All of the activities required to be reported by this section are not illegal nor are they unfair labor practices. However, since most of them are disruptive of harmonious labor relations and fall into a gray area, the committee believes that if an employer or a consultant indulges in them, they should be reported.
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light is the most efficient policeman.
The annual report serves as a cross-check on the accuracy of the 30 day reports and serves to notify the Secretary of relationships between a persuader and employer which may give rise to a duty to file a 30 day report.
“This exposure [e.g. disclosure] was to include not only the fact that the consultant was paid by management, but why he was paid, how much he was paid, and the practices he engaged in to earn his pay. The aim was disclosure, but the method almost uniformly adopted to attain the end was reporting of these details, not the mere verbal acknowledgement by the consultant that he was hired by management as a persuader, a fact few employees would be too insensitive to grasp.”
First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.
It may well be that an article containing [MPA's] point of view, written in a persuasive manner or factual information in the context of supporting that point of view, is more interesting than pure uneditorialized facts. But that [MPA's inability to distinguish the two] is not a problem of constitutional dimension.14
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