1943 - National Labor Relations Board

22 Eighth Annual Report of the National Labor Relations Boardformal hearing. Another group of petitions involve fringe groups(including borderline cases of supervisory employees, who are excludedfrom bargaining units by the Board) and historically unorganizedclasses of workers. Illustrations include militarized guards, allegedlyconfidential employees, inspectors, and commission workers of questionableemployee status. Investigation of these cases is relativelydifficult and time consuming because new and novel questions areraised. Another group of relatively new and difficult petitions arethose filed by minority groups previously included in industrial units.Finally, there are difficult investigation problems in a large group ofcases arising in the presence of expanding or contracting employment,which is fairly widespread in war industry.Unfair Labor Practice Cases 6Unfair labor practice cases are closed by the following methods:adjustment, compliance, withdrawal, and dismissal. Cases are adjustedwhen the parties arrive at an agreement settling the issues inaccordance with the requirements of the Act. This type of dispositionaccounted for 35.3 percent of all unfair labor practice cases closed.In the 3 preceding years, adjusted cases constituted a larger proportionof the total number disposed of (from 40 to ..45 percent). Cases closedby compliance with an Intermediate Report, Board decision, or courtorder constituted 10.9 percent of the cases closed, a higher proportionthan in any of the 8 years of the Board's operation. The complainantwithdrew his charge in 38.9 percent of the cases closed, and the Boardor its Regional Offices dismissed 14.7 percent of the cases. The pro-.portion of cases withdrawn has increased steadily since 1940 when29.4 percent of the cases were closed in this manner There wasrelatively little change in the proportion of dismissals compared withprevious years.Representation Cases 6The methods employed in closing representation cases include:informal adjustment with or without an election, formal adjustmentproviding for Board certification or dismissal after an election, certificationfollowing a Board ordered election, withdrawal, and dismissal.Over one-half of the representation cases closed during 1943 wereadjusted informally (this proportion varied only slightly from theaverage experience for 8 years). The great -majority (92.7 percent)of the 2,993 cases thus adjusted involved the conduct of a consentelection or pay-roll check. The remainder were adjusted by recognitionof a union as the bargaining agent, without an election. A union_ was successful in securing bargaining rights in_ 85.8 percent of thecases adjusted informally.Formal adjustments, involving the conduct of a stipulated election,constituted 4 percent of all representation cases closed. Their numgeetable Sin Appendix, p. 91.0 See table 9 in Appendix, pp. 92-93.