National Labor Relations Board

“ The National Labor Relations Board can greatly reduce the area of the no-man's-land by reasserting its jurisdiction and, where States have brought their labor laws into confromity with federal policy, by ceding jurisdiction under § 10 (a) . ”

“ The Task Force should invite the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, the National Mediation Board, and other executive agencies, boards, and commissions with responsibility for implementing laws concerning worker organizing and collective bargaining to consult, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, with the Task Force. ”

“ National labor policy has been built on the premise that by pooling their economic strength and acting through a labor organization freely chosen by the majority, the employees of an appropriate unit have the most effective means of bargaining for improvements in wages, hours, and working conditions. The policy therefore extinguishes the individual employee's power to order his own relations with his employer and creates a power vested in the chosen representative to act in the interests of all employees. ”

“ Employer action to bring about changes in wage scales without consultation and negotiation with the certified representative of its employees cannot, we think, logically or realistically, be distinguished from bargaining with individuals or minorities. The fact that the application to the War Labor Board was not the actual increase of wages but a necessary preliminary does not make unilateral action, accompanied by publication of the step taken to the employees, any the less objectionable. ”

“ Naturally the wishes of employees are a factor in a Board conclusion upon a unit. They are to be weighed with the similarity of working duties and conditions, the character of the various plants and the anticipated effectiveness of the unit in maintaining industrial peace through collective bargaining. It can hardly be said that the domination of a labor union by an employer is irrelevant to t e question of what unit is appropriate for the choice of labor representative but certainly it is a collateral matter in that investigation. It is only a fact to take into consideration. ”

“ This committee was vested with power to discuss and consider policy questions and other problems relating to administration of the duties of the National Labor Relations Board and the National War Labor Board. ”

“ The National Labor Relations Act, as originally passed and amendmed from time to time, is the work product of draftsmen skilled by long experience in labor affairs. These draftsmen thoroughly understood labor legislation terminology, especially the oft-used words 'restrain or coerce.' Sections 7 and 8 together bespeak a strong purpose of Congress to leave workers wholly free to determine in what concerted labor activities they will engage or decline to engage. ”

“ The Labor Act places upon the Board the responsibility of determining the appropriate group of employees for the bargaining unit. In accordance with this delegation of authority, the Board may decide that all employees of a single employer form the most suitable unit for the selection of collective bargaining representatives, or the Board may decide that the workers in any craft or plant or subdivision thereof are more appropriate. ”

“ The agreement provided that the company would recognize the shop committee as representing the employes for collective bargaining; that no employe should be discharged without a hearing before the shop committee and the management; that certain employes should be discharged and not rehired; that stipulated notice should be given of layoffs due to shortage of work; that new employes might join any labor organization they chose. It also covered wages and hours of work. ”

“ The National Labor Relations Act does not say that the employer and employees are bound to confer upon any subject which interests either of them; the specification of wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment defines a limited category of issues subject to compulsory bargaining. ”

“ In the spring of 1934 most of respondent's employes joined the Mechanics Educational Society of America (hereinafter called 'MESA') , an independent labor organization. The respondent manifested no opposition to their so doing, expressed its willingness that its men join any organization they chose, and readily met with a shop committee of the union to discuss grievances and working conditions. An agreement effecting an increase of wages, and affecting working conditions, was entered into between the respondent and the union. ”

“ To eliminate the causes of labor disputes and industrial strife, Congress thought it necessary to create a balance of forces in certain types of economic relationships. These do not embrace simply employment associations in which controversies could be limited to disputes over proper 'physical conduct in the performance of the service.' [27] On the contrary, Congress recognized those economic relationships cannot be fitted neatly into the containers designated 'employee' and 'employer' which an earlier law had shaped for different purposes. ”

“ The Union argues here that an employer's right to insist on an election in the absence of unfair labor practices should be more circumscribed, and a union's right to rely on cards correspondingly more expanded, than the Board would have us rule. ”

“ Hearings before the Subcommittee on Unemployment and the Impact of Automation of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. (1961) , on H.R. 7373, a 'Bill Relating to the Occupational Training, Development, and Use of the Manpower Resources of the Nation.' See statement in these latter hearings of then Secretary of Labor, Arthur Goldberg, at 3: 'Many achievements in attempting to overcome the difficulties created by radical technical change can and should be accomplished through collective bargaining and joint labor-management efforts. ”

“ Whatever view of the process may be taken, it is clear that determining fringe benefits under a collective bargaining agreement is no job for a computer. But it can be hardly more than that when the Labor Board makes its computations for insertion in the remedial order. ”

“ Employers have always been free to take reasonable measures which discourage a strike by pressuring the economic interests of employees, including the extreme measure of hiring permanent replacements, without having the Board inquire into the 'substantiality' of their business justifications. National Labor Relations Board v. ”

“ By its selection as bargaining representative, it has become the agent of all the employees, charged with the responsibility of representing their interests fairly and impartially. Otherwise, employees who are not members of a selected union at the time it is chosen by the majority would be left without adequate representation. No employee can be deprived of his employment because of his prior affiliation with any particular union. The Labor Relations Act was designed to wipe out such discrimination in industrial relations. ”

“ From the beginning the Board has recognized that a worker who has obtained equivalent employment is in a different position from one who has lost his job as well as his wages through an employer's unfair labor practice. In early decisions, the Board did not order reinstatement of workers who had secured such equivalent employment. ”