David Joseph Saposs (February 22, 1886 – November 13, 1968) was a 20th-century American economist, labor historian, and civil servant, best known as chief economist of theNational Labor Relations Board (1935–1940).[1]
David Saposnik was born on February 22, 1886, in the city ofKyiv in theRussian Empire.[1][2][3] His parents were Isaac Saposnik, a peddler, and Shima Erevsky.[1][4] In 1895, the family emigrated to the United States and shortened their name to Saposs.[4] TheJewish family settled inMilwaukee,Wisconsin. In 1900, he quit school after fifth grade[1] and worked inbeer breweries (including theBlatz andSchlitz brewing companies[1]) in his teens to help support his family.[1][3][5] In 1906, at the age of 20, he was electedshop steward for the localBrewery Workers' Union.[1][4]
Although he lacked a high school diploma, Saposs was admitted in 1907 to theUniversity of Wisconsin (UW).[4] He graduated in 1911,[1] and enrolled part-time in the graduate program at UW.[3] He enrolled full-time beginning in 1913, and graduated with aPh.D. ineconomics in 1915.[1][2][3] While in the doctoral program at Wisconsin, Saposs was a student of the nationally known labor economistJohn R. Commons[1] and a close friend of fellow studentSelig Perlman (who later became a nationally known labor economist in his own right).[5][6]
Saposs worked in a variety of positions over the next few years. He was an accident prevention investigator for the New York Department of Labor,[1] an investigator into the role immigrants played in Americanlabor unions for theCarnegie Corporation,[1] investigated theSteel strike of 1919 on behalf of the Inter-Church World Movement Commission,[1] and served as Educational Director for theAmalgamated Clothing Workers Union.[1][2][4][7][8]
In 1922, Saposs was appointed an instructor atBrookwood Labor College.[1] In 1924, he started post-graduate work in economics and labor history atColumbia University.[1][2][3][8] At Columbia, he became close friends withWilliam Morris Leiserson, later a colleague at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).[5] He ended his post-graduate work at Columbia after two years without obtaining an additional degree.[3] Columbia University was embarking on a major study of socio-economic conditions in France, and asked Saposs to lead the study of labor conditions there. Saposs agreed to do so, and moved to France to conduct the study for the next two years.[4][9]
In 1934, Saposs became research director for theTwentieth Century Fund's newly founded labor unit and remained an associate there through 1945.[1][5][7][8]
In 1935, Saposs became a research consultant to the United States Department of Labor (USDOL), for whom he wrote a report oncompany unions.[1]
Later in 1935, Saposs joined the nascent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). He quickly built a staff and began collecting information on the role labor unions played in interstate commerce and the social and economic impacts unions had.[10] The research conducted under Saposs' leadership proved critical to winning over theSupreme Court of the United States, which held inNational Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, 301 U.S. 1 (1938) that theNational Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was constitutional.[10][11] However, Saposs' tenure at the NLRB proved short. Although it had once supported the NLRA, theAmerican Federation of Labor (AFL; which supportedcraft unionism) became convinced that the Board and its staff (including Saposs) were more supportive of theindustrial unionism of its competitor, theCongress of Industrial Organizations. The AFL allied with anti-unionDemocraticRepresentativeHoward W. Smith to attack the National Labor Relations Board. Saposs was a leader among anti-communist leftists.[12] He had even been surreptitiously assessed by members of theCommunist Party USA for membership, and rejected as a prospect.[13] He had also tried to expose those individuals at the Board who he felt were communists.[14] But Smith and others attacked Saposs as a communist, and theUnited States Congress defunded his division and his job on October 11, 1940.[2][15]
In 1945, Saposs became Chief of the Reports and Statistics Office in the Manpower Division of theOffice of Military Government, United States, in post-World War II Germany.[1][12][17] He left that position after a year to become Special Assistant to the Commissioner of Labor Statistics in theUnited States Department of Labor.[17] In 1936, he became Special Assistant to the Commission of Labor Statistics at USDOL.[1] In 1948, he became Special Advisor to the European Labor Division of the United StatesEconomic Cooperation Administration.[1][2][17] In 1952, he returned to Labor Statistics and retired from federal government service in 1954.[1][2][17]
The University of Wisconsin's archive assesses Saposs as follows:
Although Saposs was a militant liberal and an early critic of Communist intervention in the American labor union movement, theHouse Committee on Un-American Affairs accused him of being a red, and he was forced to resign from the NLRB. His work on the Board was an integral part of the New Deal's efforts to better the status of the American worker.[1]
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"David Saposs, 82, Labor Economist."New York Times. November 16, 1968.
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