NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

XI. DIVISION OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 247
nature of its industry, may substantially affect interstate commerce
because of the character of industries or enterprises which lean
heavily upon it for its services. In the fiscal year, examples of this
kind of relation to interstate commerce appeared in the work of the
Division in public utility cases. In a number of these cases the Division
was able to show the extent to which electric power created by
the respondents, although sold locally, was consumed by plants, railways,
and other enterprises engaged in interstate commerce or in the
manufacture of commodities for an interstate market. Cessation of
the production of power in these cases, by a strike or lockout in the
respondents' plants, might be as effective in suspending or curtailing
the operation of their industrial and commercial consumers as if the
latter had been affected directly.
Although the question of interstate commerce was the chief jurisdictional
problem which engaged the Division's attention, it was not
the only one. The Division also made reports on such questions as
whether employees engaged in the packing and processing of fruits
and vegetables were agricultural laborers, and whether workers on a
railroad owned by a mining company and used exclusively in its
operations, were within the scope of the Act.
Labor relations problems.—In addition to jurisdictional questions,
there were a number of problems of policy and interpretation of the
Act involving questions of labor relations, toward the determination
of which the Division was requested to make studies and reports.
Among these was the question of whether there is a failure to bargain
collectively in good faith, when an employer, after negotiating
terms of employment with a labor organization, refuses to embody
them in a written signed agreement. It was 'found that the signing
of a written agreement after the mutual acceptance of terms was the
normal procedure wherever collective bargaining was a well-established
course. A study of the nature of modern agreements and of the
scope and detail of their provisions indicated the limited use and general
impracticability of oral agreements. The data gathered on the
processes of collective bargaining indicated also that long-term industrial
peace through collective bargaining and responsible performance
by labor of its side of the bargain, required a functioning labor
organization, recognized by the employer as labor's representative by
joining with it in the signing of a written agreement.
Subsequently, a somewhat similar issue was raised by other respondents.
It was contended that the employer's unilateral announcement
of policy based on terms reached as a result of conferences with
the union, was an acceptable substitute for a signed agreement. This
issue was treated by the Division in the same manner as the first.
Exhibits and oral testimony based upon the Division's research
showed that the unilateral announcement was a common device of
anti-union employers to avoid giving credit to a union for its part in
the improvement of working conditions, thus detracting from its
standing with the employees, as well as to avoid the binding effect
of a written agreement.
In other cases there was involved a new type of labor organization
developed since the Janes & Laughlin decision, and popularly termed
the "independent union." It was alleged that this organization, in
spite of its name and of a number of new features that distinguished
it from the traditional "company union," was dominated by the em-