does not indicate that very many of that particular group went through all of those stages you have described.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. That is correct; but you must recognize the fact that both of those headings, "Disposed of by agreement" and "Withdrawn", cover cases disposed of at various stages of formal procedure. Some may be disposed of after the intermediate report of the trial examiner is made, and some may be disposed of at the time of hearing. Many cases are settled at that time. Some of the settlements come before formal action is taken, and before the complaint has been issued.

Mr. TABER. So you would not have more than 25 percent in which you would complete the work on the case, on the average, would you? Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. No, sir; not more than that.

Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. I misunderstood you Congressman Taber. I would like to take a correction of my statement: About 20 or 25 percent of our cases go through the complete formal action I mentioned, while the other 75 or 80 percent are settled either in the field or in Washington. Many of them are settled immediately before the hearing is held, and some after they reach Washington, or the regional director will try to settle them prior to such time. Only about 25 percent require all of the formal procedure mentioned.

Mr. WOODRUM. In the regular appropriation for 1938, we allowed you $750,000 for personnel: How much personnel did you get, or what is the average number of personnel you have for 1938, both departmental and field?

Mrs. STERN. Eighty-five departmental and eighty-one in the field. Mr. WOODRUM. What would this increased appropriation give you in the way of personnel?

Mrs. STERN. Three hundred and four departmental and 426 in the field.

Mr. WOODRUм. How many did you have on the pay roll on June 30, 1937?

Mrs. STERN. One hundred and fifty-five departmental.

Mr. WOODRUM. How many in the field?

Mrs. STERN. One hundred and eighty-two in the field.

Mr. WOODRUM. How many do you have today?

Mrs. STERN. There has been no increase.

Mr. WOODRUM. Is this increased appropriation based on the full fiscal year?

Mr. WOLF. No, sir; there are lapses.

Mr. WOODRUM. But you have it on the 12-month basis. You have it for the full fiscal year 1938.

Mr. WOLF. Yes, sir.

Mr. WOODRUM. If this appropriation bill is passed the first of August, we would be justified in deducting one-twelfth of the amount. Mr. WOLF. We have already made the deductions for lapses. Mr. WOODRUM. The lapses seem to be figured in the estimate. Mrs. STERN. That appears on page 4 of the Budget sheets. Mr. WOLF. That is shown on pages 4 and 6.

Mr. WOODRUM. You have allowed $28,441 for lapses. You are figuring on 426 people in the field, and 304 in the departmental force. Now, suppose this appropriation became effective on August 1, how soon would you get those 426 people in the field?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. I can say this, that since April 12 much of the time of the Secretary has been devoted to interviewing personnel.

Mr. Fahy and Mr. Watts have also spent considerable time interviewing persons, so that we could immediately appoint them if we have sufficient funds to pay them. The Board has not made any appointments since July 1, because we have been waiting to see where we stood.

Mr. WOODRUM. That is what you are supposed to do.

not supposed to appoint them until you have the money with which to pay them. Are these employees to be civil-service employees? Mr. WOLF. No, sir; except the stenographic and clerical forces. The stenographers, clerks, and administrative assistants would come under the civil service, but not the attorneys and field examiners.

Mr. WOODRUM. How many of the 426 in the field would be civilservice employees, and how many would not be covered by civil service?

Mrs. STERN. The majority would not be.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. A majority of these will be attorneys and field examiners.

Mrs. STERN. One hundred and ninety-two of the field personnel would be under civil service.

Mr. SNYDER. What are the duties of field examiners?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. The field examiner is a man who conducts preliminary investigations after a charge has been brought in the manner I have indicated. In the case of a formal hearing, he assists the attorney in interviewing witnesses; but for the most part his duties are those of making preliminary investigations and trying to settle cases at the same time.

Mr. SNYDER. He travels from place to place.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. Yes, sir; within his own region.

COMMUNICATION SERVICE

Mr. SNYDER. Under this heading "Other obligations" you have an item of $52,500 for communications, which, I presume, means telephone and telegraph service.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. Yes, sir.

STENOGRAPHIC REPORTING SERVICES

Mr. SNYDER. And you have an item of $131,250 for reporting. Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. That is for the reporting of the formal hearings held. That is for stenographic reporting.

Mr. SNYDER. Do you have to call in stenographers to do that work? Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. We have a reporting service which, of course, we secure by bids. Many of the reporting firms bid, just as they do on any other Government contracts, and we accept the lowest bid.

RENTAL OF OFFICES

Mr. SNYDER. You have an item of $157,500 for rentals.

Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. That is for the rental of offices in various cities. We, of course, endeavor to secure office space in Government buildings wherever it is possible, but in many cities that is impossible. Particularly in the city of Washington, at the present time, the Board is unable for its own offices to secure Government space. As a result, we have inadequate space for which we have to pay rent.

Mr. SNYDER. Do you have an office at Harrisburg, Pa.?

Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. No, sir; we have one at Philadelphia and one at Pittsburgh.

Mr. SNYDER. You have space in the Post Office Building at Pittsburgh?

Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SNYDER. You have space in the new public building at Philadelphia, I presume.

Mr. WOLF. No, sir; we are unable to secure space there.

Mr. SNYDER. Do you mean to say that that big building is not adequate to take care of all the Government agencies there?

Mr. DONALD W. SMITH. We have not been able to secure space there, nor Government space in New York, where we have a rather large office.

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. We have made application, not only once but continuously, endeavoring to procure space in Federal buildings. We are very much alive to the importance of that.

Mr. SNYDER. Will there be additional rental money needed, if this appropriation is made for, I think, three more office set-ups?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. The estimate includes those three projected

offices.

REQUIREMENTS FOR APPOINTMENT OF NON-CIVIL-SERVICE EMPLOYEES

Mr. LUDLOW. What standards of merit do you set up for the noncivil-service employees? Do you have any sort of examination?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. I think that question could be better answered by the general counsel as to the lawyers, and by the Secretary for the nonlegal personnel, not under civil service, or those who do not have to be lawyers.

Mr. LUDLOW. Do you put them through some standardized examination?

Mr. WOLF. First of all, we consider the experience they have had in this kind of work, their experience in labor relations; and, if possible, they should have some legal training. We feel that legal training helps in field examiners' work.

Mr. LUDLOW. The appointments are made without regard to political considerations?

Mr. WOLF. Yes, sir.

SOURCE OF COMPLAINTS COMING BEFORE BOARD

Mr. LUDLOW. You have had so far 2,362 cases. On whose initiative were those cases brought? Were all of those cases brought on the initiative of labor unions?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. On the initiative of labor unions or some such formal organizations representing employees in plants. Sometimes they were brought on the initiative of a single individual employee. Mr. LUDLOW. Does not your Board have authority under the law, of its own motion, to take cognizance of unfair labor practices?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. No, sir, the statute simply says whenever a charge is brought this machinery goes into operation.

Mr. LUDLOW. Are both parties equally entitled to relief, or can the Board grant any such relief where an employer comes before you with a complaint of unfair practices?

Mr. EDWIN S. SMITH. No, sir; because the act refers specifically to the unfair practices of employers, and obviously, they are not likely to complain against themselves.

Mr. LUDLOW. On the other hand, take it the other way around. The employers do not come before you and allege unfair practices? Mr. EDWIN SMITH. That is correct.

Mr. LUDLOW. There is no provision

Mr. EDWIN SMITH. There is no provision in the statute for that. The constitutional theory of the statute, as you know, is that unfair labor practices on the part of the employers, interferences with self organization, and so forth, have led and tend to lead to strikes and other labor disturbances. If you can remove that cause, you will reduce the number of strikes accordingly.

ACTIONS OF BOARD IN PREVENTION OF STRIKES

Mr. TABER. Has that been the result?

Mr. EDWIN SMITH. Well, in the month of May, action by the Board prevented 133 strikes. The most recent case in which the action of the Board terminated what would have been a very protracted and costly strike was the election held in the Jones & Laughlin Corporation, involving 27,000 employees. We brought about that election at the end of 3 days of strike with consequent savings in pay roll alone of about $700,000 a week.

If that strike had gone on in the same lengthy fashion that strikes in some of the other so-called little steel companies have gone on, it would have represented a considerable economic outlay on the part of the employer, the employee, the community, and the Government.

It is impossible to tell how many strikes are prevented by the prevention of unfair labor practices, because the whole objective of the act is to get the Government into the picture before the strike has occurred. So that the figures of strikes actually in progress and settled by action of the Board by no means represent the effectiveness of the Board and the act in preventing strikes.

Mr. LUDLOW. Would a very large number of cases indicate to you that the country is in an abnormal industrial turmoil?

Mr. EDWIN SMITH. I think it is true that with certain outstanding exceptions, notably the steel strikes which are on everybody's mind at the present time, strikes tend to be shorter now than they have been in the past. I do not think the number of strikes has decreased. And that I take it is due principally to the fact that you have such a tremendously rapid increase in labor organization.

Mr. LUDLOW. What I was leading up to was this: You would not expect a very large number to continue, up to such a peak as this? Mr. EDWIN SMITH. I think a great deal depends on the willingness of the employer to abide by the terms of the act. What I mean by that is this: that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown, over a period of years, that about 45 percent of the strikes have been caused by practices on the part of the employer which fall under the ban of this act. To the extent that the employer realizes that the act is being enforced, to that extent he will cease these practices and the causes of strikes will correspondingly diminish.

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that the more effectively the Board is able to handle its work, the more work it may have, but the less strikes we will have. In other words, if the labor unions know that they can get fairly quick service on any alleged grievance that they have under the act, they are more likely to come to the Board and wait for Board action instead of going out on strike,

as they have been doing in these present days, when they know that there is going to be a long delay because of inadequate facilities to handle those cases.

. Mr. EDWIN SMITH. As a matter of fact, our directors in the field are under a considerable strain at the present time-in fact, they have been for a long time-by their informal efforts at least to convince the unions that the ultimate way of satisfaction for them lies in pursuing the machinery of the act rather than going on strike. The right to strike, of course, is preserved under the act. If the directors are conscientious, and delay the handling of cases coming before them beyond a certain point, it makes it very difficult for them to urge the unions to refrain from economic action. I mean that if a matter physically cannot be handled by the Board until 3 months from now, an impatient union with a grievance is not likely to wait around. I think that is one reason why an adequate appropriation for the Board's work is exceedingly important to avoid these delays.

AMOUNT OF ESTIMATE SUBMITTED TO BUDGET BUREAU

Mr. WOODRUM. When was this estimate presented to the Bureau of the Budget?

Mrs. STERN. I think it was Wednesday a week ago, was it not? Mr.WOLF. About 2 weeks ago, approximately; within the last 2 weeks.

Mr. WOODRUM. About 2 weeks ago?

Mr. WOLF. About 2 weeks ago.

Mr. WOODRUM. How much was your estimate to the Budget? Did they allow all that you asked?

Mr. WOLF. No. They cut off about $335,000.

RENTAL OF QUARTERS

Mr. LUDLOW. It occurs to me, in reading over your estimates, that you have quite a problem of securing space; rather an acute problem. How much of this proposed appropriation is intended to be used in procuring space?

Mr. EDWIN SMITH. That is set forth on these green sheets here. The figure for rental is $157,500. Just how much of that represents increased space requirements over present requirements I am not certain.

Mrs. STERN. May I say this? In preparing this space allotment, we figured the number of people to be accommodated. The whole estimate is figured on the number of people with individual offices. Of course, we rent 12 or 13 offices now in the field. In Washington, of course, all of our space is rented. We have nine offices in Federal buildings in the field. We have made the matter of Federal space a subject of almost monthly pilgrimages, to secure additional space, both from the Post Office Department and the Procurement Division of the Treasury. We just have not been able to secure the space. We figured the rent requirement by the number of people, anticipating for each regional office in this budget the number of people for that office, and that number is based entirely on the case load in each region.

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