J. - National Labor Relations Board

XII. INFORMATION DIVISIONA. FUNCTIONS OF THE INFORMATION DIVISIONThe Division serves as a channel of all Board information. Itassumes responsibility for all material distributed and for all responsesto inquiries from the general public and the press, therebyrelieving Board officers and attorneys from the necessity of beinginterrupted by constant requests for information on cases, decisions,and, general activities.The external function of the Division is to aid in providing aclearer public understanding of the policy of the act and the operationsof the Board. During the past fiscal year the Division prepared815 releases, a total of 2,400 pages and about 1,440,000 words.Preponderantly these releases were digests of Board decisions.Rulings on unfair labor practice disputes and representation issuesby the Board are matters of immediate concern to the parties and tothe public generally. The Information Division endeavors to condensethe salient legal and factual points in a Board decision, oftenrunning to many thousands of words, into a release of a few hundredwords. This is made public upon Board signature to the decision.B. BOARD POLICY IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONSAs has been pointed out in previous annual reports, the Board asa quasi-judicial body is unwilling to enter public debate regardingits application of the act to particular cases. Its decisions are reviewableby the courts. It would be improper for the Board to,elaborate or explain its conclusions beyond what appears in thedecision itself. Those searching for precedents or applicability tosupposedly similar situations must of necessity. rely on their ownreading of the decision and ultimately upon the interpretation of thereviewing court.The Board is conscious that this self-imposed rule of silence precludeseasy and familiar discussion of the possible salutary effect ofits decisions upon the long-range objectives of industrial peace andstability. Whatever paths to public understanding such discussionsmight have cleared, the Board has felt restrained under its procedureto avoid them, except in response to congressional inquiry.In its digests of decisions the information division has followedthe same rule, insofar as it attempts to reduce the longer decisionto smaller compass without distortion of meaning and withouteditorial adornment.C. THE BOARD'S ACCOUNTING OF ITS ACTIVITIESIn its second annual report the Board said :The state of public knowledge of a new law has a direct relation to itssuccessful administration.158