Tom C. Clark

“ In April 1949 the Board petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for enforcement of its order. Respondent filed a motion for the taking of additional evidence, alleging that since the report of the Trial Examiner, 'during the year 1948,' it had 'entered into good faith bargaining with the Union,' but that an agreement had been prevented by the Union's 'arbitrary, capricious and intransigent attitude * * *.' A copy of a letter respondent had sent to the Board's Regional Director, shortly after the Trial Examiner's report, was attached to respondent's motion. ”

“ Unilateral wage increases and respondent's efforts to shunt the Union representatives from one company official to another in search of the final authority in wage and contract negotiations-these and other findings led the Examiner to conclude that 'an unmistakable effort to escape genuine collective bargaining' and demonstated. Further, the Examiner determined, there was no merit in the respondent's contention that the Union did not retain the membership of a majority of employees in the bargaining unit. ”

“ No candid student of the actual operation of certiorari can feel confident that the criteria professed for its exercise have been adequately respected. This Court is too frequently engaged in deciding cases which ought not to occupy the highest Court in the land, because they divert its energy from those matters to which it cannot give too much unburdened thought. And when comparison is made between the issues at stake in petitions that have been granted and those in which petitions have been denied, the contrast is at times glaring. ”

“ That the respondent doubts the Union's ability to muster a majority of the employees in the bargaining unit does not justify the denial of an enforcement decree. Explicit congressional policy stands in the way of permitting the employers to stall enforcement of the Board's orders on this ground. ”

“ If, barring only exceptional cases, they are to be deemed final courts of appeals, consciousness of such responsibility will elicit in them, assuming they are manned by judges fit for their tasks, the qualities appropriate for such responsibility. ”