Aims and Policies of the National War Labor Board
| Date | 01 November 1942 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271624222400123 |
| Published date | 01 November 1942 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
141
Aims
and
Policies
of
the
National
War
Labor
Board
By
WILLIAM
H.
DAVIS
HE
primary
aim
of
the
National
TWar
Labor
Board
is
to
settle
labor
disputes
in
such
a
way
as
to
maintain
maximum
war
production.
The
Board’s
basic
policy
is,
I
think
it
may
be
said,
to
get
as
much
agreement
as
possible;
to
find
that
solution
which
will
do
the
most
for
both
management
and
workers
to
release
their
creative
energies
and
to
develop
between
them
co-operative
pro-
ductive
effort
in
mutual
respect
and
con-
fidence.
It
must
not
be
thought,
however,
that
the
Board’s
function
is
restricted
to
mediation
of
disputes.
On
the
contrary,
by
delegation
of
executive
power
from
the
President
in
Executive
Order
No.
9017
of
January
12,
1942,
the
Board
has
been
entrusted
with
the
duty
to
&dquo;finally
determine&dquo;
all
labor
disputes
&dquo;which
might
interrupt
work
which
con-
tributes
to
the
effective
prosecution
of
the
war.&dquo;
It
is
an
emergency
admin-
istrative
agency
acting
for
the
President
in
time
of
war,
to
make
final
and
bind-
ing
decisions
in
controversies
between
management
and
workers
which
cannot
be
settled
by
mediation
or
voluntary
arbitration.
How
did
this
delegation
of
power
come
about?
And
how
is
its
origin
re-
lated
to
the
aims
and
policies
of
the
Board?
GENESIS
AND
NATURE
OF
THE
BOARD
Back
of
the
Executive
order
that
cre-
ated
the
Board
stands
the
industry-labor
agreement
resulting
from
the
joint
con-
ference
assembled
in
Washington
at
the
call
of
the
President
in
December
1941,
shortly
after
Pearl
Harbor.
From
the
fall
of
France
in
the
summer
of
1940,
o.ur
increasing
development
of
industrial
production
for
defense
had
been
accom-
panied
by
serious
and
often
peculiarly
bitter
strife
between
management
and
labor.
The
disputes
in
Bituminous
Coal,
Allis
Chalmers,
Harvester,
and
Northwest
Lumber
are
notable
exam-
ples.
In
March
1941
the
National
De-
fense
Mediation
Board
was
created
to
supplement
the
mediation
work
of
the
Conciliation Service
of
the
Department
of
Labor
and
the
emergency
labor-
disputes
adjustment
that
had
been
un-
dertaken
by
the
Office
of
Production
Management
under
the
direction
of
Sid-
ney
Hillman.
The
work
of
the
Media-
tion
Board,
and
its
breakdown
in
No-
vember
1941
on
the
union-shop
issue
in
bituminous
coal,
are
past
history.
It
is,
however,
history
that
profoundly
af-
fected
the
course
of
subsequent
events.
Out
of
it
grew,
immediately
after
Pearl
Harbor,
the
call
for
a
joint
conference
of
industry
and
labor
and
the
agreement
that
for
the
duration
of
the
war
there
would
be
no
strikes
or
lockouts,
all
labor
disputes
would
be
settled
by
peaceful
means,
and
a
War
Labor
Board
would
be
appointed
by
the
President
with
power
to
&dquo;finally
determine&dquo;
all
contro-
versies
that
might
affect
war
production.
By
this series
of
events
a
new
char-
acter
was
imposed
upon
labor
disputes
in
wartime.
It
is
not
so
generally
un-
derstood
as
it
ought
to
be
that in
normal
times
the
economic
strength
that
lies
behind
the
right
to
strike
or
lockout
is
by
all
odds
the
most
effective
single
agency
for
settling
labor
troubles.
This
is
particularly
true
of
the
more
serious
disputes.
The
possibility
of
a
strike
al-
ways
colors
the
normal
processes
of
col-
lective
bargaining.
It
is
the
common
experience
of
mediators
that the
parties
to
most
labor
disputes,
and
particularly
the
more
important
ones,
are
brought
to
agreement
in
the
end
by
considerations
of
the
possibilities
and
the
costs
of
a
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