lake of silt and algae. By fiscal year 1967, the lower lake will require cleaning. +$6,000: The pressure vessel and blowdown tanks must be replaced in the laundry water-softening system and the overflow system of the boilers in the heating plant. +$3,000: The wooden doors at the heating plant and incinerator need extensive repairs. The estimate provides for their replacement with rolling steel doors. The permanent domiciliary bed capacity of the Soldiers' Home is filled to capacity and substandard spaces are in use. Based on the withdrawal of the proposed Air Force legislation to establish a separate home for airmen for the foreseeable future, it is necessary to provide additional domiciliary beds. The request for $3,575 will provide for the addition of the final two wings to the Sheridan domiciliary building, increasing its bed capacity by 366 beds. Prior years appropriation (—$185,000) During fiscal year 1966, $2 will be obligated for final costs on budgetary plans and $180,000 will be obligated for final plans and specifications for the additional wings on the Sheridan Building. Use of this money for this purpose was approved by the Board of Commissioners, the Secretary of the Army, and the Bureau of the Budget. It is surplus from the construction of the existing Sheridan Building which was completed in fiscal year 1963. Also, $3 was spent on closing out the project for erecting supporting piers in the basement of the Scott Building. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1966. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD WITNESSES FRANK W. McCULLOCH, CHAIRMAN ARNOLD ORDMAN, GENERAL COUNSEL OGDEN W. FIELDS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY DOMINICK L. MANOLI, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL H. STEPHAN GORDON, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL CLARENCE S. WRIGHT, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION EDWARD GOODSTEIN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATION MORRIS S. MILLER, CHIEF, BUDGET BRANCH BERNARD CUSHMAN, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE GENERAL COUNSEL 1 Selected resources as of June 30 are as follows: Unpaid undelivered orders, 1964, $175 thousand; 1965, $111 thousand; 1966, $159 thousand; 1967, $164 thousand. Mr. FOGARTY. We shall now take up the National Labor Relations Board. GENERAL STATEMENT Mr. McCulloch, we shall put your statement in the record at this point. (The statement follows:) I wish to thank the committee for this opportunity to appear on behalf of the National Labor Relations Board, and to support its budget request for fiscal year 1967 to carry out the vital responsibilities laid upon it by Congress. THE AGENCY REQUEST The agency is requesting $1,728,900 more in 1967 than the amount we expect for 1966. In 1966, $28,165,000 was appropriated, and a net of $548,100 was authorized by the President for inclusion in a pay act supplemental in accordance with the pay act bill passed by the Congrss in 1965; $51,100 of expected pay act cost in 1966 is to be absorbed by the agency as a result of a reduced estimate of intake in 1966. The $1,728,900 increase for 1967 includes $787,100 for mandatory administrative costs, $90.000 for equipment to help automate the printing and publishing of Board decisions, and $851,800 for increased program costs. The $851,800 is a 3-percent increase compared with 1966, and will pay for 107 additional positions or a 4.5-percent increase in positions over 1966. The 4.5-percent increase in positions will be used to process an expected increase of about 8 percent in workload, consisting of 6.1 percent in intake (6.6-percent increase in unfair labor practice situations and 3.4-percent increase in representation work) and about 1.8 percent in increased backlog reduction work. The difference between the 4.5-percent increase in positions and the 8-percent increase in work will be absorbed by improved performance and cost reductions valued at over $600.000. The additional 107 positions will be used to increase the General Counsel's staff by 85, a 4.3-percent increase, the Division of Trial Examiners by 4 clerical positions to help handle a much larger volume of decisions and the Board's staff by 18; 10 of these 18 positions being increased are for more legal assistants, or an increase of 7 percent to handle an 18-percent increase in unfair labor practice decisions. The remaining eight positions are clerical and are needed to handle the resulting increased volume of clerical work. RISING INTAKE As in the years just passed, we must report to you that case intake is rising, and that to meet this rise requires more effort and more funds. Since this acceleration of work intake began in 1958, we have had an average yearly increase of 12 percent in unfair labor practice situations, and almost 9 percent in representation cases. Experience has taught us, however, that the rate of increase is higher in even years such as 1962 and 1964, and lower in odd years such as 1963 and 1965. For 1966, the current year, we have estimated an unfair labor practice situation intake increase of 8.1 percent and a representation casework intake increase of 8.3 percent. For 1967, we have estimated an unfair labor practice situation intake increase of 6.6 percent and a representation casework intake increase of 3.4 percent. In accordance with experience the increases are higher in 1966 than in 1967. However, in accordance with our conservative approach to intake estimating, the average annual percentage increase for unfair labor practice situations for the 2 years is 7.35 as compared with the 12-percent average since 1958. Similarly, in representation casework, we have estimated a 2-year average annual increase of 5.85 percent as compared with the 9-percent average increase since 1958. FACTORS AFFECTING INTAKE Rising industrial growth The phenomenal growth of the gross national product, employment, and other factors affecting our work intake are expected to continue. Industrial invest ment in new plants is, for example, continuing to grow at a very high rate. New jobs are opening up regularly, providing continuing new opportunities for union organization. Rising union organizing activity Much of our work, recently, comes as a result of union organizing activity. Back in 1958 and 1959, when our case filings began picking up so rapidly, approximately 58 percent of the unfair labor practice charges were being filed by individuals and about 30 percent were being filed by unions. Currently, this pattern has been almost completely reversed, and almost 50 percent of all charges are being filed by unions, whereas individual filings constitute about 35 percent of the total. It is therefore extremely important in predicting our workload to note that the tempo of union organizing, as reported publicly and by our regional offices, appears to be picking up in many ways. The joint union campaign in which a number of unions pool their funds and strength, which has been used to organize specific geographic areas, is now expected to be used for organizing occupational groups, such as office clerks, retail sales, professional employees, and so forth. It has already been used for joint bargaining with large nationwide employers who have many plants organized by various unions. This activity is manifesting itself in the high increase in the filings of representation petitions thus far this fiscal year. Our experience indicates that this activity will not only continue to bring increased filings of representation petitions, but will also bring increased filings of related unfair labor practice charges. Other factors affecting intake Automation brings the impact of closing operations or entire plants, subcontracting, and other such difficult economic and legal issues to the field of labor relations. As these problems are considered by the Board and the courts, their decisions become the basis for the resolution of everyday problems in the field. They also become the basis for further testing of the law to help the parties spell out their rights and responsibilities under many different and changing sets of circumstances. Workload WORKLOAD PROCESSING REVIEW Unfair labor practice work-Trial examiners The workload at the trial examiner level continues to be heavy and constitutes our main work processing problem at this time. The calendar of cases awaiting hearing before our trial examiners increased from 235 at the end of fiscal year 1962 to 479 at the end of fiscal year 1965. Cases pending trial examiner decision have risen from 142 at the end of fiscal year 1962 to 290 at the end of fiscal year 1965. Both have increased by over 100 percent. These increases in pending cases took place despite production increases in hearings held from the 750 level in 1962 and 1963 to about 1,000 currently, and in trial examiner decisions issued from about 650 in 1962 and 1963 to the current level of about 900. The Board attacked the problem by seeking internal management improvements, such as better calendar control and tighter travel schedules, and by the hiring of more trial examiners insofar as necessary. Thus the number of trial examiner positions rose from 75 in 1963 to about 100 currently in response to the rising merit workload. We have not requested an increases in trial examiner positions for 1967, because we had programed a leveling out of the trial examiner work processing problem by the end of fiscal year 1967. It is only fair to note, however, that at the time we prepared our plans for 1967 we were not aware of a significant change which had begun. Trial examiner decisions issued thus far this year, which are based upon hearings held during the fiscal year 1965 as well as 1966, indicate a substantial increase in the difficulty of the cases being heard. Days of hearings and pages of transcript increased about 30 percent over the length of hearings and transcripts in cases decided by the trial examiners in fiscal year 1965. The length of the trial examiner's decision, an index to the difficulties encountered, has increased by 14 percent. These increases in difficulty slowed down the number of hearings closed in 1965 and thus far in 1966. It has also slowed down the number of trial examiner decisions issued thus far in 1966. If this situation continues, we may not be able to meet fully our target of achieving currency in trial examiner work handling in 1967. Board unfair labor practice case decisional processing I am pleased to report that the Board issued 749 decisions in unfair labor practice cases in 1965 compared to 563 in 1964 and not only managed to keep abreast of the decisions coming to us from the trial examiners, but has also managed to get them out in 105 days which is very good time. Our future work, of course, depends on the number of trial examiner decisions which will be issued. Our plans for fiscal year 1967 provide for an increase in Board decisions from 830 to 980, an increase of 18 percent. Board representation case decisional processing Despite the increase in representation work in fiscal year 1965, the Board did not face an increase in requirements for initial rulings on representation petitions. This result was achieved by an increase in elections held by agreement, which actually resulted in a decrease in the number of formal hearings required and a decrease in the number of regional director decisions which had to be issued. We expect to continue issuing about 200 initial representation decisions a year. The postelection work on objections and challenges is expected to continue at high levels. Time delay We are happy to report that time delay was actually reduced by 30 days in the handling of unfair labor practice cases, despite the trial examiner problem referred to, and that we are continuing to maintain our standards of case handling in representation cases. The improvement in the handling of unfair labor practices was mainly due to the Board's ability to reduce the time required to issue decisions to 105 days which is very close to its goal of 90 days from trial examiner decision to Board decision. This has been accomplished by our management improvement efforts, including a regular checkup on overage cases, and a constant drive to keep the cases moving, and despite added procedural steps made available to the parties by way of cross-exceptions and answering briefs. The increase in time delay at the complaint and hearing stages are basically due to the trial calendar buildup. We believe that a solution of the trial examiner processing problem will result in the practical accomplishment of the agency's present goal of issuing unfair labor practice decisions in the median case in about 8 months. MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT AND COST REDUCTION Cost reduction committee The agency established a cost reduction program to assist us in reaching our goal, as well as the President's of achieving substantive compliance with the National Labor Relations Act in the most efficient manner possible. We have an agency cost reduction committee for overall coordination of the program, assisted by area committees whose function is to find realistic cost reduction methods for their areas. With the assistance of the agency committees we set cost reduction goals for 1967 valued at over $600,000. These goals are to be accomplished by productivity improvement through better management and by reductions in the rate of miscellaneous expenses wherever possible. Cost reduction goals for 1967 Productivity The main basis of our cost reduction program has to be management improvement designed to improve productivity. In the field offices we are looking for a 4-percent efficiency improvement in 1966 and an additional 3 percent in 1967. An important part of the field and agency program is the emphasis on settlement. Increases in settlement with concomitant decreases in the need to litigate provide immediate economy because the manpower saved from litigation can be used for the handling of more cases. Our trial examiners have been doing a fine job under very difficult conditions during the last few years. From 1963 to 1965 they managed to improve their productivity by 14.6 percent and for 1966-67 we have estimated a further improvement of 5.1 percent. Our Chief Trial Examiner and his Associate Chief Trial Examiners plan to spend more time assisting trial examiners to improve their techniques, especially the new trial examiners who have been recently appointed. |