Page images
PDF
EPUB

Original Jurisdiction Cases-Continued

Case and number, trial examiner

International Mercantile Marine, R-144. Black Diamond SS. Co., R-145. Luckenback SS. Co., R-146..

Robert M. Gates

Green Silvers Coal Co., C-180 Wm. P. Webb

Elcombe Coal Co., C-183. Republic Steel Corp., C-184. Edwin S. Smith

D. W. Smith

Industrial Rayon Corp., R-156.

Wm. Seagle

American France Lines, et al, R-157.
Robert M. Gates
Wm. Seagle

International Freighting, R-159.
Robert M. Gates

Youngstown Sheet & Tube, C-191.

Harlan County Coal, C-194

Union Bus Co., R-176.

(See Penn. Greyhound) (R-151) Robert M. Gates

Bethlehem Steel Corp., R-177.
Frank Bloom

Associated Press, R-182.

Madison Hill

Panama Mail SS. Co., R-236
Robert M. Gates

Southern Greyhound, R-256

(See Penn. Greyhound) (R-151)

Robert M. Gates

Associated Press, C-249.
Madison Hill

Postal Telegraph & Cable, R-329..
Charles A. Wood, R-451
Charles A. Wood, R-452.

Charles A. Wood, R-453_
Charles A. Wood

Mobile SS. Association, R-391

Gustaf B. Erickson

Associated Press, R-381

John Hancock Mutual, R-425.

Mutual Life Insurance

Western Union Telegraph Co., C-344 Alvin G. Rockwell.

Aluminum Co. of America, C-383.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

CHARLES FAHY, Esquire,

EXHIBIT No. 1608-O

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,
Washington, D. C., November 29, 1939.

General Counsel, Special Committee to Investigate
the National Labor Relations Board,

535 Old House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: I am advised by the Regional Director of the Board for the 19th Region, Mr. E. J. Eagen, whose office is at Seattle, that Mr. Brock and Mr. Randall obtained from his office a copy of the report, dated July 29, 1938, concerning the Portland Lumber situation. Mr. Eagen tells me that he discussed with Mr. Brock and Mr. Randall the extremely confidential nature of this report and that they agreed with his suggestion that he write to you and to me so that you and I could sit down together and go over the matter to see whether some plan cannot be worked out to keep this information and similar information confidential because of the situation which existed in Portland.

Mr. Eagen thinks that to give publicity to these reports would tend to reopen old sores and arouse old enmities and bitterness which have to a considerable degree relaxed in Portland, so that it would certainly not improve labor relations in Portland for either the employers or the employees to make this report public. He also points out that it would make it difficult for him or anyone else administering the Act again to get the parties to speak frankly so that their problems could be thoroughly understood. Mr. Eagen says that he feels certain that you and the Committee will appreciate from reading the report how essential it is that it remain confidential.

I assume from our previous correspondence that you will not make the material public without discussing the matter with me.

[blocks in formation]

Dear MB, FAHY: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of November 29 regarding a copy of the report, dated July 29, 1938, concerning the Portland Lumber situation.

I will discuss this with you before it is made public, if at all.

[blocks in formation]

General Counsel, Special Committee to
Investigate the National Labor Relations Board,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: This is with reference to your letter of November 6, 1939. Copies of the monthly reports of the Regional Directors commenting on the situation in their districts were distributed to the Board and presumably are in your possession. I believe that the files of Mr. Madden contain a complete set of such copies, but I will be glad to have someone from our staff go over these files to make sure that they contain all the reports requested. The reports for two months, February and March 1938, apparently were not thus distrib

uted. Accordingly, I am sending you under separate cover the originad regional reports for these months in which you will find the comments to which you referred.

I enclose a memorandum from Mr. Pratt in answer to the last request in your letter of November 6, 1939.

The other information requested in your letter is in the course of compilation.
Yours sincerely,
CHARLES FAHY, General Counsel.

Enc.

INTER-OFFICE COMMUNICATION
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

NOVEMBER 8, 1939.

To: Mr. Fahy.

From: Geo. O. Pratt.

Alex Hawes relayed to me the further request of Mr. Toland for information concerning the practice of having attorneys who try the cases comment on the conduct of the Trial Examiner, and for information concerning the whereabouts of such comments. All of such comments were filed either in the files devoted to the individual trial examiner, except those instances where the comment contained other information about the case in which instance it might be filed in the informal file of the case. Or, possibly in some few cases the comment may have raised a question which it was thought necessary to discuss with some other Division of the Board in which latter case the comment would have been sent to the head of that Division. I mention this latter case as a possibility. I do not remember any specific comments that were so handled.

As I told you before, orally, it was the practice of Mr. Wolf to inquire of the Regional Director or Attorney at the close of each case how the trial examiner conducted himself. This was done, particularly during the spring and summer and early fall of 1937, with respect to the per diem trial examiners as there was no other way in which the Board was equipped to get a line on their performance. As I say, this was done in order to determine whether or not the trial examiner was good enough to hire, and occasionally after they were hired it was done as a means of correcting any faults that might have been committed by the trial examiner.

When I assumed the office of Chief Trial Examiner in November, 1937, this practice was in effect and I continued it for a little while. I do not recall the precise date when I gave instructions to my secretary to discontinue it, but my recollection is that it was possibly two to three weeks after I came on the job. No written instructions were issued to this effect. I simply gave oral instructions. Thereafter, however, I too had occasion to inquire as to the conduct of examiners on particular cases and occasionally I did have my secretary write to the Regional Director requesting his comments on the conduct of the hearing by the Trial Examiner. The practice as a practice had, however, been discontinued.

However, even after I had discontinued the practice of making a request for these comments, some of the Regional Directors continued to write in their comments at the close of hearings without solicitation. These, however, were sporadic comments and were received only at intervals when the Regional Director might conceive that he had extraordinary complaint.

It had not been the practice in the first instance to show those comments to the trial examiners involved whether favorable or unfavorable. My general practice was in all such cases where there were unfavorable comments received to show them to the Trial Examiner involved and to discuss the questions raised with him at the earliest opportunity. This has been done, I believe, consistently I hope that with this information you will be able to answer Mr. Toland's inquiry. I do not now have in the office here any such comments. All of such material that I did have in the office has been removed and is now presumably in the possession of the Smith Committee.

G. O. P.

CHARLES FAHY, Esquire,

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE

THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,
Washington, D. C., November 14, 1939.

General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. FAHY: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of November 10 in answer to my letter of the 6th concerning the monthly reports. I have not as yet received copies of the monthly reports from the regional directors. I have received mimeographed comments concerning the reports. What I would like now is the reports themselves from the regional directors.

[blocks in formation]

General Counsel, Special Committee to
Investigate the National Labor Relations Board,

House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: This is in further response to the request in your letter of November 6, 1939, for the monthly reports of Regional Directors concerning the situation in their districts.

As I stated in my letter of November 10, 1939, the reports were mimeographed and distributed to members of the Board and the staff except, apparently, for the months of February and March 1938. The enclosed file contains the original reports for those months, many of the comments to which yon refer being typed on the back of the statistical report for the month in question, which may be identified as appearing on a form marked N. L. R. B.— 65.

Enc.

Yours sincerely,

CHARLES FAHY, General Counsel.

EXHIBIT NO. 1608-R

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

CHARLES FAHY, Esquire,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE
THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,
Washington, D. C., November 28, 1939.

1

General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board,

Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. FAHY: With further reference to our correspondence regarding monthly releases by the Board numbered C-50, etc., and with particular reference to the original monthly reports for the months of February and March 1938 forwarded by you, an examination of the same discloses the following to be missing:

FEBRUARY 1938

First Region-Boston-entire report missing.

Second Region-New York-statistical information received, but comments missing.

Twenty-first Region-Los Angeles-statistical information received, but comments missing.

MARCH 1938

Seventh Region-Detroit-entire report missing.

Ninth Region-Cincinnati-statistical information received, but comments

missing.

Twelfth Region-Milwaukee-statistical information received, but comments missing.

Thirteenth Region-Chicago-statistical information received, but comments missing.

Sixteenth Region-Fort Worth-statistical information received, but comments missing.

Nineteenth Region-Seattle-statistical information received, but comments missing.

Twenty-second Region-Denver-statistical information received, but comments missing.

There is also missing the comments for the month of April 1938 for the Seventh Region, Detroit, Michigan.

[blocks in formation]

General Counsel, Special Committee to
Investigate the National Labor Relations Board,

Room 139, Old House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. TOLAND: This is with reference to your letter of November 28, 1939. in which you state that certain regional reports for the months of February and March, 1938, were missing from the material sent you on November 16 and 17, 1939. Concerning the particular monthly reports for March 1938, which you state are missing, I would like to point out that in my letter of November 17, I stated that the March reports of the 7th, 12th, 13th, 16th, 19th, and 22nd regions were sent to you under separate cover. May I suggest that you make a further examination of this material now in your possession as I am certain that these reports were forwarded to you.

You mention that the entire report of the 1st region for February 1938, is also missing. An examination of our files shows that this report was sent to you on November 16.

With reference to the report of the 9th region for March 1938, and the reports of the 2nd and 21st regions for February 1938, we are now going through our files again and I shall inform you of our results shortly. A similar search is being made for the 7th region's report of April 1938.

Yours sincerely,

[blocks in formation]

DEAR MR. TOLAND: In reply to your letter of November 21st, in reference to my communication of November 10th on the subject of loans of personnel and the reports on Board co-operation with the Civil Liberties Committee, the files containing reports on co-operation, referred to in my letter as in your possession, are the files of Mr. Madden and Mr. Witt. The material is contained in Mr. Witt's files in a folder marked "La Follette Committee," and in Mr. Madden's files in a folder marked "LaFollette Committee Hearings."

In reference to the last paragraph of your letter of November 21st, the regional offices, at my request after the receipt of your letter of October 12th, transmitted to Washington files containing copies of their reports to the Board relating to and covering services rendered by employees of the Board to the La Follette Committee. This material was used here for the purpose of compiling my reply to your letter of October 12th and the tabulations attached thereto. After completion of my reply and these tabulations, the regional files were returned to the regional offices.

Yours sincerely,

CHARLES FAHY, General Counsel.

« PreviousContinue »