ADDITIONAL AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS REQUESTED

Mr. MCENTEE. There is a request here for three additional automotive engineers. A rough check of the expenditures for the past year, or of the cost, shows a total of $18,000,000 for the repair of automotive equipment. We estimate that with these three automotive engineers checking on this work, we can save at least $4,000,000 on that account. Our check shows that this sytem of repairs means a cost of close to $500 for each piece of equipment. We believe that is too much money for that purpose.

Mr. LUDLOW. When you demonstrate that the saving you suggest can be made, and after having established the repair system on a new basis, then there would be no need of continuing those employees, would there?

Mr. McENTEE. It would take 2 years to do this.

Mr. LUDLOW. You believe that it can be done.

Mr. McENTEE. Yes, sir.

Mr. LUDLOW. After you have done that, and established your new system, you will not need these additional employees any further, will you?

Mr. McENTEE. May I say this, with reference to our procurement around the country: In some States we have for the Civilian Conservation Corps seven different procurement agencies, with seven suites of offices, seven sets of personnel, all in the same State. The technical

agencies say that it cannot be done in any other way. They say they have always handled it that way, but we believe that it can be done with one procurement agency in one State. The technical agencies may be right in their contention, but we are asking permission to employ someone to go into the situation and prove that it can be done through one central procurement agency in a State, instead of having seven offices.

Mr. WOODRUM. Do you know how much saving you can make under your regular appropriation by increasing this limitation?

Mr. MCENTEE. My belief is that by the employment of these automotive engineers, there can be a saving of $4,000,000 in the automobile repair item alone. I am not certain of that, but I believe it can be done.

Mr. WOODRUM. Why cannot the Procurement Division under the Treasury Department do this procurement work for you?

Mr. McENTEE. I do not know of any reason why they should not. Mr. FECHNER. That is what we want to investigate, in order to find out.

Mr. McEntee might have added, in connection with the automobile repairs, that they have in the Army a technical service, and do not use the facilities of the Forest Service or of the National Park Service. They have seven technical services. The United States Forest Service has set up repair shops for the maintenance of the equipment that is used by the United States Forest Service Camps. They would not send, or they do not send, their trucks from camps to State Forest shops or private shops where they are within a radius of 50 miles of each other. The Forest Service will not send equipment to a garage maintained by the Park Service, nor will the Soil Conservation Service. The Army will not send equipment for repair to any of them.

Mr. LUDLOW. Would you have administrative authority under this act to require that to be done?

Mr. FECHNER. Yes, sir; if we have the personnel to direct it.

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS CAMPS

There is one more thing I want to say: Under the old set-up, the educational work in the C. C. C. camps and that was a subject that was probably discussed more in the two committees of the House and Senate than anything else in connection with the new bill-has been under the control of the Army. We want to change that, and have it under the control of the Director's office. Unless something is done in the way of a transfer of funds allotted for educational work from the Army to the office of the Director, we will not be able to do so. Mr. SNYDER. One of the greatest complaints that has come from my district has been on account of the cutting down of the educational provisions.

Mr. FECHNER. We are not cutting it any.

Mr. SNYDER. Who is doing it?

Mr. FECHNER. I do not know, unless that has reference to the W. P. A. teachers with whom we have nothing to do. Mr. Hopkins has been assigning W. P. A. teachers paid from his funds to do teaching work in the C. C. C. camps. Of course, we were glad to have them, but I understand that he is discontinuing that service recently so that we will not have it. That is something that we cannot control.

THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1937.

EXECUTIVE MANSION AND GROUNDS

STATEMENT OF FRANK T. GARTSIDE, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

RECONSTRUCTION OF IRON FENCE

Mr. WOODRUM. We have a Budget estimate in House Document. No. 269 of $17,000 for maintenance of the Executive Mansion and Grounds.

Mr. GARTSIDE. Yes, sir.

Mr. WOODRUM. Will you give us an explanation of it?

Mr. GARTSIDE. This item of $17,000 is required for the reconstruction of the wrought iron fence enclosing the White House grounds. It is required for architectural and esthetic reasons.

Mr. WOODRUM. You want to build up the fence around the White House a little.

Mr. GARTSIDE. This is for replacing it.

Mr. WOODRUM. All right; thank you, Mr. Gartside.

THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1937.

NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION STATEMENT OF T. S. SETTLE, SECRETARY, NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION

MAKING AVAILABLE UNEXPENDED BALANCE OF 1937 APPROPRIATIONS FOR PURCHASE OF LAND

Mr. WOODRUM. We have an item from the Bureau of the Budget in House Document No. 274 asking for a reappropriation of $60,000 of the $200,000 which was made available for the fiscal year 1937 for the National Capital Park and Planning Commission toward the purchase of land.

Will you tell us briefly what the situation is and why you wish this money reappropriated?

Mr. SETTLE. As I understand, the wording simply reappropriates any balance of that $200,000 that may be left.

Mr. WOODRUM. Which is approximately $60,000, is it not?

Mr. SETTLE. It was at the time that this request was sent over. I will explain briefly the situation.

This money was appropriated to buy parks and playground land, little parcels here and there in areas, most of each area we had already bought. Of course, the tough ones were the ones that were still left. Quite a number of these, after negotiations, and a failure to arrive at a satisfactory price, had to be placed in condemnation. So all of the $200,000 has either been spent or else is in the condemnation court. But the Comptroller ruled a few years ago, when some of our funds were impounded, that a condemnation proceedings was not an obligation, such as an ordinary contract, because we could always

refuse to accept the condemnation award. Since this was sent to you, before the 30th of June, we have obligated all but about $10,000 of it.

Mr. WOODRUM. So that there is only about $10,000 of this that will be affected?

Mr. SETTLE. That is right.

Mr. TABER. Why not make this language read, "The unexpended balance of $10,000", or whatever it is, out of the appropriation of $200,000? That would look better if it were put in the bill in that

way.

Mr. SETTLE. The only trouble was that when we drew this, we did not know what it was.

Mr. TABER. You could at least give us the amount of the unexpended balance. You could tell us about it in that way. Mr. SETTLE. All right.

FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1937.

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD

(See p. 565)

STATEMENT OF EDWIN S. SMITH, DONALD W. SMITH, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD; CHARLES FAHY, GENERAL COUNSEL; ROBERT B. WATTS, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL; BENEDICT WOLF, SECRETARY, AND MRS. B. M. STERN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

SALARIES AND EXPENSES, 1938

Mr. WOODRUM. We have before us some supplemental estimates for the National Labor Relations Board, for 1938, contained in House Document No. 294.

In the Independent Offices Appropriation Act, carrying the regular appropriation for the National Labor Relations Board, we gave you for 1938, $750,000 for salaries and $35,000 for printing and binding. With this supplemental estimate, you contemplate a total expenditure for salaries of $2,485,000, and for printing and binding $100,000, or an increase through this supplemental appropriation, if allowed as recommended, of $1,735,000 for salaries and $65,000 for printing and binding. Is that correct?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. That is correct, as I understand it.

Mr. WOODRUM. Will you tell us, first, the necessity for this increase in personnel, under the appropriation?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. We feel that the reasons necessitating the increases that have been recommended here are very amply set forth in the statement of justification, and I would prefer, unless the committee prefers otherwise, not to try to cover all the material in that justification, but to make a general statement of the problem.

Mr. WOODRUM. I suggest that we insert this statement in the record.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. I think that would be very helpful.

Mr. WOODRUM. That will be done, and then you may supplement that by a general statement, if you will.

(The justification statement is as follows:)

JUSTIFICATION OF ESTIMATES FOR SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 1938

INCREASE OF WORK AS RESULT OF SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

From August 27, 1935, the date of the present Board's organization, until April 12, 1937, a total of 2,425 cases were filed with the Board and its regional agencies; an average of approximately 124 for each month during that period. Incomplete figures for cases filed since the decisions of the Supreme Court on April 12, 1937, up to July 1, 1937, total 3,137, or an average of 1,255 per month. Over the 22-month period the average rate of increase is over 1,000 percent. The rate of growth in the Board's work is increasing rather than diminishing. While 1,420 cases were filed in the last half of April and the month of May, 1,717 were filed in June.

It must be borne in mind that the Board does not take jurisdiction in cases on its own initiative. Cases are initiated by the filing of charges and petitions with the Board. The Board must handle all these cases, and handle them promptly. It has no right to consider only those cases where large companies are involved, for instance, or by any other mechnaical rule differentiate among the cases brought to it. All petitioners and people filing charges are equally entitled to the relief provided by the act, and the Board must give such relief. If the Board's staff is inadequate, it is not performing the duty imposed upon it by the law, and many grave-situations will, by neglect, become even more greatly aggravated. The Board is not able to control or regulate the flow of work coming to it.

The long-term usefulness of this Board must be measured, in large part, not by the number of cases heard, decided, and enforced by the courts, but by the number of peaceful adjustments of disputes in accordance with the provisions of the act in the informal stages of our proceedings. The body of labor law growing out of the act, and its interpretations by the Board and the courts up to the present time, present a pattern of the legal courses which employers must pursue, which are clearly applicable to most new disputes as they arise. It is as useless for the full processes of the act to be invoked in each dispute as for every individual income tax return to go to the Board of Tax Appeals. The formal process is long and costly; the informal one is effective and saving, and it depends for its realization on an adequate staff of experts to be present and to help as disputes arise.

Not only is it socially desirable that the National Labor Relations Act be observed without enforcement action in each case, but it is questionable whether anybody could adjudicate the volume of cases arising under the act. The only solution is to adjust cases promptly as they arise. Since the Supreme Court decisions, our regional staffs have been completely unable to keep up with the flood of new cases received daily. Our directors are not even able to confer with all the groups filing charges and petitions, to say nothing of arranging joint conferences between employers and employees in such cases where difficulties may be ironed out and peace restored. There is every reason to believe in the increased efficacy of such efforts on the part of the Board's regional representatives now that the act is recognized as the law of the land, but their ability so to function is hopelessly dissipated by the inadequacy of our field personnel, space, and equipment.

The practicability of prompt consideration of charges and petitions filed with the Board and its regional agencies has been demonstrated in the foregoing. There is, however, an added urgency for prompt handling in the nature of the work itself. Our experience has demonstrated that delays breed industrial strife. When a labor organization files a charge alleging that some of its members have been discharged because of their union acitivities or that an employer refuses to bargain collectively on wages, hours, working conditions, and so forth, the situation has already reached a tense stage. If no relief can be secured to a union by following legal methods of settling disputes arising out of such conditions, or if such relief is delayed and its practical value thus lost, the inevitable conclusion reached is that a strike or the use of other economic weapons is the only relief readily available.

The National Labor Relations Act was passed and the Board was created to prevent the interruption of interstate commerce by strikers or lockouts by substituting therefor the protection offered by the National Labor Relations Act. This protection the Board can make available only through the use of an adequate staff.

One of the most important functions which the regional agencies of the Board are performing at the present time is the conduct of consent elections among the employees of the plants involved for the purpose of designating representatives