AT LEAST one clear development emerged from the confused New York waterfront situation. This was the remarkable strength shown by the new AFL longshore forces in an election held so soon after their organization.

In apparent recognition of this show of strength, officials of the old ILA made public overtures to establish arrangements to insure a cleanup of the union and the waterfront. In mid-January, the National Labor Relations Board was considering hearings on proposals to invalidate the election in the light of findings of violence and coercion.

The final report (December 4) of the Presidential Board of Inquiry created on October 1 made it clear that efforts at bargaining would be fruitless for "the issue of representation overshadows all others. . . . Any last offer of employers must be measured as a fruitless formality." On December 11, the National Labor Relations Board decided to call off the "last offer" vote required under the national emergency provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, on the grounds that there was no clear-cut last offer.

The NLRB acted expeditiously to meet the December 24 injunction termination. It followed the unusual procedure of holding a hearing in New York. Shipping association representatives asked for a swift election, while AFL representatives opposed such an election. On December 16, the Board ordered an election, which was held on December 22 and 23, with the unit covered as proposed by the employers' association. In reaching its decision, the Board stated that it acted to forestall a crippling strike, and that the election would not prejudice its handling of the pending unfair labor practice charges. (John L. Lewis' financial aid to the old ILA was announced just before the election.)

slightly more of the unchallenged votes-9,060 to 7,568-but the outcome hinged on 4,405 challenged ballots.

Normally, the NLRB would pass on the contested ballots and certify the victorious union. The AFL, however, requested the Board to set aside the election on the grounds that it was conducted under ILA "intimidation and influence." Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York intervened, asking for reports on the allegations of violence and intimidation in the election. Technicalities also came to light which led to further efforts to invalidate the election.

In mid-January, ILA unfair labor practice charges against Governor Dewey were dismissed. The regional NLRB director sustained the AFL election charges, and recommended a hearing by the NLRB on the AFL proposal to set aside. the election.

THE promised administration proposals for revision of the Taft-Hartley Act were submitted to Congress on January 11. The President's labor message characterized the act as "sound legislation" but as requiring changes to "reinforce its basic objectives." Leading changes proposed would alter the act's provisions on secondary boycotts, on union security in relation to industries with casual employment, and on economic strikes. It would permit State laws to operate freely in emergency strike situations; other aspects of Federal-State jurisdiction are now under study. Strike votes under governmental auspices are proposed.

THE National Labor Relations Board will shortly be fully manned for the first time in some months. Albert C. Beeson, industrial relations director for a California concern, was nominated to fill the remaining vacancy. In the meantime, the Board has proceeded with its reexamination of former policies. A major policy reversal occurred during the month when the Board by a 3 to 1 vote reversed the "Bonwit Teller doctrine," adopting a new rule forbidding speeches to employees on company time during 24 hours before elections. The new rule eliminates the former requirement that an employer who assembled his employees on company time and premises to speak before a representation election could not deny equal time for the union to reply.

ΠΙ

Several court decisions during the month appeared to have implications on the Board's policy reexamination. Two decisions by the United States Supreme Court bore on the question of Federal-State jurisdiction under the Labor Management Relations Act. In one involving the issuance of a State injunction against picketing, the Court held unanimously that State courts were barred from issuing injunctions in situations where relief was available under the Taft-Hartley Act. In another, the Court held that automobile dealers franchised by leading automobile manufacturers were subject to the jurisdiction of the NLRB.

RAILROAD NEGOTIATIONS dominated collective bargaining developments. Following a brief period of negotiations, a national railroad agreement was concluded in December, without some form of Government intervention for the first time since 1948. Involving the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, it provided for a 5-cent increase, incorporation of cost-of-living increases into the base rate, elimination of the escalation arrangement, and liberalized vacations. A similar agreement was concluded with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen in January. These agreements, covering over two-thirds of the operating force, were viewed hopefully as harbingers of renewed scope of private bargaining. However, stalemate in negotiations between the Nation's carriers and 15 nonoperating unions on union proposals for a health and welfare plan and other fringe adjustments resulted in Presidential establishment of an emergency fact-finding board

under the provisions of the Railway Labor Act. An emergency board was also appointed in December to consider the wage dispute involving the Railway Express Agency and the Order of Railway Clerks.

A partial termination of strikes involving about 30,000 employees of the Continental and American Can Companies occurred on January 5, with agreement involving the former company and the CIO United Steelworkers. Settlement included a wage increase, reduced sex and geographic wage differentials, a severance pay plan, and a joint job evaluation program.

THE AFL-CIO no-raiding agreement was signed by top officials of the AFL and CIO. The next unity step will be taken "at an early date" when officers of the affiliated unions will be called to a meeting to affix their signatures and thus become parties to the agreement.

Progress was reported on the study by an AFL committee of arrangements to ban raiding among AFL affiliates. In the meantime, the International Association of Machinists progressed in its own no-raiding program by reaching an understanding with the Printing Pressmen's Union.

AFL PRESIDENT George Meany resigned as an adviser of the Foreign Operations Administration, charging that the agency "is unresponsive to the need for either consultation or participation of labor in its work." CIO Research Director Stanley H. Ruttenberg turned down appointment to another FOA committee for reasons which included those stated by Meany.

GL.

depoo.

I-Extent of Employment, Status, Organization

JOSEPH P. GOLDBERG*

EDITOR'S NOTE.-This is the first of a two-part article. The second part deals with the techniques of wage determination, employee consultation, and collective bargaining. It will appear in the March issue.

THE MANIFOLD ACTIVITIES of the Federal Government require the employment of workers whose skills and experience are comparable to those of private industrial employees. These "blue collar" or ungraded regular Government employees are subject to the same working conditions as are Federal employees in the classified service, with one major exception. "Blue collar" pay rates are fixed by wage boards on the basis of "prevailing" rates, rather than by legislation, as are the pay scales of classified employees.

In the postwar period, substantial fluctuations in employment and reduced leave privileges have made the advantages traditionally associated with Government employment, including security of employment and better working conditions, increasingly less marked in view of improvements attained by organized workers in the private sectors.

Wage determination policies, as well as policies regarding representation of employees and their organizations, differ among the many Government agencies. Such divergent institutional arrangements, like those in private employment, are determined by historic administrative policies, industry customs (where these are clearly delineated), and union organizational enterprise. Even the overriding and uniform fact of the Federal Government as employer has not precluded important differences among agencies in the character of employee relations policies. These vary to include informal consultation with employees and employee organizations, joint labormanagement (i. e., union-Government) review of wage recommendations, and full collective bar

gaining. Compensatory devices for the general lack of collective bargaining include procedural provisions for participation in some aspects of wage determination.

Extent and Character of Employment

The Federal Government has become an increasingly prominent employer of skilled tradesmen and manual workers during the past two decades. The rise in this employment between 1930 and 1953 has been more than 15-fold-from about 48,000 to approximately 770,000. This substantial increase reflects the great rise in the Defense Establishment in the war and postwar periods. The 1953 figure is considerably below the war level-the War Department alone employing over 650,000 workers in mid-1943-but it is substantially above the level at the time of the Korean emergency, when there were only 525,000 "blue collar" workers (as of June 30, 1950).

The great bulk of these production workersabout 90 percent-have always been found in the Defense Establishment, although the distribution among component agencies has changed substantially. The Navy Department's conduct of ship construction and repair has made it an important employer of shipyard skills for many years. In 1930, its 40,000 workers were more than

*Of the Bureau's Office of Publications. The author has derived much benefit from discussions of this subject with interested Government and union representatives.

1 Figure for 1930 from Closing Report of Wage and Personnel Survey. Washington, U. S. Personnel Classification Board, 1931 (p. 311). Estimates for 1953 are based on unpublished preliminary data for June and September 1953, furnished by U. S. Civil Service Commission.

80 percent of the Federal Government's production workers, while the War Department employed about 5,000 "blue collar" workers. Although Navy employment had increased to 287,000 by September 1953, the Departments of the Army and Air Force together then employed about 420,000. Thus, the Navy now accounts for a smaller percentage of the Federal total than do the other two arms of the Defense Department.

Nondefense agencies with fairly large numbers of "blue collar" workers include Treasury (7,500), Interior (15,000), Agriculture (6,200), Commerce (13,600), Government Printing Office (5,500), National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (3,000), Panama Canal Company (1,800), and Tennessee Valley Authority (15,000). Several additional agencies employ "blue collar" workers, lithographic employees in most cases.

The operations employing these workers range widely in type. Included are: ordnance manufacture, plant and equipment maintenance, maritime operations, harbor and waterway maintenance, clothing manufacture, printing and lithographic reproduction, motion picture production, power production, building construction, ship construction and repair, pest control, forest firefighting, soil conservation and research, flood control, and chemical manufacture. Some of these governmental operations are industrially comparable to private operations. Others, however, are unique in terms of product, although the skills required are comparable to those in private employment.

There is also a wide variation in the geographic distribution of the activities of the agencies. agencies. The operations of the Army-Air Force, for example, are dispersed over 210 labor markets, with one or more of these areas in each of the 48 States and the District of Columbia. All cities in the United States with a population of 350,000 or over and more than 80 percent of all cities with population over 100,000 are included in these labor markets. Navy Department and Department of Interior operations, similarly, are widely dispersed. TVA and Government Printing Office operations are more limited geographically.

Although Government industrial employment is never more than a relatively small fraction of the civilian labor force, it does have an important impact on the labor market when it is undergoing

sharp changes. Parallel movements up or down in private and Government employment reinforce each other-rises result in a tighter labor market, declines in a looser market. The contracyclical movement of stable Government employment during the depression was a stabilizing influence.

Furthermore, to the extent that some major Government operations are industrially identifiable with private operations or to the extent that they are dominant in an area, their position in the industry or the area achieves importance. Naval shipyard facilities conduct many operations in addition to ship repair and construction and therefore use cross-industry wage determination bases; however, there has been an interrelationship between navy yard and private shipbuilding wage determination. Thus, during the Second World War, the Navy Department adopted the privately negotiated Shipbuilding Zone Stabilization wage standards; a similar practice was adopted during the First World War. The uniformity in TVA wages and working conditions over the watershed area has "been influential in the gradual raising of levels that has occurred in the Tennessee Valley since 1933.":

Status of the Employees

The vast majority of unclassified, or ungraded Federal employees are "blue collar" workers-the skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled workers engaged in production, maintenance, service, and related activities. Wage rate determination for most. ungraded employees is now covered by the provision of the Classification Act of 1949 which exempts these employees from the salary and classification provisions of the act, stating that their "compensation shall be fixed and adjusted from time to time as nearly as is consistent with the public interest in accordance with prevailing rates" [sec. 202 (7)]. This blanket provision also leaves the determination of specific standards and procedures for rate-fixing to administrative action.

Special statutes require prevailing wage determinations in the case of the Navy Department, the TVA, and the Government Printing Office. These contain additional specific requirements. Thus, the Kiess Act, covering GPO employees,

2 Wage Negotiations in the Tennessee Valley Authority, by Harry L. Case. (In Public Personnel Review, Chicago, July 1947; revised January 1952.)