This is a matter of interpretation which can be worked out by more experience in administration, with the assistance of the courts, as it has been under the Railway Labor Act. I am of the opinion that both the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O., as well as the employers, would agree that it is unwise to vest a governmental agency with any such authority as would give it a free hand in deciding what form of organization is best for labor bargaining.

However difficult it may be to bring together the divided labor camps in a united organization, I think that it is not at all impossible that both the C. I. O. and the A. F. of L. could reach an agreement that the practices and customs and forms of organization established by the employees themselves and by their collective agreements with employers should control the Board in deciding disputes as to bargaining units. If such an interpretation of section 9 were accepted by the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O., and were applied by the Board in deciding disputes as to bargaining units, it is my judgment that much of the difficulty in handling these cases would dis

appear.

The greatest weakness in the work of the Board is the delay in handling cases. All the members of the Board are of one mind in believing that the complaints on this account are justified, and all of us are devoting our energy to speeding up the process. Progress is being made in this direction, and so far as the handling of election cases is concerned there has been great improvement during the last few months. But despite all our efforts there is still a very large backlog of cases. This is being reduced, however, and our position a year from now promises to be a good deal better than it is now, just as we are now in much better position than we were 2 years ago.

We have filed with us more than 10,000 cases a year. Considering the careful procedures the law and the Board's regulations require in order to protect every party's interest, the immensity of the task before us becomes evident. Then it should be remembered that in 1937, when the law was upheld by the Supreme Court, the Board had a backlog of practically 2 years' cases, because of the injunctions that stayed proceedings and because of the recalcitrant conduct of many of the parties who appeared before the Board. If, since April 1937, we have reduced the backlog of cases to where we are only a year behind now, substantial progress has been made.

It is perhaps inevitable that the parties who suffered by the delay should ascribe ulterior motives to the Board and its agents for delaying the cases. They get the idea that the Board delays their cases in order to help other parties. Many of the charges of partisanship directed against the Board stem from this fact. But as the most recently appointed member of the Board, who had no part in selecting the staff, I want to say that as a whole, with some exceptions of course, the personnel of the National Labor Relations Board is made up of unusually intelligent, hard-working, sincere, honest men and Women. They compare most favorably with the employees of any public or private organization with which I have been associated. I think a great injustice has been done to a devoted body of public servants, by the manner in which blanket charges of partisanship

and misbehavior have been directed at employees and agents of the Board.

Of course, there may be black sheep among them, and some are inexperienced and untrained. But what private or public organization does not have such employees among its personnel? The Board has had occasion to dismiss employees for misbehavior and some for incompetence, as is the case with every other organization. Every time this has happened, the new employees have been of a higher caliber, and the level of performance has been thus improved and raised. If there are faults in the work of the staff, I think that for the most part they are due to deficiencies in administrative organization and supervision, lack of training, and lack of experienced direction of the staff by capable and experienced men who are both good administrators and have expert understanding of the problems of labor relations.

Such defects, however, are common during the early years of all large and important undertakings. Some of the departments of the Board's work have developed effective administrative organizations with experienced and capable executives. Other departments have this still to achieve, and there are places where a change in personnel would bring improvement. But full accomplishment in these respects is a matter of time, experience, and financial resources with which to carry on the work. The administrative deficiencies of the Board are no different from those that have been characteristic of all other agencies of the Government in the early years of their existence. And so are the public attacks and criticisms. The Supreme Court of the United States and our whole judicial system were not so efficient in the first few years of their existence and did not have the standing that they now enjoy. Neither did the other old and established agencies of the Government. Compared with the early experiences of other governmental agencies, the National Labor Relations Board and the great body of its personnel have records of service to which I think the people of the country will look back in future years with grateful pride.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Doctor, will you tell the committee who prepared the statement that you just read?

Dr. LEISERSON. I wrote every word of it myself.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you have any advice or assistance from any employees of the Board?

Dr. LEISERSON. None at all, except from my secretary and confidential assistant, who always says my grammar is wrong.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you submit the statement to any representative of the Board or member of the Board before you read it this morning?

Dr. LEISERSON. After it was all written and mimeographed, I let Mr. Fahy read a copy.

Mr. TOLAND. After it was mimeographed?

Dr. LEISERSON. While it was in the process of being mimeographed, he read one of the carbon copies I had.

Mr. TOLAND. Did he make any suggestions for corrections or additions?

Dr. LEISERSON. He made two or three minor corrections, and one of them I find was not really made. I said "about 100 injunctions held up the Board," and he said it was not right, I should say "injunction

suits" instead of "injunctions." And with respect to the statistics of the cases that we have a year, he made some suggestions that in the early years it did not run as high as it was running in the last two years, and I made some modification of that. His only corrections. were of that character.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you have any conferences prior to the preparation of the statement, during the preparation of the statement, as to what you intended to say, with any member of the Board or with any representative of members of the Board?

Dr. LEISERSON. Not at all, except with Mr. Fahy. After Mr. Fahy and you and I talked about preparing a statement, I talked to him; but as to the contents of it, I talked with no one. As a matter of fact, I rather think some people in the Board were worried about what I was going to say.

Mr. HALLECK. Why, Doctor?

Dr. LEISERSON. I do not know. I am rather free and outspoken, when we talk about our work, as I was brought up-I forgot to say to you that I worked in a factory for 7 years, and the management there had the habit of saying, "That's a hell of a way to do your work," and I keep talking, I acquired that, and I keep talking the same way to the members of this staff; so they are always scared as to what I will say when they bring a piece of work to me.

Mr. TOLAND. Doctor, I assume that it is a fact, is it not, that the general statements you have made concerning the members of the Board other than yourself, and employees, are made without any specific, detailed knowledge of all of the things that they have done prior to your appointment as a member of the Board?

Dr. LEISERSON. Of course, I would not know, prior to the appointment, all the details of the work; of course not.

Mr. TOLAND. Well, isn't your statement based on that fact?
Dr. LEISERSON. My experience during the last 6 months.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Doctor, will you look at the memorandum that you wrote on the 24th day of July, 1939?

Dr. LEISERSON. The 24th of July?

Mr. TOLAND. 1939.

Dr. LEISERSON. 1939, with respect to what case? There are several. Mr. TOLAND. Todd-Johnson.

Dr. LEISERSON. Yes, sir; I drew that up.

Mr. TOLAND. I show you what purports to be a photostatic reproduction, marked "Exhibit 4," and ask you to tell me if that is a true and correct copy?

Dr. LEISERSON. That is correct.

Mr. TOLAND, I offer it in evidence, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

(Memorandum July 24, 1939, WML to Mr. Madden and Mr. Smith, was received in evidence, and marked "Exhibit No. 4.")

Mr. TOLAND. I would like to read this into the record, "July 24, 1939 to Mr. Madden and Mr. Smith, from Dr. Leiserson, ToddJohnson Dry Docks, Case No. R-754":

I do not recall agreeing to any such decision as this. If I authorized the preparation of this majority opinion then the facts reported orally were different from the facts here recorded.

I do not want to participate in this case at all. It is too old, and there are the usual irregularities in procedure characteristic of the secretary's office. If I could trust the findings of fact in the case I would agree with the chairman's position.

Initialed "WML."

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Doctor, will you address yourself to that memorandum and tell the committee what are the usual irregularities in procedure characteristic of the secretary's office that you set forth in that memorandum?

Dr. LEISERSON. Well, that would be a long story. You have the memoranda here. The method of operation that I described, where authorizations are submitted to the Board by the regional director, and they go to the secretary's office. He has three or four people under him who look over it, and then they make memoranda for him. And then he

Mr. TOLAND. Doctor, will you tell us when you refer to a group, the names of the individuals you refer to and the position they hold? Dr. LEISERSON. Well, I can give you the names.

Mr. TOLAND. As best you know them.

Dr. LEISERSON. One is Robert Gates, whose title is special examiner. Another one is Fred Krivonos whose title is also special examiner. Another one is named Kaminstein. Another one is named Kurasch.

Mr. TOLAND. Would you spell those names for the reporter?

Dr. LEISERSON. K-u-r-a-s-c-h, and Krivonos is K-r-i-v-o-n-o-s. Then also the requests are sometimes referred for legal questions to various members of the review staff that you had the list of. And then also the assistant secretary, Mrs. Stern, does a good deal of that work.

Well, anyway, the secretary

Mr. TOLAND. Who is the secretary?

Dr. LEISERSON. Nathan Witt. The secretary then gets these memoranda and studies the file, and he reports orally to the Board. Well, after I came on the Board, I found the older cases that had been there were rather troublesome and messed up-what we all refer to as messy cases that have been hanging for a long time-and I went through the files in a number of cases; and as I did I would make a memorandum and send it to the other members of the Board and we discussed them orally a great deal. And many of those things that I found in the cases were things that I thought were improperly handled, improper from various points of view.

For instance, on some things the chairman and Mr. Smith might disagree with me and did disagree with me on the improper handling. It is just a question of what is the better way. On other things I thought they were inefficiently handled, in the sense that a person with a knowledge of labor questions would know the problem involved immediately, whereas a person who had mere legal training would look at the words of the law and the words of the particular charge, and so on, to get his idea of the essential problem in the case. Then he would, if he found that certain things were not clear or he thought there wasn't enough information, he would send memoranda back to the regional director asking for more information on this, or suggesting, do this and that.

Well, all of those together seemed to me not the best way to do it. Mr. TOLAND. Doctor, in connection

Dr. LEISERSON. And those are the things, and you will see from the other memoranda, as to what I had in mind.

Mr. TOLAND. Yes. And that same general statement would cover the other memoranda?

Dr. LEISERSON. Yes.

Mr. TOLAND. Will you mark that for identification?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Toland.

Mr. TOLAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I wonder if I might ask a question for information?

Mr. TOLAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Leiserson, the final sentence of this memorandum has these words

Mr. TOLAND (interposing). I am coming to that.

The CHAIRMAN (reading). "If I could trust the findings of fact in the case, I would agree with the chairman's position."

Now, for my information, who made the findings of fact you referred to there?

Dr. LEISERSON. Well, that is the difficulty as to why I wrote the sentence. The process is that the secretary brings the cases in when an authorization of complaint has to be issued. But if it is a matter of decision itself, the review division has reviewed the record and so on and reports orally to the Board all of the facts in the case and what is in the record. The Board discusses with them-they have all the file there-the Board discusses with them, and discusses each point involved, and then tells them, "Now, this is the way to decide that point," and so so, and they are then sent to draft up the decision and the findings of fact.

Now, you see in these cases we have a finding of facts by the trial examiner and then a finding of facts that are made when the review division, after instruction from the Board, writes up the findings of fact, and then we have also the file of the original complaint which has the facts in it.

Mr. TOLAND. You are now speaking of "C" cases, aren't you, Doctor?

Dr. LEISERSON. Yes, "C" cases.

Mr. TOLAND. This memorandum is on an "R" case.

Dr. LEISERSON. Well, it is the same. The procedure is the same. Now, when I went over that, I found there were some differences among those three, and that is what I referred to, if I know which was which, and you want to remember this was an old case I did not want to participate in, and you will see another memorandum somewhere where I said I didn't want to participate in it, and it would be necessary for me to go over that whole thing. And because of the differences in those three different places, I wrote that last

sentence.

The CHAIRMAN. In order that I might understand the procedure about which you have been talking, am I correct in understanding that an oral report of the facts is made to the Board and at that time. the Board decides, on that reported oral statement of facts, what the decision shall be? Then subsequently for the record the finding of facts, presumably as reported orally to the Board, is written up and on that the case is decided?

Dr. LEISERSON. That is right.