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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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of a company union. There were a whole lot of problems that came up.

Madden, although a very nice and cooperative man, began to display some of those curious blind spots that a lawyer is bound to develop - that is, a preoccupation with a set of rules and regulations which should define policy in advance of there being a case. The old common law practice of case by case is wisest. I learned out of that experience to be deadly suspicious and uneasy about policy defined by rules and regulations passed in a vacuum before a case had arisen in which you would have to make a ruling which interpreted both the Statute law, the customary, habitual common law application, and the common sense of the situation. Madden was taken by that, although I don't think he originated that idea. As a lawyer he saw the advantage of having clear rules and regulations. These rules are both procedural and policy rules.

Within a year, and perhaps less than a year, there was a great deal of complaint about the NLRB. Among other things the NLRB had made rules as to what was an unfair labor practice, so that they could define it in advance. If anybody did a certain thing, then it was known that that was an unfair labor practice. The





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