Your appropriation for 1945, including transfer from the "Central Administrative Services," was $15,261,800, and your estimate for 1946 $13,405,000. Apparently there is a decrease of nearly $2,000,000. However, I observe that your 1945 appropriation included $1.259,309 for overtime pay which is not included in your 1946 estimates. There is also a decrease of $663,500 for the Bureau of Labor Statistics and $194,419 for a special project of the Wage and Hour Division, and one or two other minor items.

So when we take into consideration what appears to be a decrease, it is, as a matter of fact, an increase of $551,000 in the estimates for 1946 over the amount allowed for 1945.

As a matter of fact, nearly every unit in this table shows an increase. In view of the fact that the general trend of all other war agencies is ownward, I would like to have you, in your discussion, explain why the reverse is true in your estimates for the National War Labor Board.

GENERAL STATEMENT

We would be glad to have a general statement from you, Mr. Chairman, in which you can discuss the features of your work in gard to wage adjustments, settlement of disputes, and the trend of the work load in each category.

Dr. TAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, in looking ahead for our work during the coming year, the obligations that we will have to meet will be bstantially the same as during the past year.

WAGE STABILIZATION TASK

First of all, we have a wage stabilization task to carry out. That ponsibility the Board derives from the act of Congress of October entitled "An Act to amend the Emergency Price Control Act of 442," under which the Board has the obligation of passing on all reests for wage increases.

So our work, as we look ahead, still calls for a considerable amount fwage stabilization work under the act as it stands.

SETTLING OF CERTIFIED LABOR DISPUTES

We also have the responsibility for settling labor disputes certified the War Labor Board by the Secretary of Labor.

The inflow of dispute cases has continued to rise; it has been higher s year than in the previous year, and we anticipate that we will tinue to have a considerable burden in resolving labor disputes. This obligation derives from the War Labor Disputes Act, which -mains effective until 6 months following the cessation of hostilities, ** upon the passage of a joint resolution by Congress.

REASON FOR INCREASES REQUESTED

As to our requested increases: (1) we established an office in Hawai in response to a request from military and civil authorities in view of the fact that the absence of controls had created a definite inflationary trend. That office has been working very effectively. That cover that item. (2) The next and the biggest increase has to do with the enforcement of the wage stabilization program.

The War Labor Board not only has the responsibility of passing or all requests for increases in wages, but it is also responsible for en forcing the requirements of the wage program. It is our duty to determine when a wage adjustment has been improperly made withou the approval of the War Labor Board. This is usually done for th purpose of attracting manpower and is, in effect, a form of black market labor pirating. If the Board finds that such a violation ha taken place, it so certifies and the amount of salaries paid in violation will be disallowed as a tax deductible item by the Bureau of Interna Revenue and in connection with contracts with Government procure ment agencies.

We accumulated in our various offices a tremendous number o cases involving alleged violations. For the most part these come t us from other employers who have lost, their employees.

Our policy with respect to those complaints is to go into each cas very thoroughly with representatives of labor and industry. W believe that it is incumbent upon us to clear up those cases now pend ing so that the employers are in a position to know what, if any penalties would be required, so they might go ahead and make plai for the future.

The Legal Division is responsible for cleaning up existing claims improper payment under the act of October 2, 1942, and therefor we are requesting an increase in this Division. It does not involve an extension of the Board's work in that particular at all, but rather th establishment of a staff adequate to handle our current work.

I would like to say, in summary, that we request $13,405,000 fo the coming fiscal year. Last year Congress appropriated $15,000,00 for N. W. L. B. and a transfer of $261,800 from C. A. S., a total $15,261,800. Deducting overtime of $1,231.905, we received n $14,029,895. This amount compared with our 1946 request $13,405,000 is, as we compute it, $624,895 less than last year's appr priation.

INCREASE IN WORK LOAD

There have been no major organizational changes during the cours of the year. We have continued to perform the functions I mentione of wage stabilization and adjusting of labor disputes. But our wor load of wage and disputes cases has increased sharply.

This might be seen in the following figures. For the year endin April 1, 1945, we received 7,899 dispute cases and we disposed 7,925, so there has been a decrease there. This should be compare with the previous year.

For the previous year we received 6,543 dispute cases, so our r ceipts have increased from 6,500 to almost 7,900 during this yea Last year, ending April 1, 1944, we disposed of 5,801 cases or less tha we received, while the reverse was true this year. We disposed over 2,100 more dispute cases this year than last year, or 37 perce

more. We have closed out more cases than we have received, so there has been a cut in the backlog. That has to do with the disputes aspect of the Board's work where we have had a substantially heavier work load, and yet we disposed of 37 percent more cases than the previous year. In the voluntary wage cases, that is, requests by employers alone, of which there are over 70 percent, or jointly with unions for permission to increase wage rates, the record is as follows:

This year we received 194,783 requests for proposed wage adjustments. That might be compared to last year's load which was 163,204. Our receipts have been considerably higher than last year, increasing by 31,579 cases.

Mr. CANNON. As to those requests that you have received, what is the nature of those requests?

Dr. TAYLOR. That is when an employer comes to us and says, "I wish to make this wage increase," or "I have agreed with my union to make a wage increase. Will you certify that the proposed adjustment is within the limits of the stabilization, program?"

Mr. CANNON. How many of those were there for the current year?
Dr. TAYLOR. There were 194,783 received.

Mr. CANNON. How does that compare with last year?
Dr. TAYLOR. Last year there were 163,204.
cases increased by 31,579 voluntary cases.

So our load in those

Our record of the disposition of those voluntary cases is better than it was last year. We disposed of more than we received, that is, 197,150 cases. That happens to be about 20 percent more cases disposed of during the past year than in the previous year. Currently we have pending about 15,400 voluntary cases. That is an average of 1,300 cases per regional board.

I would like to give you one over-all picture. We are always concerned by the delays in the handling of our cases because of the bearing that delays may have on industrial relations.

I am happy to report that, whereas the average dispute case when we were last before you took us about 20 weeks to settle, the average dispute case now is settled in 12 weeks, so there has been a material improvement in the time required to dispose of these cases.

As respects voluntary requests for wage adjustments, when we were here before, we stated that the average time required to dispose of that kind of case was 5 weeks. We have now reduced the time to 3 weeks. The Board has made strenuous efforts to achieve those 1 results.

That gives you the general, over-all picture.

Mr. CANNON. That is a very satisfactory record both as to the number of cases handled and the number disposed of, and the time. allotted to each case.

Have there been any major changes in the organization or the procedure of the Board since your last appearance before the committee? Dr. TAYLOR. No; there has not been any major organizational or procedural changes. Our efforts in the past year have been principally in the direction of taking the organization which we had set up and making it operate more efficiently.

We have made some internal adjustments in the functions of particular divisions of the Board and procedural changes to expedite the handling of cases. There have been no new divisions added and no major organizational changes during the year.

NUMBER OF STRIKES

Mr. CANNON. How does your number of man-hours lost compare with the previous year?

Dr. TAYLOR. In strikes?

Mr. CANNON. Yes.

Dr. TAYLOR. We do have some of that information available. First of all, let me say that of the strikes that have taken place, the vast majority were unauthorized by the top officials of the unions. In most instances we have had exceptionally fine support from the leaders of international unions in getting unauthorized stoppages straightened out. There were about 2,900 strikes in the year 1942, 3,750 in 1943, and about 5,000 in 1944. Those data for 1944 are subject to revision. But that compares with the annual average of 3,385 strikes or lock-outs for the 5 pre-war years, from 1937 to 1941. However the duration of those strikes was much shorter in war years than in pre-war years. The workers involved in the 1944 strikes and lock-outs were idle an average of 4 working days, as compared with 6 working days in 1943, 5 in 1942, 9.8 days in 1941, 11.6 days in 1940, and 15.2 days in 1939.

So there is a marked decrease in the amount of idle time lost during strikes. The percentage of available working time lost was ten one-hundredths of 1 percent in 1944 as compared with fifteen onehundredths in 1943.

Mr. WOODRUM. I understood you to say that you had had splendid cooperation with international unions, or with the leaders of international unions. Did you mean to say the leaders of international unions or the leaders of national unions?

Dr. TAYLOR. With the leaders of international and national unions. Mr. WOODRUM. Do you speak of them as international or national unions?

Dr. TAYLOR. Both of them. Some of them are international and some are national. Those are their official names.

Mr. SNYDER. What percentage of them are national unions?

Dr. TAYLOR. We do not know of any strike last year that was authorized by a national union.

STATUS OF BACKLOG OF CASES

(See p. 24)

cases.

Mr. CANNON. You said last year you had a backlog of 16,000 Now you tell us that you are disposing of more cases than you receive, and that you are reducing the backlog. Evidently that is true. What is the situation now as to the backlog?

Dr. TAYLOR. The number of cases currently pending, that is, dispute cases, is 2,829, and in voluntary cases the number is 15,429. That is the current backlog.

Mr. CANNON. What is the trend? Is the number awaiting your action decreasing?

Mr. KHEEL. The trend continues fairly constant. I think we can show you that very graphically on two charts we have here. Mr. CANNON. You may explain those.

Dr. TAYLOR. In general, the disputes cases run about 150 a week. Mr. KHEEL. This is a chart showing the dispute cases [indicating chart]. The top line represents the number of cases we have. About 2,800 are pending presently, and there has been a decrease, as you can