J. - National Labor Relations Board

VI. REPRESENTATION CASES 51C. ELECTIONS CONDUCTED BY THE BOARDNumber of elections and votes cast.—During the fiscal year endingJune 30, 1939, the Board, through its agents, conducted 746 elections.Four hundred eighty-one of these, or 64.5 percent, were held withthe consent of all parties involved in the question of representation.The remaining 265 elections, or 35.5 percent, were conducted pursuantto Board order. .About 207,597 workers were eligible to participate in these electionsand 181,090 workers cast their ballots. The fact that nearly 88percent of the eligible voters cast their ballots in the elections isan indication of the keen interest shown by workers in the choice oflabor organizations which are to represent them in collective bargaining.Such participation also reflects the approval by the workersof the democratic device of the secret ballot.The great majority of petitions for investigation and certificationof representatives were made by unions affiliated either with theAmerican Federation of Labor and or with the Congress of IndustrialOrganizations. These petitions represented nearly every industryand every national or international union in the United States.Of the 181,090 votes cast, a total of 3,875 votes were either challengedor considered void. Of the remaining 177,215 valid votescast, :68.6 percent were cast in favor of trade unions affiliated witheither the A. F. of L. or C. I. 0., 9.3 percent were cast in favor of unaffiliatedunions, and 22.1 percent were cast against all labor organizations.Included in the latter category were 5,098 votes cast "forneither" union when two or more labor organizations appeared onthe ballot.Labor organizations which were affiliated either with the A. F.of L. or the C. I. 0. won 522 of the 746. elections. Unaffiliated nationalunions won 21 elections and unaffiliated local unions weresuccessful in 31 elections. 4 The number of elections lost by all typesof labor organizations was 172, which includes 15 elections whichresulted in tie votes.Methods of conducting the elections were usually shaped to meetthe needs of individual cases. In consent elections, an attempt wasmade to secure an agreement regarding all the details of the election.In this manner, the parties determined the proper bargaining unit,the form of ballot, the polling place, the tune of the election, theeligibility list, the method of tallying, and other similar details. Inthose cases where elections were directed by the Board, the Boarddecided what the bargaining unit should be and usually directed thatemployees on the payroll on a certain date should be eligible tovote. The regional director in whose region the case originatedwas empowered by the Board's direction of election to conduct theelection and to arrange the necessary details.In almost all cases, election notices were posted and distributedseveral days before the date of the election. These notices contained3 Excluded from these figures were 16 elections which were conducted by the Boardbut which were for various reasons considered void by the Board.'See table XX for definitions.