Announcement Concerning Executive Order 12132 and Appointment of the Membership of the Emergency Board To Investigate a Railway Labor Dispute

The President has signed an Executive order creating an emergency board to investigate the dispute between the National Railway Labor Conference and certain of their employees represented by the American Train Dispatchers Association.

He also appointed three persons as members of the Emergency Board. They are:

James J. Reynolds, a former Assistant Secretary of Labor and Under Secretary of Labor in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Reynolds was a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the Truman administration, and was president of the American Institute of Merchant Shipping from 1969 until his retirement in 1978. He will serve as Chairman of this Emergency Board.

Ida Klaus, of New York City, an arbitrator and mediator with more than 40 years' experience in the labor relations field. She has served as special arbitrator under the U.S. Steel agreement since 1975. She has also served as solicitor for the National Labor Relations Board and labor counsel for New York City. From 1962 to 1975, she was executive director of the Office of Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining of the New York City Board of Education.

Nicholas H. Zumas, a Washington, D.C., attorney and arbitrator. Zumas, currently in private practice, is a member of the District of Columbia Board of Labor Relations and has also served as assistant to the Under Secretary of HEW and counsel for the House Special Subcommittee on Education of the Education and Labor Committee.

This Emergency Board is created under the procedures of the Railway Labor Act. It will report its findings and recommendations to the President within 30 days, and the parties must then consider the Board's recommendations and try to resolve their differences within the next 30-day period. Without the creation of this Board, the dispute would threaten a shutdown on May 10 of 52 of the Nation's railroads, the number represented by the National Railway Labor Conference.