J. - National Labor Relations Board

XII. INFORMATION DIVISION 159The act is still comparatively new and the Board reaffirms itsobligation to increase the public knowledge of its operations, to theend that the purposes of the' act may be the more quickly translatedinto practice. While it is seen that its decisions themselves cannot besubject to continued exposition after issuance, the Board_ feels underno similar restraints from commenting on the impact of the act uponthe industrial relationship. Through monthly summaries of its activities,through statements and speeches by Board officers, it hasendeavored during the past fiscal year to give current accountings ofits stewardship.In one of its first releases of the fiscal year the Board endeavoredstatistically to compare the purposes of the act, as stated by PresidentRoosevelt upon the signing of it, with actual operations under it upto that date. It was recalled that the President had announcedthree specific aims of the act, the first of which was this :By assuring the employees the right of collective bargaining it fosters thedevelopment of the employment contract on a sound and equitable basis.In substantiation of progress in assuring employees the right ofcollective bargaining the Board pointed to the settlement informallyof 55 percent of its 11,180 closed cases the withdrawal and dismissalof another 40 percent (generally for k lacof merit), and the resortto formal procedure, looking forward to decisions, in only 5 percentof all closed cases. That employment contracts had been fostered wasapparent in the contemporaneous statement of Senator James E.Murray, Montana, that new agreements had been signed recentlybetween employers and unions representing 1,700,000 workers.The President's second aim was :By providing an orderly procedure for determining who is entitled to representthe employeep it aims to remove one of the chief causes of wasteful economicstrife.It was shown that 450.842 workers had cast valid votes in 1,280secret ballot elections conducted by the Board and that concurrentlythere was a decrease in the number of strikes called for organizationpurposes, particularly in industries subject to Board jurisdiction.The President's third stated aim was :By preventing practices which tend to destroy the independence of labor,it seeks, for every worker within its jurisdiction, that freedom of choice andaction which is justly his.Of more than 10,000 labor disputes, in which employees had allegedthat their employers were using punitive means to discourage theirinterest in forming their own organizations, there were less than 3percent which resulted in actual cease and desist orders against theemployers. The remaining 97 percent of the cases were closed throughsettlements, withdrawals, or dismissals or transfer to other agencies.At the close of the fiscal year these proportions in the handling ofcases had not materially altered.From Board statements and speeches issued during the fiscal yearthere emerges a firm belief in the efficacy of the act in promotingpeace in the industrial relationship upon a basis of rights respectedby both sides. The Board has constantly studied the trend of strikesand has periodically reported its finding (treated statistically else-