Court Opinion

ID: 9639475
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:19:39.642416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:18.591657
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice.
Bethlehem Steel Corporation and its iron and steel producing subsidiary Bethlehem Steel Company, here called petitioners, ask us to review and set aside1 an order of the National Labor Relations Board.2 Charges *644of unfair practices were filed with the Board by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (S.W.O.C.), a union affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.), and a complaint was issued. Hearings before a Trial Examiner occupied several months. The Examiner issued an intermediate report, to which petitioners filed exceptions, and the case was argued orally before the Board.
The Board dismissed a number of charges, including violence, discriminatory discharge, offering inducements not to join S.W.O.C., and conducting a “back-to-work” movement so as to interfere with employees in the exercise of their rights. But the Board found that petitioners had dominated, interfered with, and contributed support to ten labor organizations, called “Plans of Employees’ Representation,” located respectively at the Company’s Cambria, Lackawanna, Lebanon, Steelton, Maryland, Bethlehem, and Concentrator Plants, Rankin Works, Leetsdale Works No. 1 and Leetsdale Works No. 2, and had expressed to employees their animus against S.W.O. C.; that the Company petitioner had surreptitiously given money to the Mayor of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to insure continuance of his anti-union attitude and conduct, and that the Corporation petitioner must be held responsible therefor; that petitioners had employed detectives to obtain, by surveillance, information about union activities; and that by this conduct petitioners had interfered with, restrained, and coerced employees in the exercise of the rights, guaranteed by Section 7 of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, to form or join labor organizations and to engage in concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining, etc. The Board concluded as matter of law that by dominating, etc., the Plans, petitioners had engaged and were engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(2) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158(2), and that by interfering with, restraining and coercing their employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed by Section 7, petitioners had engaged, and were engaging in unfair labor practices within the meaning of Section 8(1) of the Act. The Board’s order directs petitioners and their officers, agents, successors and assigns to cease from dominating or interfering with, or contributing support to, the Plans of Employee Representation at the ten named plants; from interfering with the formation or administration o.f any other labor organization; from recognizing the Plans as representing employees; and from in any other manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act, to form or join labor organizations and to engage in concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. The order also requires petitioners to withdraw all recognition from the Plans and completely disestablish them as employee representatives for bargaining purposes, and to post notices of compliance.
In its answer to the petition, the Board asks enforcement of its order. Two of the Plans intervene in support of the petition. S.W.O.C. intervenes in support of the order. A petition of the Plan (now the Association of Employees) at the Maryland Plant, to set aside the order, is consolidated with these proceedings.
The Board’s ultimate findings, which are succinctly stated, rest on basic findings which occupy 100 pages of the record. These basic findings meet all tests except brevity, and their length does not invalidate them. We shall not undertake to summarize all of these basic findings. Some of them, together with some items of evidence, inferences, and comments, are to approximately the following effect:
(1) Petitioners created most of the Plans and issued their charters. In material respects, the charters are- nearly identical. In 1918, petitioners devised them, and distributed copies to employees at some of the plants together with an announcement that the Plan “is. to be established.” In the course of a few years the charters were put into operation by the Company, at its various plants. For years the Company recognized that the Plans were created by it, or by it and the Corporation, as a unilateral act. Thus a pamphlet entitled “Hints to Foremen in Meeting the New Employee,” which the Company distributed at some of the plants about 1920, instructed foremen to explain to new men that “the Company * * * has adopted the Plan of Employees’ Representation” and that it “is one of the most important policies of the Company.”
(2) Although majorities have voted in various Plan elections, it is not found, and there is no evidence, that a majority of the men in any of the plants have ever approved of the Plans, or have ever been giv*645en an opportunity to vote for or against them.3
(3) Petitioners have continued not merely to hold out the Plans as a part of Company policy but to facilitare and encourage voting in the Plans; to represent to employees that the Plans are beneficial to them; and to advise employees to support the Plans and not to join other unions— specifically, not to join the C.I.O. (S.W. O.C.). Up to 1937 the charters required the Company to pay all the expenses involved in the conduct of nominations and elections, and to pay Employees’ Representatives, for time spent in Plan meetings or in any Plan activities, at the rate they ordinarily received for their work.
(4) The charters of the Plans preclude independence and embody Company dominance. The Plans have no power to admit, exclude, expel, control or discipline members. All non-supervisory employees, whatever their characters, abilities, or sympathies, automatically become members as soon as they have worked for the Company for 60 days. The charters severely limit the power of the Plans to choose their own representatives. “Employees’ Representatives” must be (1) employees of the Company, (2) of at least one year’s standing, (3) working in the department which elects them, and (4) adult American citizens. However much Plan members may wish to select as their representative a good bargainer or administrator who does not meet all four of those requirements, the Plan charters prevent it. The charters authorize practically no action by the membership, other than voting for Employees’ Representatives. While the Employees’ Representatives meet as a “General Body” or “Committee of Representatives” snd choose committees, the charters also provide for Joint Committees composed of a group of Employees’ Representatives and a group of Management Representatives. The two groups have equal voting power in the joint Committees. There is a “Mianagemeut’s Special Representative”, who may be and sometimes is invited to attend meetings of the Employees’ Representatives. The charters provide for no meetings of members and set up no machinery for formulating demands or for controlling or instructing representatives. Meetings are not held in practice. The charters made no provision for the raising of funds, by dues or otherwise. Independent action in such circumstances is obviously impossible.
(5) Until 1935, the charters of the Plans could not be amended without the concurrence of Management Representatives in the Joint Committees on Rules. In 1935 and 1936, the charters were amended to permit further amendment by a two-thirds vote of the Employees’ Representatives; but with important exceptions. One exception is that no amendment which “might prevent the Plan from operating as a fair method of selecting representatives of the whole body of employees of the Company and as a fair method of collective bargaining” 4 can be made without the approval of the Joint Committee on Rules, in which the Company has half the voting power. Counsel for petitioners, and also counsel for the Association of Employees at the Maryland Plant, in identical language in their respective briefs, describe the exception which we have just quoted as being “in effect, a condition upon which the Company Petitioner will deal with the representatives of its employees in accordance with the procedure outlined.” In other words, the Company requires, as a condition of dealing with a Plan, (1) that the Plan shall continue to receive and retain as a member, regardless of his conduct, principles, or views, every non-supervisory employee whom the Company sees fit to employ, and (2) that the Company shall have a voice in determining the fairness of any desired changes in the method of choosing Pían representatives or of Pian bargaining. This insures the permanence of a large degree of control by petitioners over the subjects of Plan membership, choice of representatives, and bargaining methods. Obviously no labor organization is independent when management shares control over such matters.
In 1937, the Management’s Special Representatives at various plants sent identical letters to Plan officers in response to *646inquiries regarding the effect of National Labor Relations Board, v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation.5 These letters called attention to the necessity, under the Act, of limiting the Company’s financial support of the Plans, and assured the Plan officers that no other changes in the charters were necessary. In the course of 1937, accordingly, substantially identical amendments were made in the charters, but the Company continues to pay Employees’ Representatives for time spent in conference with Management Representatives6 during working hours. At the Cambria plant it pays them for the time (within working hours) during which a Management Representative is present at meetings of the General Body of Employees' Representatives. It thereby pays them, in effect, to have him present at their meetings. There is no evidence that a different practice is followed at the other plants. Apart from the amendment clauses and the financial support clauses, the charters, at the time of the hearing, retained substantially their original form. The amendments could not erase from the minds of the employees the well-known and long-continued Company encouragement and approval of the Plans.
Testimony was taken and findings were made with regard to the practical operation of the Cambria Plan. It was stipulated that the other Plans operated in all material respects substantially in accordance with their respective provisions.
(6) The Company employed Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, Inc., for the purpose, among others, of obtaining through labor spies information regarding union activity and organization. The Agency was first employed before 1936. It was reengaged in June, 1936, following the formation of S.W.O.C., and was employed until some time in 1937; for the purposes among others, according to the evidence, of informing the Company on “the activities of various men who are trying to annoy and disturb their employees,” on “the arrival and activities of-radicals and outside disturbers,” and on what was going on in the vicinity of the plants, including the activities of the C.I.O.; also of protecting plants and employees from violence by “outside communists, labor racketeers,” defined as “people that get control of legitimate labor organizations and shake down the employer and the employee too.” The Board found, despite the denial of a Pinkerton officer, that these descriptions included within their scope the activities of the union organization. Pinkerton “operatives” and “correspondents,” several of whom were members of one union or another, proceeded to inform the Agency on union sentiment and activity among the Company’s employees. Petitioners concede that the Company obtained from the agency frequent oral reports in which the progress or lack of progress of the S.W.Q. C. was discussed.
(7) During a strike at the Cambria (Johnstown) plant in 1937, the Mayor of Johnstown made a speech in which he referred to the fact that violence had broken out and promised to suppress it. He also spoke in hostile terms of the “dictation of outsiders” and sharply criticised strike leaders. Evans, Management’s Special Representative at the Cambria plant, through intermediaries, afterwards turned over several thousand dollars to the Mayor; and Ellicott, General Manager of the plant, turned over several thousand dollars directly to the Mayor. The money was not paid by check, but in cash. The Board did not find, and it does not clearly appear, what the Mayor did with the money. It is not found or shown that he applied it to the purposes of a “Citizens’ Committee.” The Board found that the Company’s payments to the Mayor were calculated to insure the continuance of his hostility to S.W.O.C. and so to deprive the union of an impartial city administration. It also found that the Company promised money to a “Citizens’ Committee” which, in the name of law and order, sought to break the strike.
I.
 Section 8(2) of the Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it.”7 Thus support, to be prohibited, need not take financial forms. It is clear that the Company dominated, interfered with, and supported the Plans. The Board’s other findings to which we have referred are supported by substantial evi*647dence. Its conclusions of law follow. Board orders disestablishing similarly dominated unions have repeatedly been upheld by the Supreme Court.8 A Board order disestablishing similarly dominated Plans in other plants of the Company has been upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit;9 and the Company’s petition for certiorari has been dismissed on its own motion.10
The employment of labor spies to report on the growth of a new union, in a context of support of a company union and interference with independent organization, is a part of that support and interference.11 It need not be shown that specific use was made of the spies’ information, or that the employees knew they were being watched. But many employees must have known it prior to the Board’s hearing, for testimony before the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, early in 1937, made public the Company’s employment of Pinkerton’s.
II.
Petitioners attack the breadth of the order. Having found that they had dominated, interfered with, and contributed support to the Plans, had expressed to the men their animus against S.W.O.C., and had interfered with, restrained, and coerced the Company’s employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the Act, the Board ordered petitioners to cease from dominating, interfering with, or contributing support to either the Plans or “any other labor organization,” and to cease from “in any other manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing the employees in the exercise of their rights to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing,” etc., as guaranteed by Section 7. The order is in substantially the language of Sections 7, 8(1) and 8(2), the subdivisions which petitioners are found to have violated. Violation of Sections 8(3), 8(4) and 8(5) is neither found nor forbidden. The act would be ineffectual if each new example of interference, domination, etc., required a new hearing and a new order. Under the Railway Labor Act, a similar statutory purpose12 was enforced by a similar order, which the Supreme Court upheld over the protest of the employer.13 Accordingly, Labor Board orders in the form used here have repeatedly been enforced by the Supreme Court.14
National Labor Relations Board v. Express Publishing Co.15 does not overrule *648those cases.16 The Court there held that a 'mere refusal to bargain with representatives of employees, in violation of Section 8(5) of the Act, though it might constitute a technical interference with collective bargaining in violation of Section 8(1), did not justify an order forbidding an entirely different type of unfair labor practice which the employer had not committed or threatened, viz., interference with the right to form or join unions, etc., guranteed by Section 7. There was no evidence of such ’ interference, or of union domination. The Court held that the Board’s order must be limited to unlawful acts of the “same type or class” as the acts which the employer had committed. The Court expressly recognized that “Having found the acts which constitute the unfair labor practice the Board is free to restrain the practice and other like or related unlawful acts * * * the purpose being to prevent violations, the threat of which in the future is indicated because of their similarity or relation to those unlawful acts which the Board has found to have been committed by the employer in the past.” That is what the Board has done here.
Petitioners contend that a part of the Board’s order by its terms would extend to every plant and works of the Company throughout the United States, and is therefore invalid. As we understand the order, its effect is limited to the ten named plants.17 We express no opinion on the question whether it might not properly have been extended to the Company’s other plants.
III.
The Corporation petitioner, which operates no physical properties, contends that the Board’s order is, at all events, invalid as to it. Though the Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Corporation, and to a large extent both have the same officers, the Corporation’s responsibility does not turn on those facts. Section 2(2) of the Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(2), defines “employer” as including “any person acting in the interest of an employer. * * * ” The Board found that the Corporation, as well as the Company, had dominated, interfered with, and contributed support to the Plans, and had expressed to the Company’s employees an animus against the S.W.O.C. These findings are supported by substantial evidence. Labor relations of the Corporation’s subsidiaries have long been subject to a uniform policy emanating from it. Support of the Plans, with opposition to other unions, has been the essence of this policy. In 1918, when the Plans were new, a pamphlet distributed to employees of the Company was entitled “Representation of Employees in Plants of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.” On the inside of the cover was a chart entitled: “Chart Illustrative of Representation of Employees of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Subsidiary Companies.” When McClintic-Marshall, now merged in the Company petitioner, first became a subsidiary of the Corporation petitioner in 1931, the subsidiary’s president distributed to its employees a leaflet containing a facsimile of a letter to him from E. G. Grace, the president of the Corporation petitioner, as such. This letter said: “I desire to call to your attention certain advantages now available to your organization as a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Bethlehem, over a period of years, has developed a program of industrial relations embracing many plans for the économic betterment of the employee. Among these are plans that provide a common meeting ground for the adjustment of questions affecting the employee’s work. * * * It is a pleasure to extend * * * the * * * privileges to the McClintic-Marshall organization, on the same basis as now enjoyed by other members of the Bethlehem family.” Accordingly, McClintic-Marshall’s President said to its employees: “New advantages in working conditions and financial protection are now available to the employees of the McClintic-Marshall Corporation, as communicated to our organization by a letter from Eugene G. Grace, President of Bethlehem Steel Corporation. As a subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, McClinticMarshall employees are entitled to a series of benefits which have been developed suc*649cessfully in other companies of the Bethlehem family over a period of years. These privileges include: Plan of Employees Representation * * * Relief Plan * * * The Corporation will assume the entire cost of administration * * * Pension Plan financed entirely by the Corporation * * * Saving and Stock Ownership Plan.”
The Corporation petitioner, in its Bethlehem Review, which carries the subtitle “A Bulletin of News for the Employees of the Subsidiary Companies of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation”, has repeatedly represented to those employees that the Plans are a part of the Corporation’s policy. The first issue of the Review, in April, 1924, begins with the statement, over the signature “E. G. Grace, President,” that “The officers of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and its Subsidiary Companies have long felt the need of some means of direct communication with their employees by which facts of general interest could be brought to the attention of everyone in the Corporation.” The Corporation’s Bethlehem Review for September 25, 1933, states: “Fifteen years ago Bethlehem started its Emplees’ Representation Plan. Today the Plan is in effect in the various operating units in steel manufacturing, ship building, mining, and McClintic-Marshall.”
A booklet entitled “Ten Years’ Progress in Human Relations — A Review of Some Accomplishments under the Bethlehem Plan of Employee Representation” was, according to its title page, “Distributed at 1928 annual joint conferences of employee representatives and management representatives of Bethlehem Steel Corporation.” This same booklet contains a heading “Employment Policy” followed by “This is the policy of Bethlehem Steel Corporation.”
Although the Corporation’s conduct pri- or to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act obviously could not violate the Act, that conduct goes to show that intervention in the management, and specifically in the labor relations, of the Corporation’s subsidiaries was an established Corporation practice. The Act was passed on July 5, 1935. On July 3, 1936, the Bethlehem Review printed a letter from Grace, as president of the Corporation, to the employees of the Corporation’s subsidiaries, which said: “ * * * Anything that disturbs our present condition will imperil the interests of all. Undoubtedly you have seen that professional labor leaders have publicly announced a campaign to unionize the employees of the steel industry. * * * We believe that no worker should be required to pay tribute to anyone or to any organization for the right to work. * * * The industry issued through the American Iron and Steel Institute the statement reprinted in this number of the Review. Our management firmly believes in the views expressed in that statement. They express the policies which have controlled our dealings and relationships for many years. The effectiveness of your existing Representation Plans, for the proper settlement of all questions arising between any of you and the management throughout 17 years of uninterrupted operation has been outstanding, and the results speak for themselves. * * * We will assist you in every way to continue the present proven method of dealing with our mutual problems.” The Institute statement which the Corporation’s president, on behalf of its management, thus adopted and commended to the employees of the Company, included the following language: “The overwhelming majority of the employees in the Steel Industry recently participated in annual elections under their own representation plans and elected their representatives for collective bargaining. The elections were conducted by the employees themselves by secret ballot. One of the purposes of the announced campaign is to overthrow those plans and the representatives so elected. The Steel Industry is recovering from six years of depression and huge losses, and the employees are now beginning to receive the benefits of increased operations. Any interruption of the forward movement will seriously injure the employees and their families and all businesses dependent upon the Industry, and will endanger the welfare of the country. The announced drive, with its accompanying agitation for industrial strife, threatens such interruption.” In the Review lor March, 1937, Grace, as president of the Corporation, said to the employees of the subsidiaries :18 “The Employees’ Rep*650resentation Plans which were established in our plants nearly twenty years ago continue to operate with ever-increasing effectiveness.” In the Review for January 15, 1938, Grace, again as president of the Corporation, said to the employees of the subsidiaries : “As you know, we take great pride, and justly I feel, in the fact that nearly 20 years ago we accepted the principle of collective bargaining which is much discussed today. In the application of that principle during those years we have dealt with you through the Representatives whom you have elected under your Plans of Employees’ Representation on all questions having to do with wages, hours and working conditions. For the last several months that long-established method of dealing with you has been the subject of hearings before the National Labor Relations Board. The Company is defending itself, and at considerable expense, against what we believe to be an unfounded charge, made by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, that the Company is dominating your collective bargaining Plans. It is regrettable that your Plans are being put to like expense in defending at those hearings their independence and the type of collective bargaining which has been in effect under them for many years.”
In short, the Corporation, over a long period, actively supported the Plans and actively opposed efforts of the men to join other labor organizations. It thereby made the Company’s domination, interference, restraint, etc., its own. From 1935 to the time of the hearing, the Corporation was a persistent violator of Sections 8(1) and .'8(2) of the Act. It follows that the Board’s order directing it to refrain from similar violations was valid. Petitioners apparently concede that the Corporation pays the ■entire cost of a Pension Plan, and the entire administrative expense of a Relief 'Plan, for the employees.of its subsidiaries; also that a Vacation Plan and a Savings and Stock Ownership Plan, as well as the Plans of Employees’ Representation, have been put into effect in all the subsidiaries19. In our opinion the evidence of the Corporation’s habitual intervention in the Company’s labor relations justified the Board in finding that the Corporation was responsible for the Company’s dealings with the Pinkertons and the Mayor of Johns-town; but the order is valid irrespective of that finding.
In Gannett Company, Inc., v. National Labor Relations Board, Dec. 9, 1940, - App.D.C. -, 118 F.2d 937, on which the Corporation relies, this court held that there was no evidence that the holding corporation had affirmatively participated in the unfair practices of its subsidiary; the record indicated that it had merely failed “to assert its corrective powers after the event.” The contrast with the facts here is obvious. Here, as in National Labor Relations Board v. Lund, 8 Cir., 103 F.2d 815, which we distinguished in the Gannett case, the sole stockholder (in this case the Corporation) personally interfered with unionization. Because it interfered, the stockholder is an “employer” within the definition in the Act and subject to the Board’s order.20
IV.
The order is directed not only against petitioners but also against their officers, agents, successors, and assigns. Petitioners object to the inclusion of “successors and assigns.” The Supreme Court has repeatedly enforced orders of the Board which include that term.21 “ * * * The strife which is sought to be averted is no less an object of legislative solicitude when contract, death, or operation of law brings about change tof ownership in the employing agency.”22 An *651employer cannot be permitted, by reorganization or transfer, to nullify the Board’s order and make it necessary to start new proceedings against the new owner of the business.23 The order, of course, is not intended, and will not be interpreted, to bind persons who have no notice of it, or who have not acted in concert with petitioners.24
V.
 Petitioners contend that they did not have a fair hearing, largely on the ground that Trial Examiner Bloom was biased and prejudiced. As an example of bias, they complain that their applications for subpoenas directed to one McDonald, an S.W.O.C. officer, were denied. They wished to question him regarding the dates, scope, duration and terms of the agreements entered into since January 1, 1937, between S.W.O.C. and the United States Steel Corporation or any of its subsidiaries. They also sought to require him to produce the documents themselves. Later, Board counsel supplied petitioners’ counsel with the documents, petitioners’ counsel accepted them and offered them in evidence, and the Examiner excluded them. As the Board found, these agreements were irrelevant; the United State.s Steel Corporation, its subsidiaries, S.W.O.C., and the agreements were not on trial. A hearing is not made unfair by a refusal to summon a witness in order that he may be asked irrelevant questions.25 Though the Board did not apply to its own attorneys its rule that applications for subpoenas must specify the nature of the facts to be proved, no unfairness to petitioners is shown to have resulted. The Board’s supervisory power over its own agents enables it, irrespective of such a rule, to prevent obstructive tactics on their part.
Petitioners say that the Trial Examiner badgered their witnesses and subjected them to sharp cross examination. The record docs not sustain this charge. We quote in full one example of what petitioners describe as sharp cross examination:
“Q. (By Trial Examiner Bloom) I think you have told us in general the conditions after that Saturday when the mills were closed. Were you reasonably familiar with the general conditions the following week, say beginning with that Saturday and going until the following week? A. Perhaps fairly so.
“Q. When were the mills reopened? A. That I don’t remember, now, wait a minute, I can place it approximately, but I can’t place it exactly.
“Q. If you— A. The newspaper ad. appeared Thursday.
“Q. You mean the Thursday— A. The ‘We protest’ ad.
“Q. You mean the Thursday following the closing of the mills? A. I think that is it, I would have to refer—
“Q. I am assuming that it was Thursday. . A. Yes.
“Q. I mean, assuming that was Thursday; with that in mind, when did the mills reopen? A. Perhaps it was late Thursday, perhaps it was Friday, I would not, I can’t, maybe it was Saturday, I can’t just tell.
“Q. How were things in Johnstown during that period, from the time of the closing of the mills to the time of the reopening of the mills? A. All right.”
The foregoing colloquy, of which petitioners complain, was immediately followed by this:
“Trial Examiner Bloom: That is all, thank you. Anything further ?
“Mr. Shawe: Nothing further.
“Mr. Moore [of petitioners’ counsel]: No.
“Trial Examiner Bloom: All right, thank you very much. You are excused.”
Petitioners object particularly to the “cross examination” of the witness Williams. The part of the record of which they complain includes this colloquy be*652tween the Examiner, the witness, and Mr. Broun of petitioners’ counsel:
“Trial Examiner Bloom: What were the circumstances under which you saw the minutes, please?
“The Witness: I sat right on the other side of the secretary when he was writing them.
“Trial Examiner Bloom: I see.
“Mr. Broun: Mr. Examiner, I would like to have you develop the matter, I didn’t know that Mr. Williams was present at the meeting.
“Trial Examiner Bloom: Well, it states right here at the top.
“Mr. Broun: I didn’t look at the minutes, as a matter of fact, I would be glad to develop it myself or have you go ahead.
“Trial Examiner Bloom: As long as I started I might as well finish it, there are just a few points.
" “Mr. Broun: Very well, sir.”
Some other questioning by the Examiner, to which petitioners now object, was likewise undertaken and carried on with the approval of petitioners’ counsel.
Petitioners complain of such questions and remarks as “Why did you care if the men voted or not?”; “What particular affair was it of yours?” “This man is secretary of the Plan and doesn’t even know who kept the minutes of the Plan”; “He couldn’t possibly know that accurately.” They complain that after the decision in the Greyhound case, the Examiner expressed the view that time and expense might be saved by discovering whether or not the Bethlehem Plan and the Greyhound Plan were substantially identical. He did not assume to decide the question.25a When the Examiner rejected questions asked by counsel for petitioners, and framed substitutes, petitioners urge this as showing the Examiner’s bias against them. But when the Examiner rejected questions asked by counsel for the Board, and framed substitutes, petitioners urge this also as showing his bias against petitioners. We are then told that “he associated himself with the attorney for the Board in the prosecution of the Board’s case * * * taking over the cross examination on behalf of the attorney for the Board when the latter found himself in difficulty.” Petitioners make other comparable complaints. It is the function of an examiner, just as it is the recognized function of a trial judge, to see that facts are clearly and fully developed. He is not required to sit idly by and permit a confused or meaningless record to be made. If the spirit and conduct of the Examiner throughout this case were reversible error, few administrative and few judicial proceedings could withstand attack. The alleged manifestations of feeling on the part of the Examiner, which petitioners have culled from a record of 11,000 pages, are mild indeed.25b They did petitioners no harm; for undisputed testimony, adduced with unquestioned propriety, conclusively proved the Board’s case. There is no suggestion that the Examiner committed any gross breach of decorum. The mere existence and reflection of feeling in the course of a trial25c does not disqualify a presiding officer or call for reversal.25d It does not constitute “bias and prejudice.” Petitioners’ charge of bias and prejudice is without foundation.
It is also an afterthought. If petitioners had thought the Examiner biased or prejudiced they should, and doubt*653less would, have said so and demanded that the Board appoint a different examiner. They raised no such contention during the hearing, although they promptly appealed to the Board from the Examiner’s refusal of the subpoenas referred to above. By raising the contention later they make, in effect, an unwarranted charge of negligence against their trial counsel.
Petitioners complain of the extent to which the Board availed itself of the services of subordinates in the process of considering the case and reaching a conclusion. The petition alleges that the Board “did not judicially consider, weigh or appraise the evidence” in making its decision, but relied upon conclusions of fact and law made by subordinates, and that petitioners were given no opportunity to inspect or argue against these conclusions. The Board’s answer neither admits nor denies these allegations, on the ground that they are irrelevant and beyond the scope of judicial inquiry.26 Petitioners’ contention was presented in the same way, and rejected, in Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Limited, v. National Labor Relations Board.27 There are other cases to like effect.28 The Act requires only a hearing, before the Board or an agent designated by the Board, and findings by the Board which are supported by evidence. It is not the function of a court to “probe the mental processes” of an administrative officer “in reaching his conclusions if he gave the hearing which the law required.” 29
VI.
Petitioners have moved30 for leave to adduce, as additional evidence, items excluded by the Examiner and the Board, (a) The S.W.O.C. agreements with the United States Steel Corporation and its subsidiaries we have dealt with above, in connection with the Examiner’s refusal to issue certain subpoenas, (b) Petitioners sought to ask the Employees’ Representatives at the Cambria Plant a series of about 150 questions, designed to elicit whether the witnesses were conscious of being (or, as petitioners put it, were) influenced, restrained, interfered with, coerced, or dominated by petitioners. It was stipulated between counsel and the Examiner that the witnesses would have answered in the negative. Since the organization, structure, and Company support of the Plans ensure Company dominance and violate the Act, this testimony would have been irrelevant, (c) Petitioners object to the following ruling of the Examiner, which we quote from the record, with reference to the Cambria strike: “Certain testimony was adduced by the Board to the general effect that no violence occurred during the strike, that no disorders took place on the picket lines, that no stones were thrown. It is apparent from the testimony of some twenty-five witnesses produced by the Respondents [the present petitioners] that the testimony offered by the Board does not accurately reflect the facts. I find as a fact that violence did occur during the strike, that there was disorder, that stones were thrown on the picket lines. The Board, on this state of the record cannot find as a fact that there was no violence, no disorder during the strike. In my opinion it would be a needless waste of time, considerable expense to all persons concerned, and for no useful purpose, to have further testimony concerning the fact that violence occurred during the strike, and I accordingly bar further testimony along such line.” The Board, in turn, found “that the existence of violence and the apprehension of violence induced by newspaper reports of violence in strikes at other steel plants were two of the factors leading to the *654formation of the Citizens’ Committee” at Johnstown. It is not clear that violence in the strike was relevant. Even if it was relevant, the Examiner’s refusal to admit cumulative testimony was within his discretion and did not injure petitioners.- (d) Petitioners sought to ask members of the Citizens’ Committee, and the manager and assistant manager of the Cambria plant, a series of questions calling for their conclusions as to whether the Citizens’ Committee was connected with the Company, or acted at the behest or for the benefit of the Company, or had any business transactions or connections with the Company, other than financial contributions from it. It is not clear that the evidence was relevant. In any case, its exclusion did not injure petitioners, for the Board expressly refused to find that petitioners induced or participated in the formation of tire Citizens’ Committee. We find no prejudicial error in any of the Examiner’s rulings. No procedural incident in the entire case had any conceivable effect upon the result of the case. The motion for leave to adduce additional evidence is denied.
We have considered the other contentions of the petitioners, but it is not necessary to discuss them. The proceedings were conducted with careful regard for fairness and the law. Petitioners’ defiance of the law as stated in the Wagner Act and plain decisions of the Supreme Court was clearly shown. The Board’s order provides the only lawful remedy and will be enforced.
So ordered.

 Under Section 10(f) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 455, U.S.C. Tit. 29, Section 160(f), 29 U.S.O.A. § 160 (f).

 14 N.L.R.B. 539.

 “Their only cheleo is to vote or not to vote, under the Plan. If they do not vote, representatives will be chosen by those who do, and these representatives will bo recognized by tlie company as the sole bargaining agents for the employees.” Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.,
Limited, et al. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1 Cir., 114 F.2d 930, 938.
At Midvale (now Cambria), Bethlehem, and perhaps some of the other plants, elected representatives of the employees approved the charters.

 Italics supplied.

 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct 615, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352.

 The Act does not forbid such payments. U.S.O. Tit. 29, Sec. 158(2), 29 U.S.O.A. § 158(2).

 U.S.C. Tit. 29, Section 158(2), 29 U.S.C.A; § 158(2). Italics supplied.

 National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 303 U.S. 261, 58 S.Ct. 571, 82 L.Ed. 831, 115 A.L.R. 307; National Labor Relations Board v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, 308 U.S. 241, 60 5. Ct. 203, 84 L.Ed. 219; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., Jan. 6, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. —; H. J. Heinz Company v. National Labor Relations Board, Jan. 6, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 320, 85 L.Ed. —; Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, March 10, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 736, 85 L.Ed.-, affirming, 2 Cir., 112 F.2d 657.

 Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Limited, et al. v. National Labor Relations Board, 1 Cir., 114 F.2d 980.

 Jan. 13, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 448, 85 L.Ed.

 Consolidated Edison Company v. National Labor Relations Board, 305 U.S. 197, 231, 59 S.Ct. 206, 83 L.Ed. 126; National Labor Relations Board v. Fan-steel Metallurgical Corp., 306 U.S. 240, 251, 59 S.Ct. 490, 83 L.Ed. 627, 123 A.L.R. 599; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Co., Jan. 6, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed.— .

 National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 303 U.S. 261, 266, 58 S.Ct. 571, 82 L.Ed. 831, 115 A.L.R. 307.

 Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway & S. S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 552, 571, 50 S.Ct. 427, 74 L.Ed. 1034; cf. Id., 5 Cir., 33 F.2d 13, 15.

 “The Board’s order properly requires respondent to desist from interfering in any manner with its employees, in the exercise of their right to self-organization and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.” National Labor Relations Board v. Fansteel Metallurgical Corp., 806 U.S. 240, 262, 59 S.Ct. 490, 499, 83 L.Ed. 627, 123 A.L.R. 599; Board’s Order, 5 N.L.R.B. 930, 952. Consolidated Edison Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 805 U.S. 197, 231, 59 S.Ct. 206, 83 L.Ed. 126; National Labor Relations Board v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 308 U.S. 241, 60 S.Ct. 203, 84 L.Ed. 219; Board’s Order, 8 N.L.R.B. 866, 877; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Company, Jan. 6, 1941, 61 S. Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. —; Board’s Order, 12 N.L.R.B. 854, 883.

 March 3, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 693, 85 L.Ed. —.

 Since the decision in the Express case, the Court has enforced an order as broad, based on findings as narrow, as those now before us. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, March 10, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 736, 85 L.Ed. —, affirming, 2 Cir., 112 F.2d 657; Board’s order, 18 N.L.R.B. No. 46. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Reed & Prince Manufacturing Co., 1 Cir., April 2, 1941, 118 F.2d 874.

 Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. American Oil Co., Inc. (Curtis Bay Plant), 4 Cir., 114 F.2d 1009.

 The snbiitle of this number of the Bethlehem Review was “A bulletin of News for the Employees of Bethlehem Steel Corporation.” Since the Corporation is a holding company which operates no physical properties, the employees of the subsidiaries, including the Company petitioner, were obviously the persons intended.

 In Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Ltd., v. National Labor Relations Board, 1 Cir., 114 F.2d 930, it was found that the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, another wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, had used a Plan substantially identical with the Plans here involved.

 Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Pennsylvania Greyhound Lines, Inc., 303 U.S. 261, 58 S.Ct. 571, 82 L.Ed. 831, 115 A.L.R. 307; Consolidated Edison sCompany v. National Labor Relations Board, 305 U.S. 197, 59 S.Ct. 206, 83 L.Ed. 126.

 e.g. National Labor Relations Board v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 308 U.S. 241, 60 S.Ct. 203, 84 L.Ed. 219, enforcing 8 N.L.R.B. 866, 877; National Labor Relations Board v. Link-Belt Company, Jan. 6, 1941, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. —, enforcing 12 N.L.R.B. 854, 883. Cf. National Labor Relations Board v. Hopwood Retinning Co., Inc., 2 Cir., 104 F.2d 302, 303.

 National Labor Relations Board v. Colten, 6 Cir., 105 F.2d 179, 183.

 Cf. Federal Trade Comm. v. Standard Education Society, 802 U.S. 112, 119, 58 S.Ct. 113, 82 L.Ed. 141. In Scott v. Donald, 165 U.S. 107, 110, 17 S.Ct. 262, 41 L.Ed. 648, and Chase National Bank v. City of Norwalk, 291 U.S. 431, 434, 54 S.Ct. 475, 78 L.Ed. 894, to which petitioners refer, the reversed decrees enjoined persons who were in no sort of privity with the parties to the suit.

 Cf. 38 Stat. 738, U.S.C. Tit. 28, Section 383, 28 U.S.C.A. § 383.

 Cf. North Whittier Heights Citrus Ass’n v. National Labor Relations Board, 9 Cir., 109 F.2d 76, 83, certiorari denied 330 U.S. 632, 60 S.Ct. 1075, 84 L.Ed. 1402; National Labor Relations Board v. Ed. Friedrich, Inc., 5 Cir., 116 F.2d 888, 889; contra, Inland Steel Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 7 Cir., 109 F.2d 9, 18-20.

 This is made clear, we think, by the colloquy quoted iu note 3 of the dissenting opinion herein.

 Men seldom conduct themselves throughout a long and provocative hearing with so close an approximation to uniform fairness and good temper. In the course of the colloquy mentioned in the preceding note, for example, petitioners’ counsel said: “It is a most disgraceful thing that an Examiner will allow stuff such as this.” The Examiner’s reply was: “Mr. Moore, since you think it is outrageous for me to allow things like that, I am going to ask you specifically, have you read the Greyhound opinion of the United States Supreme Court?”

 Even “highly improper” statements by counsel for the government in the course of a long trial are not necessarily prejudicial, or reversible when “reversal would not promote the ends of justice.” United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 239, 240, 60 S.Ct. 811, 84 L.Ed. 1129.

 “Judges cannot be forbidden to feel sympathy or aversion for one party or the other. Mild expressions of feeling are as hard to avoid as the feeling itself.” Whitaker v. McLean, — App.D.C. —, 118 F.2d 596.
“The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men, do not turn aside in their course, and pass the judges by.” Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 168.

 The Board does, however, deny paragraphs 14 and 20 of the petition, which allege that the Board did not itself consider all the evidence, did not itself make the purported findings of fact, and did not act in a judicial or quasijudicial manner.

 1 Cir., 114 F.2d 930, 942.

 Cupples Company Manufacturers v. National Labor Relations Board, 8 Cir., 103 F.2d 953, 957, 958, where the court said; “The allegations of the petition here do not go beyond showing a proper reliance by the members of the Board on administrative assistance”; National Labor Relations Board v. Botany Worsted Mills, Inc., 3 Cir., 106 F.2d 263, 265, 266; National Labor Relations Board v. Biles Coleman Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 98 F.2d 16; Inland Steel Co. v. National Labor Belations Board, 7 Cir., 105 F.2d 246, 251, 252; National Labor Relations Board v. Lane Cotton Mills Co., 5 Cir., 108 F.2d 568.
The petition for certiorari in Louisville Befining Co. v. National Labor Belations Board, which the Supreme Court denied, 308 U.S. 568, 60 S.Ct. 81, 84 L, Ed. 477, urged a similar contention.

 Morgan v. United States, 304 U.S. 1, 18, 58 S.Ct 773, 999, 82 L.Ed. 1129.

 Under Section 10(e) of the National Labor Belations Act, U.S.C. Tit. 29, Section 160(e), 29 U.S.O.A. § 160(e).