k. Bargaining Not Required During Slowdown B. Unfair Labor Practices of Unions___ 178 179 2. Causing or Attempting to Cause Illegal Discrimination 185 186 List of Tables Tables in Chapters VII and VIII TABLE Page 1. Results of Litigation for Enforcement or Review of Board Orders__ 213 260 Tables in Appendix B (Statistics for Fiscal Year 1952) 1. Number of Cases Received, Closed, and Pending (Petitioner or 3. Remedial Action Taken in Unfair Labor Practice Cases Closed___ 282 10. Collective Bargaining Elections by Affiliation of Participating Unions... 288 10A. Outcome of Collective Bargaining Elections.. 289 10B. Voting in Collective Bargaining Elections in Which a Representative Was Chosen_. 290 10C. Voting in Collective Bargaining Elections in Which a Representative Was Not Chosen___ 291 11. Decertification Elections by Affiliation of Participating Unions... 11A. Voting in Decertification Elections.......... 15. Geographic Distribution of Collective Bargaining Elections_. 16. Geographic Distribution of Decertification Elections__. 296 298 17. Record of Injunctions Petitioned for, or Acted Upon, Under Section 10 (j) and 10 (1).......... 300 18. Record of Final Offer Ballots Conducted Under National Emer- 302 (Statistics of Union-Shop Elections, Aug. 22, 1947-Oct. 22, C-1. Union-Shop Authorization Cases Received, Closed, and Pending, 304 C-2. Disposition of Union-Shop Authorization Cases Closed.-- . 304 Taken..... 305 C-4. Types of Union-Shop Authorization Polls Conducted.___ 305 305 306 307 308 Page 1, Line 7, the number of elections should read: 6,866 involving 778,724 employees. Operations in Fiscal Year 1952 THE volume of cases coming to the National Labor Relations Board during the 1952 fiscal year continued at approximately the same high level as in the preceding year. Filings of the various types of cases also corresponded closely to the filings of fiscal 1951. However, there was a noticeable change in the character of the agency's output of cases. The outstanding development was the record number of elections conducted-6,525 involving 674,000 employees. Because of a reduction in staff resulting from a cut in the agency's appropriation for fiscal 1952,1 the five-Member Board found it necessary to adopt a policy of giving priority in processing and decision to representation cases. The Board Members decided that giving preference to representation election cases would serve the purposes of the act better than to permit the reduction in staff to slow down the output of decisions on both principal types of cases-representation and unfair practices. The Board Members at the same time took steps to speed the processing of representation cases by simplifying the decisional forms used in cases which present no novel issues. The General Counsel also directed the field offices to place emphasis on expediting representation cases by shortening procedures wherever possible. Consequently, there was a marked decrease in actions upon unfair labor practice cases, but this was partly offset by a substantial increase in the number of representation cases processed, despite the staff reduction. Among the considerations that led to the decision to give priority to representation cases rather than unfair labor practice cases were The Board's total staff in Washington and in the field on June 30, 1951, numbered 1,404 employees; on June 30, 1952, it numbered 1,132 employees. This was a reduction of more than 19 percent. The average time required to process a contested representation case, from filing of petition to decision, has been reduced from 151 days, in fiscal 1947, to a current average of 69 days. As a result of new field procedures put into effect by the General Counsel in early 1952, the average time required between the filing of a petition and issuance of a notice of hearing in such cases was reduced from 41 days to an average of 4 days. Moreover, on December 15, 1951, the Board Members delegated to the regional directors authority to Issue certifications In stipulated election cases, thus eliminating the necessity of processing these cases in Washington. these: A representation case ordinarily affects a much larger number of persons. The conduct of an election eliminates uncertainty as to the employees' choice of bargaining representative and often thereby eliminates one possible source of unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practice cases require considerably more time to process, on an average, because of their adversary character and because of the greater complexity of the issues ordinarily involved. Under this policy of priority for representation cases, the Board Members were able to increase their output of decisions in contested representation cases by approximately 7 percent. However, this increase was more than offset by a decrease of nearly 12 percent in the number of contested unfair labor practice cases decided-cases thereby necessarily put over to future years for final action. The number of elections conducted rose to a new all-time peak of 6,866. This was an increase of 5 percent over the Board's prior record of 6,525 elections, which was scored in fiscal 1951, and an increase of nearly 20 percent over the 5,731 conducted in fiscal 1950. A total of 778,724 employees was eligible to vote in the 1952 elections, and valid ballots were cast by 674,412, which is 86.6 percent of those eligible. Seventy-five percent of the elections was conducted by agreement of the parties. The regional offices were able to maintain field activity in closing unfair practice cases by settlement, withdrawal, or dismissal, without formal action, at about the same level as in the preceding year. Approximately 89 percent of the 5,387 unfair practice cases closed by the agency was so disposed of by field action. But the issuance of formal complaints declined 11 percent because of the staff reduction. In representation cases, there was a noticeable increase in those requiring formal action of some type-28 percent in fiscal 1952 compared with 25 percent the preceding year. In numbers of cases, this meant that formal action had to be taken in 3,013 representation proceedings, compared with 2,638 requiring formal action the year before. Nevertheless, the agency closed 10,603 representation cases, which was an increase of 3 percent over the preceding year. 1. Case Activities of Five-Member Board The five-Member Board issued formal decisions and opinions during the 1952 fiscal year in 369 unfair labor practice cases which were brought to it on contest over either the facts or the application of the law. This compared with 419 such cases decided by the Board Members in fiscal 1951.3 * During the middle months of fiscal 1953, the Board has been issuing decisions in unfair labor practice cases at the rate of about 500 per year. |