National Defense Mediation Board

The National Defense Mediation Board (NDMB) was a United States federal agency established by Executive Order 8716 on March 19, 1941, that settled disputes between labor and management during the prewar defense period. The executive order established the NDMB as a tripartite agency of eleven representatives, four each from labor and industry and three from the public. The order vested in the agency the power to “exert every possible effort to assure that all work necessary for national defense shall proceed without interruption and with all possible speed.” The Board could use either mediation or voluntary arbitration to resolve disputes between management and labor in defense industries. If these methods failed, the Board was empowered to investigate controversies, conduct fact-finding, and formulate recommendations.

During the ten months of its existence, the Board received a total of 118 cases of labor disputes. Since strikes were usually in progress when the Board received its cases, the NDMB’s basic policy was to persuade unions to call off strikes in return for wage retroactivity and a promise of a hearing. This was successful in most cases, but, in the rare instances when parties did not heed Board recommendations, the Board forwarded matters to the White House. The NDMB ultimately collapsed because of a dispute involving the “captive mines,” during which the Board refused to grant union shop to the United Mine Workers (UMW).

The NDMB was created largely in response to the high incidence of strikes during the defense-related production boom, which began in 1940. In 1941, more than two million workers participated in more than 4,000 work stoppages, some of which directly disturbed defense production. In response, several antistrike bills were pending in Congress.Sidney Hillman, a member of the National Defense Advisory Commission, recommended a tripartite mediation board to President Franklin D. Roosevelt because it might be more acceptable to union leaders than antistrike legislation. Although the American Federation of Labor (AFL) quickly endorsed the proposal, labor’s second major arm, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), was reluctant to support the creation of the tripartite board. CIO’s president, Philip Murray, realized that in preventing and ending strikes, the mediation board would “find its attention directed against labor in order to maintain the status quo.” Nevertheless, Murray did not oppose the proposal. Shortly thereafter, President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the NDMB.

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