Through the years there have been many significant comments passed on the exemplary relationship existing between NECA and the IBEW, pertaining to the merits and accomplishments of our Council on Industrial Relations. Here are a few selected at random:

L.K Comstock, NECA
Co-Founder of the CIR:
“To my mind, the best and by far the easiest field in which NECA and the IBEW can achieve their goals, is through the Council. Here, if we will, we can jointly proceed with policies of wide significance– not timorously as if we were afraid of the future—but rather as leaders of the type of labor-man-agement most suited to the age which is now dawning. If we indeed achieve cooperation in such spirit, and hold that achievement, then I think we can certainly greet the unknown with a cheer.”

Dan W. Tracy, former
President of the IBEW:
“I know the value of the Council and what it has meant to our people in wage-hours saved. Any person who has ever been skeptical of the value of the Council, should play a part in it, either as member or as an observer. It would make them cherish it as one of the greatest promoters of labor-management relations that could be achieved.”

Chief Judge Sobeloff, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit:
(Jan. 23, 1963)
“The Council’s principal purpose is to remove the causes of friction and dispute, in the Electrical Contracting Industry, by providing a forum for conciliation and settlement of controversies between IBEW Locals and NECA Chapters. It has aided in creating a relatively strikeless climate within the electrical construction industry, and it is undisputed that, by and large, it has served the parties well over years.”

Business Week—August 24, 1963:
“In only four day last week, 12 men disposed of 22 labor-management disputes that otherwise could have led to long and costly strikes. They were members of one of the oldest voluntary agencies for settling disputes between employers and unions—the Council on Industrial Relations set up in 1920 by the National Electrical Contractors Associations and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.”

Honorable Wayne Morse of Oregon, United States Senator: (May 4, 1963)
“Mr. President. 250 leaders of industry, labor and the public have just spent two days, at the invitation of the President, discussing problems of labor and management in the Nation’s present economic posture. In light of this, my colleagues will be interested I am sure in an account of a meeting which also began on Monday of this week, in Cincinnati, where the Council on Industrial Relations of the Electrical Contracting Industry considered its heaviest caseload in its 42 year history. This unique institution has been well described in an article in the New York Times of May 21, by John D. Pomfret. I ask unanimous consent that this article be inserted in the Appendix of the Record. There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the Record.”

John H. Fanning
Former Chairman of the National Labor
Relations Board
June 29, 1987
“After virtually a lifetime of observing Labor and Management trying to devise successful mechanisms for the fair and peaceful resolution of their disagreements, I have seen none better than the Council on Industrial Relations for the Electrical Contracting Industry. I have sat in on some of their meetings as a guest observer and find it difficult, if at all possible, to distinguish between Labor and Management Representatives.”