1. 1 others. Being assured, eventually, that Denny would bargain in good faith with representatives of the Guild on all matters, including grievances, we then rranged for an "R" hearing before the Board, during which questions regarding gible employees would be propounded and then settled by Board decision. Such -aring was scheduled, as you know, and the Guild withdraw all charges without rejudice, pending further developments. This is all that we have on Denny and to sum it up, I would say that as to his lity as an executive in Indianapolis-he was practically nil. In arguments on Times case he could not remain on one subject long enough for us to get a - finite answer but wandered off on unrelated matters which had no bearing upon The problem involved. I hope that I have given you a fairly clear idea of our dealings with Mr. Denny I regret that the entire story is not more specific, but I trust that it will give you an insight into Denny' activities on labor matters. Exhibit No. 1623 [Introduced into evidence in Volume 24, Part I, August 1, 1940] Material On Administration MATERIAL ON ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE [Copy] CHICAGO ILLINOIS, November 8, 1939. To: Nathan Witt, Secretary. From: G. L. Patterson, Director, Thirteenth Region. Your memorandum of October 24, the majority report of the Departmental Sub-Committee, the minority report of the Departmental Sub-Committee, and the observations of Directors Elliott, Myers, and Aicher, respecting those reports, have been received and the contents thereof carefully noted. By reason of the budgetary limitations and the consequent necessity of approaching the problem by making one appointment at a time, it is imperative that the problem be considered realistically. In the event that the Board concludes that a Field Division should be created, it is obvious that neither the majority nor the minority plan, can be followed. It will be manifestly impossible for one man, whatever his title may be, to handle authorizations, appeals, stipulations, settlements, and compliance. If a Field Division is set up in Washington for the purpose of handling the various functions contemplated by the proposed plan outlined in the Sub-Departmental reports, that Division must be sufficiently provided with personnel to do the job. It seems to me that if, by necessity, only one person can be appointed in the Feld Division at a time, the duties assigned to such person will have to be delegated to him gradually as the Division is built up and in accordance with the amount of personnel with which he is provided. One of the greatest dangers to the successful operation of an administrative agency is red tape. In my opinion, the Board should consider seriously whether or not the proposed plans do not impose too many restrictions and limitations upon a Field Division even before its creation. While it is, of course, necessary that we operate within reasonable boundaries, the imposition at this time, before the contemplated Division has been born, of restrictive limitations is apt to circumscribe the Division so much that the objectives it is intended to accomplish will not be attained. One suggestion impresses me unfavorably. I do not think it is reasonably practicable for the Field Division to review carefully all settlements arranged by Regional Offices before authorization. This requirement would necessitate obtaining approval from Washington of settlements in the informal stages. It seems to me that this aspect of the problem can be adequately handled by the Coordinators who would be making relatively frequent visits to the various Regional offices. If changes in settlement technique or in the form of settlements are required, Coordinators may make appropriate suggestions from time to time. With Coordinators travelling from office to office and the Board, the Regional offices can be properly advised so that settlements in the informal stages of the cases can be made in conformity with Board policies. We must not overlook a matter which was discussed at some length be fore. There appeared to be a more or less general consensus of opinion th relationship between the Board and the Regional offices was too impersia that except for infrequent occasions the Board is interpreted to the Regis c the Regions to the Board, by memoranda rather than by personal contact W. discussed the advisability of having someone familiar with Board policies regular and frequent contacts with various groups of Regional offices. If Field Division is created on a gradual basis by adding one or two persons at a time, it is going to take many months before there are sufficient people in W.-. ington in the Field Division to handle the work there before anyone wi available for what in my opinion is much more important, the Field Coorul" It is apparent that the members of the Sub-Departmental Committee have g a lot of thought to the problem under consideration. It seems to me thr Board now has a variety of views from several angles. Care should be ex-: that the Washington viewpoint is not over-emphasized and the viewpoint of Regions minimized. The healthful aspect of the entire approach to this pr is that everybody has freely and conscientiously expressed themselves. W: make no claim to perfection in the report of the Sub-Committee of Direct since there are some deviations therefrom in the reports of the Sub-Dmental Committee, I believe that the report submitted by the Regional Direr represents my considered thought on the questions involved. In its final consideration of this problem, my feeling is that the Board exercise care in not circumscribing too much the functions and operations of contemplated Field Division. cc: Committee on Administration: J. Warren Madden, A. Howard M. Nathan Witt, Edwin S. Smith, Wm. Leiserson, Charles Fahy, Willaz X Aicher, Edwin A. Elliott, Beatrice M. Stern, Thomas I. Emerson, Frank B..± G. L. P., Regional Director GLP: CMC NOVEMBER 3, 1969 To: Garnet L. Patterson, Thirteenth Region. From: Nathan Witt, Secretary. Subject: Committee on Administration. Attached is a copy of the notes on the conference of September 26, 199 N. W Att. copies to Mr. Madden, Mr. Smith, Mr. Leiserson, Mr. Fahy, Mrs. Stern, M Emerson, Mr. Bloom, NOTES ON CONFERENCE-SEPTEMBER 26, 1939, 11:00 A. M. Present: Messrs. Madden, Smith, Leiserson, Witt, Fahy, Emerson, Mrs Stern Regional Directors Myers, Patterson, Elliott, and Aicher. Mr. MADDEN. There is Paragraph 1. Does anyone want to ask about ! Paragraph 2, paragraph 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 1 20, 21, 22, 23. Mr. SMITH. I have a question on 23. This comment on the authorizatɛ form "as for example the authorization request forms, seem to direct the proble into certain grooves not realistically adapted to the ramifications confront 2 the Director." And then they go on to say that much that might be gailen by oral advice and consultation just can't be reflected within the corifines of answering question or a memorandum, which general proposal I would ag but I just wonder what your feeling was about the whole idea of formaärz the request for authorization. I gather that-granted that you can't get every thing on the form, and talking with people will help you-is it better to have a form or not to have a form? Mr. MYERS. My feeling might be merely my reaction to the form but the since the form, I have curtailed my reports too much. You pointed out last week that paragraph for comments stuck down at the bottom of the form an it seems to me that you were more interested in the categories you have liste" It is naturally inevitable that I overlooked when I got to the bottom a questions which might have confronted my mind when I had been writing a report. There are so many things that you discuss-that come to your musi discussing a thing with someone here or with my attorney-that when iners sit down and prepare the request, those things are overlooked, just le concentration on the more formal information requested in the opening graph. . MADDEN. What is your experience, Bea, about these reports? Are they or less satisfactory since the form was put into effect? S. STERN. I think they are more satisfactory. You have to consider that lation to the problems which you so ably explain in the Secretary's Officene of work, the growing complexity of the cases. I think the establishment form has never intended to be a limiting factor; I think it was supposed e an ordering factor. The request requires the Regional Director and the onal Attorney to consider the case in the light of given facts, of which lem the Board has always been concerned. If you couldn't put down the its of the case in the light of such a form, then there was really no case. I › had a wide experience with the old form which we used to use when Dick Secretary. We found the Regional Director would write a page and a half astily drawn conclusions on an (1), (2), (3), and (5) case-a word to 1 phase of the case. When the Board got to the record in many of the cases, ound that these conclusions had been hastily drawn and the evidence not cient. I think the form has corrected that largely and it is too bad if it nd limit you in your thinking about the thing. Ir. MADDEN. What do you other directors say about it? г. ELLIOTT. I like the form and I don't think it has put us into any straight ket. I think it is quite satisfactory. I do agree with our Paragraph 23 here at there is still something else that we need to get across and we can do it ough having some personal representative. Mr. SMITH. You couldn't do that in every case, only when he is here. Dr. ELLIOTT. Often you have a group of cases relating to a particular policy. Mr. MADDEN. I must say that I don't understand that one. I don't understand w your visit with the field coordinator is going to have the slightest effect less he has some advice to give you. So far as telling him about the facts or ur feeling about this case, I can't understand how it is going to enter into e picture in the slightest degree in the Board's consideration of that case. In authorization, for example, I don't know of any way in which that kind of arsay is going to be allowed by the Board to enter into the consideration of at case. Dr. MYERS. It isn't hearsay that I have in mind. I was thinking of the entral Vermont case. Nat asked me three or four questions when I discussed with him which were probably important but hadn't occurred to me, namely, hether an election with the company union on the ballot was possible. My ind did not run in that direction when I had the case originally. Mr. MADDEN. If in your discussion of the case with that field coordinator, he ] our forms somewhat and thinks of some things you haven't thought of, and gives you some advice that you think is good and are willing to take and hen you take it and put it into your report, that will be all to the good but f it is something that you think should have some effect on the Board's mind ecause you told it to Jim Smith when he last called at your office, why of course t would be confusion of the worst sort. Dr. ELLIOTT. Maybe we should put it that way-to give us more and more the ideas of the Board of the kind of facts you want us to put in. Oftentimes we discuss a case with one another. We say have you looked into that element or factor. A person coming out of Washington knows what is going on. He comes in and says "Have you thought of this. As you make your presentation, have you looked for this set of facts. I think it is exceedingly important." It gets into the record and should get into it and that is what we would like. I Want to make a better record. Mr. MADDEN. Not only does it have to get in the record at the hearing, it has to get in the request for authorization. Dr. ELLIOTT. That is what I am referring to. I want to know how to get more and better facts. Mr. MADDEN. I think it is possible that you might be rationalizing in some effect what Mr. SMITH. What you really fundamentally need-if I can remember the situation right-concerns (?) our office and the regions between themselves. The field is physically separated from Washington, facing every day exactly the kind of problem which the Board makes up its mind on by talking to Nat and Charles and Tom as the occasion occurs. All this process in the field seems particularly useful and helpful. I think there is a sort of need for relying in a purely justifiable sense on the thought of somebody's experience other than your ow— thought of someone in a region beyond your region-that is the way it seems to me. I don't think it is particularly worthwhile trying to ferret it out. the end that or other circumstances of general utility can be recognized. we can be left to face it, I think that is our feeling. Mr. MADDEN. Is that your feeling, Elliott? Dr. ELLIOTT. I feel it particularly-maybe more keenly. I am isolated Led don't get to see anyone from Washington and I need all the help I can get. Mr. MADDEN. I have a rather definite feeling that with our regional directors some of the best things they do because they are on their own will not b done if they get too much advice. Things that are really one-man thing-perhaps there isn't any particular right or wrong about them-what needs to be done is done, if that regional director being more or less independent goes ahead and does them, but if he had available for advice the three Board members probably get three different sets of advice--and then added in the Secretary, and Assistant Secretary, and General Counsel gets three more— Dr. MYERS. I think that is why we use the word "coordination" rather than "supervision". We feel we still should be the ones who are responsible for deciding the case, but we would like to have someone stimulate our thinking on a tough one that we can't exactly see all the implications of. The need for action means that a decision is better than too much deliberation where action is more important than the decision and we can be reversed if we are wrong anyway. But I do feel that there are a lot of angles that I lose sight of at times Mr. AICHER. My guess would be that the important things that you thin should be done and are best done because they are done under stress will continue to be done because the coordinator will not be near you. I think my needs, for instance, are cases that have been hanging around for a long time, where the issue is not very clear one way or another, and I would like to talk it over with someone familiar with Washington perspective and how a case of that kind has been handled in other regions. Mrs. STERN. Pat, how often did you want to talk with someone when you were in the Northwest? Mr. PATTERSON. I suppose that location is an exaggerated location, but the problems, as you know, are of such character that frequently it would have been extremely helpful to have someone broad viewpoint of a problem looking at it from the perspective. I know that from experience and I found on many occasions that when we would go into a picture-if I may use the West Oregon case for an illustration-the advice of someone not so close to the picture would have been exceedingly helpful. Mr. MADDEN. Do you think you would have done what you did if you had consulted someone who knew better? Mr. PATTERSON. Probably would have done the same thing. But there would be the existing feeling that we had talked to someone who was not as close to the picture as we were. In answer to your former question, Mr. Madden, about standardizing the form of authorization, I feel very keenly that the standard of form has served a useful purpose. I have not found it too confining, and I do not think it sets up the case for consideration by the Board in a way so that the attention can be directed in particular channels, but I think what we have in mind by this particular sentence is that frequently problems arise wherein discussion rather than putting it down on paper very helpful in directing course that an authorization should take. If I may illustrate by the Rapid Rolling case, involving intensely interesting theory of 8(5). An examiner, Dorfman and I wrangled with that thing three or four days. It is that type of thing, I believe, which we had in mind when the comment was made that perhaps the request for authorization might be too unrealistic. Mr. MADDI N. I still would like to know what you would put in your request for authorization after you had had a visit among yourselves, or a visit with a traveling representative of the Board. He might give you some new theory or some new arguments, but you still have the problem of writing a request which would stand on its own feet. Mr. PATTERSON. I think that is quite true. However, cases which involve either a new theory or cases which involve a broader policy of the Board-people in particular regions I think get into particular habits--and very frequently those habits are apt to confine our approach to the problem, whereas if a regional Coordinator drifted around every 60 or 90 days a lot of those things could be larified. Mr. SMITH. I think to report as to what these people should do lacks some Coordination from this point of view. As I visualize what they would do, they would do a great deal of the stuff that the special investigators are doing in le sense of going over the files, talking with examiners and directors and conferring-with that kind of stuff-but the function of the present people in that heid has just stopped short at that point. Now, if you continue that function and add to it the advisory function and freedom to call on the fellow from Washington, you have a really rounded picture. If you talk about it just in the terms, now we want someone who can come and advise, I doubt whether you have asparate function, but I think you have a full-time job in the Dr. MYERS. We don't disagree with that at all. That is entirely what we had in mind, except we all feel, I think, that the emphasis was put too much-that wasn't carried through on one visit-and that was of the review of too many files on one trip, and too little time to devote to the other situations, that is to set the feel of what we were doing. I asked Fred to go through the closed cases, not the current cases that were being investigated, he didn't have time. He wanted to go through so much in such a short period of time. He wanted to work Saturday to midnight and Sunday to midnight. I told him the emphasis was wrong. I think, I don't know whether I am expressing the regional directors ideas but Dr. LEISERSON. I don't think we can tell any details about these forms of authorization requests now, but what I gather out of it is this: We know that many authorization requests come in; we have to send for more information Sometimes three and four times. We constantly talk about that here. We have to send for more information, or questionnaires. Now if you have someone here whose business it is to handle authorizations and then talk to the people in the field about it, when he had gone through a hundred authorization requests, he would send out instructions—see what it lacks, so that we don't have to wait weeks by sending them more questionnaires. He will know the offices that don't send adequate information; will go to those offices or send somebody see and say "You don't send in adequate information, lets talk over some of your cases and hereafter when you send in your authorization requests see that we have everything. When you have that kind of supervision or coordination, whatever you call it, you will work out a form authorization request that isn't necessarily the headings in the form but it will be in the minds of the people out there what they are supposed to send in. As it is, we just leave it that they have sent in inadequate information. We may waste more time and send for more information. If we had this thing going, we could work in a direction that after a year we can say that they have learned how to send in adequate information and we could deal with the problem knowing that all the information we can get; otherwise we merely speculate what ought to be in the report or request for authorization. The only way to get away from speculation is to handle one or two hundred authorizations and on the basis of that pass on it so that they can send them in writing. After talking with them you develop the right one. Mr. MADDEN. Shall we pass on, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Mr. WITT. I have a question on 30. I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say in the first sentence "Their efforts should also reduce the limited number of cases in which the Board authorizes formal action without a recommendation to that effect from the Director and in which we feel that the Board sometimes does not fully appreciate the situation.' I don't know what that refers to. So far as my experience goes, the Board never authorizes complaint or investigation under 9 (c) unless there has been recommendations from the Director, except occasionally when there have been reports from the Director in which they say they don't know whether a complaint should issue or whether they should be investigated, and ask advice on the basis of the facts set forth by the Director. Mr. AICHER. That is possible. In our Baltimore Mail case, I recall, that is just the problem, we did not want a hearing. Mr. SMITH. You did not want to not recommend did you? Mr. AICHER. I wanted to let the Board know. It tied in with another situation or it may have. I think Mrs. Herrick was in on it. Mr. MADDEN. We get a good many of those request for advice. I suppose you also refer to appeals and reversals. |