this could not be done even though there was no collective bargaining agreement in existence. The union also threatened to establish a picket line at the job but none was in fact formed and the new employees continued to work even though they did not have union referrals. However, the union imposed fines on the men for working without referral slips, but no attempt was made to collect the fines.

The Grove Shepherd case 12 was regarded as determinative of the question of the union's responsibility for the foreman's conduct in following the union's rules and refusing to employ anyone on the job who was not a union member with a proper referral slip.

Discrimination in Employment-No. 2. The Board held that a union had unlawfully caused the discharge of a nonunion employee because he went to work without a referral slip from the union.13

The union's bylaws required that every member present a referral slip to the shop stewards before going to work. All of the employees, including the foreman, were union members, but the employer's superintendent had full control of hiring employees. At the foreman's request, the superintendent hired the foreman's brother who was not a union member and had been unable to obtain a referral slip from the union. When the shop steward learned of this, he announced to the other employees that he would not work with the foreman's brother. Thereupon the superintendent ordered the brother discharged.

The Board found that the steward "had been informed at a union meeting previous to the events in question that under the law of the State of Texas a steward could not 'pull his men off a job' but that he could state that he would not work with any employee who did not have a proper referral slip." The Board took this to mean that the steward had been instructed that the union's rule barring an employee from a job for which he did not have a referral slip "should be enforced by a declaration in one form of words rather than in another" even though the enforcement might cause discrimination in employment in violation of the

act.

On that basis, the Board found that the steward made his announcement as a representative of the union and not in his private capacity. The union

members could only have interpreted the statement as an order to quit work if the new employee continued on the job, and the employer's superintendent reasonably took it as a threat of a strike unless the union's rules were followed. Therefore, the union unlawfully caused the employer to discharge the employee. However, the mere fact that all the other employees were union members with referral slips was not enough alone to show that the superintendent had been engaged in unlawful discrimination in his hiring practices.

Discrimination in Employment-No. 3. The Board held that an employer and a union violated the NLRA when the employer twice refused to promote a nonunion employee to a vacant position but did fill the position with people recommended by the union.14

The employee twice applied for a vacant position which would have made him a regular rather than a temporary employee. Twice the employer refused to give him the job opening, saying that it was up to the union to decide who should fill the vacancy. Each time the position became vacant, the employer accepted the union's recommendation as to the person to fill it.

The company asserted that its action was based on the union security provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. However, the Board indicated that the contract did not require that the company behave in this fashion and that refusing to promote a person who was not acceptable to the union was a clear violation of section 8 (a) (3) of the act. Further, the union was held to have violated sections 8 (b) (2) and 8 (b) (1) (A) by causing the company to give preferential treatment in employment to two people and to discriminate against a third.

Discrimination in Employment-No. 4. The Board adopted a trial examiner's opinion which held that an employer and a union had encouraged an employee to join the union when the employee's duties had been severely reduced at the union's request even though he continued to draw full pay,15

12 Grove Shepherd & Kruge, 109 NLRB 209 (1954).

13 Millwright Local Union No. 2484, 114 NLRB No. 106 (Oct 25, 1955).

14 Brodsky & Son, 114 NLRB No. 128 (Oct. 31, 1955).

15 El Diario Publishing Co., 114 NLRB No. 153 (Nov. 14, 1955).

The employer was a newspaper publisher, and the employee involved here had been performing many duties in the pressroom until the employer began hiring his pressmen exclusively through the union. Then the union refused to allow the employee to continue to perform his duties in the pressroom. As a result, the employee was required to perform work for only about 15 to 30 minutes per day though he continued to draw full pay. He subsequently requested membership in the union, but this was denied.

The union was found to have required the employer to reduce the employee's duties. This was held to be discrimination in a "condition of employment" since one condition of employment is the nature of the duties which are performed for wages. The "inherent effect" of the discrimination was said to be the encouragement of this employee and other employees to join the union if they wanted to work in the pressroom. The union's present restrictive practices in accepting members would not negate that encouragement since the union's practices were subject to the will of the union and might be changed at any time.

Court decided that as between two employees hired on the same day, the veteran, competing for the fewer identical jobs in existence on his return from service, cannot be penalized because of his military absence.

On January 1, 1952, the employer had taken over a going business in which Jones (the veteran) and Thomason (the nonveteran) had been employed as truckdrivers. The employer asked both men if they wished to stay as his employees and both agreed. On July 13, 1953, Jones went into military service. At that time, though business had decreased, the employer still employed these two truckdrivers. After Jones left for military service, however, the employer increased Thomason's pay and assigned him the work Jones had done.

On November 27, 1953, Jones applied for restoration and was refused. The employer said that Jones' job had been abolished because he needed only one truckdriver, and that Thomason and Jones had the same seniority. He also argued that his circumstances had so changed as to make it unreasonable to discharge Thomason and reemploy the veteran.

The court held that the Universal Military Training and Service Act had been violated. Jones' work had been satisfactory, said the court. There was no more reason to abolish his job than that of the nonveteran, except that Jones was in military service. This did not constitute a change in the employer's circumstances making it unreasonable to reemploy the veteran. If the veteran "did not have a preferred standing over J. D. Thomason, he certainly was not to be penalized by reason of his absence so as to rank in seniority under J. D. Thomason, the other tank truckdriver, who had identical seniority rights."

Jones waived his right of restoration before trial; the defendant had sold the business on June 1, 1955. The court awarded a year's damages on the basis of the veteran's pay in the position before his induction, less actual earnings in other employment. The court denied a claim for counsel fee for the veteran's private counsel, because it held the reemployment statutes do not authorize the recovery of counsel fee.

Chronology of

Recent Labor Events

November 1, 1955

THE AFL Meat Cutters union announced that the first guaranteed workweek (32 hours) in the poultry industry had been negotiated with the Rockingham Poultry Cooperative. The 1-year agreement, which ended a 7-week strike of 900 employees in 6 plants in Virginia and West Virginia, also provided a 14-cent hourly wage increase and improved hospitalization benefits. The union announced it would insist on a 32-hour week guarantee in negotiations with poultry processors throughout the country.

November 2

THE Acting Secretary of Labor announced higher prevailing minimum wage rates, under the Walsh-Healey Act, of $1.115 an hour for the paper and pulp industry (99 cents for the paper-bag branch) and $1.08 an hour for the envelope industry, effective December 5, 1955. The announcement stated that rates under the Public Contracts Act which are now below $1 will not excuse noncompliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act's new minimum when it becomes effective on March 1, 1956 (see Chron. item for Aug. 12, 1955, MLR, Oct. 1955). !!

November 3

THE CIO Executive Board approved a charter for the Leather Workers Organizing Committee as a national union. The group will be known as the Leather Workers International Union of America.

HIGHER PIECE RATES for Puerto Rican homeworkers, effective December 9, 1955, in all but two divisions of the needlework and fabricated textile products industry were established under the Fair Labor Standards Act by the Federal Wage and Hour Administrator to bring them into line with hourly minimums put into effect in textile factories last June 6 (see Chron. items for May 9, 1955, MLR, July 1955). Higher piece rates were proposed for the two exceptions—silk, rayon, and nylon underwear (except infants') and the general divisionsto reflect the increased hourly minimum rates in effect since October 6 (see Chron. item for Sept. 15, MLR, Nov. 1955). Piece rates were also set for nine new operations not heretofore covered. The order also clarified and amplified the regulations applying to the industry's homeworkers, such as costs for which homeworkers must be reimbursed and the definitions of homeworker, prime contractor, and manufacturer.

November 6

THE Atlantic and Gulf District of the AFL Seafarers' International Union and 80 steamship lines agreed, during a wage reopening, on an employer-financed (5 cents a day per worker) and jointly administered shipboard safety and health program, effective November 15, 1955. The principal provision called for the establishment of medical centers, as part of the union hiring halls, in the ports of New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Mobile, and possibly others, where about 15,000 seamen could receive standardized physical examinations. Other provisions included 25-cent daily increases in employer contributions to both the welfare fund and the vacation plan, and wage increases for stewards and cooks.

November 7

THE PRESIDENT, acting under the Railway Labor Act, created an Emergency Board to investigate a dispute between 13 unions representing the nonoperating employees and the major railroads involving a union demand for an hourly wage increase of 25 cents and full carrier financing of the health and welfare program previously negotiated.

November 8

IN A REFERENDUM, Ohio voters rejected amendments to the State unemployment compensation law that would (1) increase present unemployment compensation benefits and extend their duration and (2) allow the recipients of State compensation to receive simultaneously supplemental unemployment benefits from company-financed funds under the Ford-General Motors type of supplemental unemployment pay agreements. The amendments were proposed in a petition sponsored by the CIO, with the support of other labor organizations. (See Chron. item for June 6, 1955, MLR, Aug. 1955, and also p. 81 of this issue.)

November 9

THE CIO Auto Workers and the Packard Division of the Studebaker-Packard Corp. agreed on a new 3-year contract, retroactive to August 28, 1955, for the company's 9,000 employees, generally following the pattern of agreements with the Big Three auto manufacturers. (See Chron. item for June 6, 1955, MLR, Aug. 1955.) Benefit payments under the supplemental layoff pay plan, however, will not be reduced when the trust fund built by company contributions falls below 13 percent of the maximum funding level. The agreement also provides for a wage increase of 6 cents an hour or 21⁄2 percent of annual wages, whichever is greater, and an 8-percent increase for skilled workers; arbitration under the umpire system; and extension of the union shop to salaried employees.

November 10

THE Federal court of appeals in Chicago, in refusing to enforce a National Labor Relations Board unfair labor

practice order, ruled that district secretaries and trustees of the United Electrical Workers (Ind.) were "officers" directing union activities within the meaning of the nonCommunist affidavit requirement of the Taft-Hartley Act. Upholding the employer's refusal to bargain because of admitted noncompliance with the requirement by the union officers in question, the court, in effect, denied the union the services of the Board. The court also ruled that the Board's claimed exclusive jurisdiction to inquire into a union's compliance status is limited to the factual or formal aspects of the compliance issue, and that the substantial legal aspects, such as the necessity to comply, come within the scope of judicial review. The case was Goodman Manufacturing Co. v. NLRB.

November 13

MARTIN P. DURKIN, 61, president of the AFL Plumbers and Steamfitters and former Secretary of Labor, died in Washington, D. C., after a prolonged illness.

November 14

DANIEL J. TOBIN, president of the AFL Teamsters Union from 1907 to 1952, and a member of the AFL Executive Council, died in Indianapolis, Ind., at the age of 83.

THE Supreme Court of the United States reversed and remanded for further proceedings a decision of the Federal court of appeals in New Orleans that a suit involving racial discrimination in seniority by a joint bargaining committee of two locals, one of which was wholly Negro, did not arise under the Taft-Hartley Act. (See Chron. item for June 21, 1955, MLR, Aug. 1955.) Through its citations of earlier court cases, the High Court implied that the suit had arisen under the act, and that unions must provide equal representation to all employees in a bargaining unit without regard to race. The case was Syres et al v. Oil Workers International Union, Local No. 23, et al.

THE CIO Communications Workers and the Long Lines Department of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. negotiated a 1-year contract, effective November 28, 1955, for 23,000 telephone workers in 41 States and the District of Columbia. The pact provides for immediate weekly increases of $2.50 in the top wage rate for operators in most areas and an average weekly rise of $3,50 to $4.50 for maintenance workers; and retains an old provision for union dues checkoff, upon written authorization by the workers, with the union agreeing to idemnify the company against any suits arising from this clause.

November 16

...

THE NLRB ruled, in Jack C. Robinson, d.b.a. Robinson Freight Lines, Knoxville, Tenn., and Chauffeurs, Teamsters, Warehousemen & Helpers Local Union No. 621 . . . AFL, et al., that an employer who had not committed unfair labor practices or shown ill will toward the union during an economic strike had not violated the Taft-Hartley Act by lending money to some strikers and informing all strikers that they had been replaced and would be dropped from the payroll if they failed to report for work by a

certain date. The Board pointed out that making loans to employees was the employer's long-practiced policy, and that the replacement notices merely reflected his legal stand on the strike.

November 18

THE PRESIDENT named NLRB member Boyd Leedom as Board Chairman (see Chron. item for Aug. 27, 1955, MLR, Oct. 1955), and appointed Stephen Sibley Bean, an NLRB trial examiner since 1949 and former Mayor of Woburn, Mass., to fill the vacancy on the Board.

November 21

THE Federal district court in Washington, D. C., issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Secretary of Labor from applying to a group of Virginia and Eastern Kentucky soft coal operators and the Central Pennsylvania Open Pit Mining Association or their associates, or any operator joining the suit by January 19, 1956, a recent minimum wage determination ($2.245 for their districts) under the Public Contracts Act for the bituminous coal industry (see Chron. item for Oct. 21, 1955, MLR, Dec. 1955). The wage determination was scheduled to go into effect November 25, 1955. (See also p. 81 of this issue.)

November 23

THE wage dispute between the AFL Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees and the St. Louis Public Service Co. ended when the company accepted a compromise proposal of the Missouri State Government, providing for a 3-installment wage increase totaling 15 cents an hour for 3,000 bus and streetcar operators, 5 cents retroactive to March 1, 1955, and the final 5-cent installment due March 1, 1956. A 4-day strike in mid-October, in support of the union's demand for a 26-cent hourly increase, caused the Missouri Governor to invoke a State utility antistrike law to seize the company and order the strikers back to work, pending arbitration.