Necessary Emphasis

As generally interpreted by the courts so far, the idea of the Wagner Act is that whereas the employer needs no protection, the worker needs plenty. In two cases last week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals notably veered from that interpretation.

At Covington, Ky., the court refused to enforce an NLRB order that Cleveland's Thompson Products Inc. (automobile parts) rehire three United Automobile Workers, cease opposition to their union's organization drive. Couple of days later the court again found that NLRB had ignored preponderant evidence in directing Cleveland's Sands Manufacturing Co. (valves, water heaters) to reinstate 48 strikers, resume negotiations with the Mechanics' Educational Society of America.

The second opinion was delivered by Associate Justice Florence Ellinwood Allen, only woman on the U. S. appeals bench, who stands well enough with the Administration to have been mentioned last year as a possible Supreme Court appointee. Sturdy Miss Allen laid down the first judicial yardstick of the lengths to which employers need go in trying to bargain with a union, displaying as much anxiety about quasi-judicial practices as that expressed last week by Charles Evans Hughes (see col. 2). Said she: "The statute merely requires the employer to negotiate sincerely. The sincerity is to be tested by the length of time involved in the negotiations, their frequency and the persistence with which the employer offers opportunity for agreement. . . . We deem it necessary to re-emphasize the obligation which rests upon the board as a quasi-judicial tribunal. The very fact that . . . the board files the complaint, hears the complaint through its examiner, and then makes a decision thereon, requires it with scrupulous impartiality to evaluate the evidence presented on behalf not only of the employes but also of the employer."

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