EXHIBIT NO. 1629-H [Radiogram] SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 24 1938 J. W. Madden, Chairman, Natl Labor Relations Board, Washn D. C. Judge Schmidt Los Angeles has appointed receiver take charge Saturday and administer longshoremens contract on behalf of ILA who have fifteen members that area stop ILWU petition for certification filed and hearing held before Nylander decision pending stop Schmidts decision completely nullifies authority and purpose of board and a tie up of Port of Los Angeles is inevitable unless Schmidts decision is held in abeyance pending boards action stop We believe board should bring pressure Judge Schmidt reverse decision stop Also urgent we get early hearing on our petition coastwise certification. Hereby request decision by Wednesday on certification petition of San Pedro longshoremen to prevent possible coast tieup. We understand that decision of this case prior to hearing on coastwise petition of ILWU will interfere with chance of obtaining coastwise unit as appropriate bargain unit but emergency situation here requires decision on San Pedro petition before decision on coastwise petition. EXHIBIT NO. 1629-J HARRY BRIDGES. JANUARY 29, 1938. Hon. RUBEN S. SCHMIDT, Judge of the Superior Court of the State of California, Los Angeles, California. DEAR JUDGE SCHMIDT: I am enclosing herewith for your information a copy of the Decision which the National Labor Relations Board is issuing today. I am sending you this because the Board thinks that you might be interested in the action that the Board is taking in this case. District 38 International Longshoremens Association demand that no certification be made giving the ILWU recognition as collective bargaining agency in the maritime industry in this district Eight hundred men in this port voted for the ILA when vote was taken This number has nearly doubled certification cards designating ILWU were obtained from the longshoremen by intimidation and coercion We welcome a Government supervised vote for determining the bargaining agency but insist that the vote be confined to bonafide registered longshoremen. JAMES F. KENNEDY, Secretary International Longshoremens Assn. Re Waterfront employers. Interviewed Judge Schmidt and he states he will issue no order in case until he has studied opinions Bethlehem and Newport News. WILLIAM R. WALSH, Natl Labor Relations Board. Mr. JAMES F. KENNEDY, EXHIBIT NO. 1629-M [Telegram] FEBRUARY 1, 1938. Secretary, International Longshoremens Association, FA 19 81, Retel Chairman Madden. You may be assured that no election will be held and no certification will be made until after formal hearing. If any election is ordered or certification made only those persons properly entitled to be regarded in the appropriate unit will be considered. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD. Madam PERKINS, EXHIBIT NO. 1629-N [Western Union] SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., 9, Feb. 10, 1938. U. S. Senate Bldg., Washington, D. C. National Labor Board holding hearing in San Francisco Monday, February 14 to decide who is the bargaining agency for the Pacific Coast Longshoremen on a coastwise basis we are protecting coastwise votes as various locals on Pacific coast are are still affiliated with the International Longshoremens Association and have been for a great number of years under a coastwise vote it may require men in these loyal International Longshoremens Association locals to be forced into an organization against their own choosing and be dominated by a communistic regime a precedent was established in 1934 when the Board ruled that each port would be required to vote separately and to our opinion the only democratic expression would be a port by port vote something should be done immediately to protect the rights of these upright American citizens that they may be able to remain affiliated with a legitimate American labor movement- a great number of men who retain their affiliation with the International Longshoremen of San Francisco have been openly discriminated against and have not been able to work for the past 50 days we urge that before any hearings are held that the Board notify the regional director in San Francisco to see that this condition is corrected. LAWRENCE MALLEN, President, International Longshoremens Association, Local 38-79. EXHIBIT NO. 1629-O Offices of RaY CALKINS, Secretary-Treasurer, Pacific Coast District Affiliated With American Federation of Labor, International Transport Workers' Federation and Trades and Labor Congress of Canada Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH, SEATTLE, WASH., February 23, 1938. National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: Enclosed is a copy of the official paper of the Pacific Coast District, International Longshoremen's Assn. In this paper is an open letter to the National Labor Relations Board, and its representatives, which I wish you would read. The Tacoma Local of the I. L. A. has been organized for a period of a great many years. During all of the years when there was no organization of Longshoremen on the Pacific Coast, this Local retained its affiliation with the International Longshoremen's Assn., enjoying privileges and conditions to which no other port on the Pacific Coast could compare. The Tacoma Local, from statements by the employers themselves, is the most respectable and satisfactory local on the Pacific Coast. They do their work in a satisfactory manner with less discord and more harmony, between the employer and the men, as well as among the men, than the other locals. These facts may be ascertained by communicating with the Waterfront Employers' Assn., Pacific Coast District, Seattle Branch. Some of the smaller ports, particularly in the Northwest, realized the advantages that they had gained by their affiliation with the International Longshoremen's Assn. and saw fit, as Tacoma did, at the time of the secession movement from the International into the C. I. O., to remain affiliated as they were. The National Labor Relations Board, in granting the request of the C. I. O. officers of the Pacific Coast, would declare the I. L. W. U. the bargaining agency for Longshoremen on a coastwise basis. If this request is granted, it will naturally throw these men, who have been affiliated with the Union of their own choice for years, into a Union that they do not wish to be affiliated with. Therefore, I am requesting that the National Labor Relations Board take a Government supervised port-by-port election of the registered Longshoremen to determine their chosen bargaining agency. Any help that you can give these men in this respect, who are up-right American citizens, most of them owning their own homes and having families, towards helping them say who they wish to represent them, and aiding them from being forced into accepting some organization of which they have declined by their own voice and vote to be affiliated with, will be very much appreciated. Thank you for any help that you can and will give these men and myself in this matter. 1. I believe that longshore workers who work for members of the Shipowners' Association of the Pacific may be included within the unit, although at the time I reported to the Board I thought differently. I have therefore included the material on the Shipowners' Association in a separate part which appears in the middle of the decision. 2. I have not yet reported to you or to the Board the material which is included in Section IX, which is the classes of workers to be included within each particular port, the cards, lists, etc. mk: mrc EXHIBIT NO. 1629-Q-DUPLICATE OF EXHIBIT No. 1629-P M. K EXHIBIT No. 1629-R MAY 23, 1938. To: Rawlings Raglund. Subject: Second paragraph, page 41, Waterfront Employers' draft. Mr. Edwin Smith suggested that I mention somewhere in the Decision that it is the contention of the I. L. W. U. that the contract was made with the whole body of longshoremen rather than with any particular labor organization, and that, in view of the facts in this case, such a contention has "great merit”. I find that it impossible to put this in anywhere without (1) destroying the continuity of the section and blurring the Board's finding as to the existence of a question concerning representation; and (2) without implying that the contract was not made with the men and that the Board rejects the contention. Hence, I have omitted it. I personally feel that a finding that the contract was made with the men is the best answer to any of these difficult contract cases, and would permit a more clear-cut solution, although in the practical situation in the instant case, the Board's solution possibly does the job just as well. Supporting the theory that the contract in the present case was made with the body of longshoremen, we could point to the fact that the renewal of the contract, which was in the name of the I. L. A., was effected at a time when the employers knew that the longshoremen had gone C. I. O.. and the fact that the employers at every step in the execution of the contract dealt with the I. L. W. U. (although nothing in the contract required them to do so) because the I. L. W. U. was, in actual fact, the representative of the men. The employers themselves seem to have taken a position that their contract was really with the longshoremen as such. Thus, in Roth's letter of October 9, 1937, to the members of the Association, he states: "It is of the utmost importance to the Association that our present contracts covering longshore work be maintained and enforced irrespective of the ultimate outcome of this inter-union controversy. These contracts were automatically renewed without any change in their terms or the signatory parties. Mr. Bridges' letter of August 26th in which he referred to a change in the name of the Union, had no legal effect whatsoever upon any rights which longshoremen may have under existing contracts, nor upon the rights or duties of any partic ular labor union. "It will be the policy of this Association to insist upon the validity of our existing contracts, and to hire men from the registered list therein provided for. irrespective of their union affiliation. Furthermore, we have made it very plain to Mr. Bridges and Mr. Schmidt that we intend to respect, and in every way possible protect the rights which any individual registered longshoreman may have in our contracts, irrespective of his Union affiliation." And in a letter dated October 11, 1937, from Roth to Henry Schmidt, president of the San Francisco Local of the I. L. W. U., he writes: "In order that there may be no misunderstanding of our attitude, I am writing to reaffirm our position of neutrality in the present inter-union controversy between the I. L. A. and I. L. W. U. Neither the San Francisco Waterfront Employers Association nor the Pacific Coast Waterfront Employers Association has taken any position on the questions of which union is the proper collective bargaining agency, or which union is entitled to administer the existing contract. On the contrary, we have repeatedly informed both you and Mr. Bridges that the Waterfront Employers would not take any position in favor of or against either of the parties to this controversy. My exact words were "we propose to walk straight down the middle of the road and let nature take its course'. "It is true that we have stated that we would continue to deal with the individual registered longshoremen, but we also have made it perfectly clear that these registered men would be employed irrespective of their union affiliations, as is provided in the existing contract." It seems to me that the Board could find that the contract was made with the men and that, because the employers refused to recognize either of the unions as the agency properly representing the men in matters relating to the execution of the contract, a question concerning representation has arisen. mk.k EXHIBIT NO. 1629-S NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Attention: Mr. Madden. 6/9/38. JUNE 8, 1938. To: The Board. Thomas I. Emerson, Assistant General Counsel. Subject: Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast, Case Nos. R-638 and 1. The cards referred to in Section IX of this draft have not yet been completely tabulated and compared with payroll records. There are, therefore, many blanks. After all the cards have been tabulated a table indicating the total number of longshoremen in the unit, and the total number of cards introduced and the totals in each port is to be inserted before the first full paragraph on page 65. 2. When the case was reported to the Board I indicated that it was doubtful that there was enough material in the record to justify the inclusion of the members of the Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast in the description of the appropriate bargaining unit. Upon writing up this material, however, it appears that they may well be included and Mr. Ragland and I thought that this material should be presented to the Board for reconsideration. The material is set forth on pages 41a-41e of this draft. On page 41d other considerations are mentioned which wou'd militate against the inclusion of members of the Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast in the description of the appropriate bargaining unit. The Shipowners Association of the Pacific Coast has 46 members. Of these, 21 named on the attached list are not members of any of the regional associations, and hence will not be comprehended in the certification if the Shipowners Association were included. 3. There is attached a memorandum from me to Mr. Ragland which refers to a suggestion made by Mr. Edwin S. Smith at the time the case was reported to the Board. The memorandum explains why I found it impossible to include the idea which Mr. Smith wanted to be put in the decision. M. K. MK: mre EXHIBIT NO. 1629-T JULY 13, 1938. To: Messrs. Madden, D. W. Smith, and Mr. Witt. In a letter to me Harry Bridges says the following: "I am at present being held here on the West Coast owing to the court proreedings in Los Angeles against me for contempt of court. If all goes well, I expect to be in the east in a few weeks. If so, will undoubtedly be in Washington and see you then. |