Law and Policy in State Labor Relations Acts: The New York Board as Innovator

Abstract

The Landrum-Griffin Act permits the states to exercise jurisdiction over cases which involve interstate com merce where the National Labor Relations Board declines to proceed on the grounds that the case involved does not meet the applicable jurisdictional dollar-volume standard of the federal agency. Legislative experimentation on a state level is traditional and historic in this nation. In addition to legis lative enactments, the states can lead in developing the evolv ing law by quasi-judicial holdings of the affected administra tive tribunals. The New York State Labor Relations Board is a leader of quasi-judicial progress in labor relations and has furthered the course of collective bargaining in its state in at least three areas discussed herein: the evolution of doctrines relating to appropriate units, determinations pertaining to the proper duration of collective agreements, and, most recently, by intensifying and implementing a quasi-judicial and adminis trative program to terminate the existence of collusive organi zations posing as genuine labor organizations and to preclude their use of board processes. Meetings with employer, labor, and governmental groups, as well as publications issued by the board, have served to inform and educate on available pro cedures at the board, new policies, and the issuance of land mark decisions judicially implementing the policies involved. This socially valuable task has been accomplished, despite a 30 per cent increase in caseload in 1960, by utilizing techniques of efficient management and good supervision, with a saving of 8 per cent in budget, fewer lawyers, and, nonetheless, proc essing cases more expeditiously than ever before.