NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

126 THIRD ANNUAL REPORT OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BdARD
of an employer which has the effect of defeating the freedom of
employees to carry on this function constitutes an unfair labor practice
under this section, irrespective of the means adopted by the
employer.
E. INVESTIGATION AND CERTIFICATION OF REPRESENTATIVES
Section 9 (c) of the act provides that—
Whenever a question affecting commerce arises concerning the representation
of employees, the Board may investigate such controversy and certify to the
parties, in writing, the name or names of the representatives that have been
designated or selected. In any such investigation, the Board shall provide
for an appropriate hearing upon due notice, either in conjunction with a proceeding
under section 10 or otherwise, and may take a secret ballot of employees,
or utilize any other suitable method to ascertain such representatives.
By virtue of section 9 (a) of the act, representatives designated
or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by a majority
of the employees in an appropriate unit are the exclusive representatives
of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective
bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or
other conditions of employment. For an employer to refuse to bargain
collectively with such representatives is, by virtue of section 8
(5), an unfair labor practice which the Board is empowered to
prevent.
The purpose of section 9 (c) is to give the Board the necessary
investigatory power to determine whether or not a majority of the
employees in an appropriate unit desire a particular representative
to bargain collectively for them. As stated in section 9 (c), this
investigatory power may be exercised in conjunction with a proceeding
under section 10 to determine whether an employer has committed
an unfair labor practice, but the proceeding: under section 9
(c) is separate and apart from proceedings involving unfair labor
practices. Thus a proceeding under section 9 (c) results merely in
a certification that a particular representative has been chosen by a
majority of the employees in an appropriate unit, if such in fact is
the case, and does not result in an order requiring the employer to
cease and desist from an unfair labor practice or to take any
affirmative action.
An investigation under section 9 (c) involves the determination of
many questions which also arise in proceedings involving unfair labor
practices. The question of what constitutes an appropriate unit and
the question of whether a majority of the employees in such unit have
designated and selected a representative for the purposes of collective
bargaining must be determined both in a proceeding under section
8 (5) and in a proceeding under 9 (c). These problems are therefore
treated separately." The problem of whether or not the question concerning
representation affects commerce is identical with the problem
of whether an unfair labor practice affects commerce, and is likewise
treated elsewhere.86
86 See sec. F, ch. VII : "Adequate proof of majority representation where no election is
held," and sec. G: "The unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining."
86 See ch. VIII.