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hurry. If they would just act as though they didn't care particularly and could take their time, things would be settled more amiably, and, on the whole, more quickly. It might take a week instead of three weeks. But it will never take three hours. It's the rarest occasion when a dispute, or a difference sufficient to cause a stoppage of work, can be settled in a few hours.

I did not sit on the Defense Mediation Board, but I certified the cases to them and I had daily contact with them. I passed to them the cases that seemed to have to go to them. I had no legal power over them. But, as a matter of fact, they had no authority. They couldn't issue a pronunciamento and say, “This case shall be settled this way, and the employers shall pay, and the unions shall do.” They really just made a recommendation. The force and effect of their action was only that of a recommendation, except that this board who was giving out contracts - not yet the War Production Board, but the Knudsen-Hillman board - became effective by declining to give contracts, or to continue contracts to firms that had a stoppage of work and wouldn't follow the advice of the Defense Mediation Board. What about unions that didn't follow the advice of the board? Well, nobody tried to do anything about them.

As a matter of fact, the decisions, nine times out of ten, were favorable to the union, although they might not give