the
controversy over the provisions of
the Wagner Act or the Taft Hart
ley law if there had been impair
tiality and justice in the decisions
of the National Labor Relations
Board since it was organized in
1885.
Today. as Congress struggles
with the wording of a new law,
1t is evident that the distortions
and twisted interpretations and
technicalities introduced by a pro-
union majority on the labor board
are responsible for the distrust
which employers have and the
sensitiveneSS which rival labor
union organizations display with
respect to such matters as how
the board shall be constituted and
what powers it shall exercise.
Merely to re-enact the Wagner
law would not cause so much
alarm among employers if it did
not mean restoring to effective
ness all the one-sided decisions
which accumulated from 1885 to
1947 and which the board, under
any new law, would regard as sac
rosanct. .Ef.s
The labor board, with its preju-
dice in favor of labor unions,
has at times conceived it to be a
duty to construe collective bar
gaining as an objective that can
be fostered only if national unions
are favored as against independ-
ent unions or only if unions are
encouraged as against the unwill-
ingness of workers to join such
unions.
Instrument of Unionization.
Again and again the board ma
FORTY has, in effect, announced
itself as the instrumentality OF
unionization. Though the board
members are honest and con-
scientious, they regard peaceful
relations between an employer and
his workers as secondary If a
minority wish to impair such re-
lations by conniving with labor
board personnel to threaten the
use of the labor board unless
RECOGNITION of the minority is
granted.
The most recent example Of the
boards pro-union bias is to be
found in a case decided within the
past 80 days involving the issue,
of freedom of speech. For years
critics of the board have pointed
out that in the eyes Of that tri-
bunal the rights of workers super
sede the constitutional right OF
free speech by the employers. The
board members, in speeches and
decisions, have denied this. but
Congress has refused to accept
such protestations as In accord
with the facts and put into the
Taft-Hartley Act paragraph
specifically safeguarding the right
of free speech.
Repeal Of. this provision has
been recommended by President
Truman. with no substitute what
ever. The pro-union and anti-em-
ployer board, however, which has
been hostile to the Taft-Hartley
Act and began emasculat!ng its
provisions from the very begin
ming, has found a technical way
around the provision, as it does
whenever q phrase Of the law
could put any restraint on unions.
The board majority said Congress
meant freedom Of speech only
with respect to unfair labor
charges and did not mean that an
employer could speak to his en-
ployes in a representation case.
Such. narrow and technical
handling has been denounced by
the joint committee Of Congress
which has been studying the Taft
Hartley Act.
In a Wagner Act case that oc-
CURED in 1945 but which was not
disposed of until few weeks ago,
an employer tried to exercise his
rights under the Constitution to
speak to his employees who were
on the picket line. 1t is conceded
by both sides that he used no
threats and made no inducements
but simply urged the workers to
come back to work. The pro-
union majority of the board, how
ever, said this was an unfair labor
practice" because the employers
views were not addressed to the
whole union which had been rec
ognized as bargaining agent.
Denham. Was Examiner.
The trial examiner In the case,
Robert N. Denham-who is. now
general counsel to the present
Labor Board-recommen that
the charges Of an unfair labor
practice" be dismissed and point
ed out in his report that the en-
ployer was not making any special
offer to the few men on the picket
line but was addressing them in
the hope they would persuade their
fellow workers and the union to
bring the entire force back to
work.
The pro-union majority says an
employer can't speak that way
and cannot talk to pickets unless
he addresses the full union at the
same time. This reduces to an
absurdity the whole theory that
the board really cares about the
constitutional right of free speech.
The workers can cali nonunion
members by any epithets or names
OF an unprintable character and
the pro-union board. ignoring all
moral aspects. says this is free
speech. But if an employer dares
to use peaceful conversation with
his own workers who are out on
strike, this is an unfair labor
practice"