By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mr. Farkas

INDIAN HILL - Emil C. Farkas devoted his law career to enforcing the National Labor Relations Act.

As director of the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board Region 9 in Cincinnati, he helped settle serious labor strife in the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia.

The agency bestowed its President's Meritorious Rank Award on Mr. Farkas in 1988, two years before he completed a distinguished 44-year career.

The Indian Hill resident died April 3 at Hospice of Cincinnati in Blue Ash. He was 90.

Born in Chicago and raised in Cleveland, Mr. Farkas received a bachelor's degree from Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, in 1933 and a law degree from Western Reserve University Law School in 1938.

He worked for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in 1934 and 1935, and was a private-practice attorney from 1938 to 1940. He worked for the Library of Congress from 1940 until 1942, when he entered the Navy.

Mr. Farkas served as a lieutenant commander during World War II. He then worked as an NLRB attorney in Washington until he was honorably discharged in 1946.

He transferred to the Detroit regional office in 1951, where he worked as a field attorney and worked his way up to supervisory attorney, assistant to the regional director and to regional attorney.

Mr. Farkas was detailed to Washington in 1960 as a member of a special task force that drafted NLRB guidelines on the 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act, also known as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.

He came to Cincinnati in 1962 after his promotion to regional attorney in the office here. He was named director in 1974.

All of Kentucky was under his administration, as were most counties in West Virginia and southeastern Ohio.

One of his most significant cases was that of the United Mine Workers of America and the A.T. Massey Coal Co. in 1985. Mr. Farkas helped to settle integral issues and win judgments from two U.S. Courts of Appeals.

He was a founder and first president of the Cincinnati chapter of the Industrial Relations Research Association. He also served as chairman of the Federal Executive Board in Cincinnati as well as president of the Cincinnati chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

He served on an arbitration panel for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio that assisted the court in reducing pending cases in the civil actions docket, and as a delegate to several judicial conferences of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Farkas was a member of the Ohio State Bar Association, serving as chairman of the board of governors and the labor law section, and was a lecturer in labor law at the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University.

Survivors include Elva, his wife of 56 years; three sons, Kenneth of Deer Park, and Paul and Scott, both of Columbus; and two granddaughters.

Services have been held. Burial was at United Jewish Cemetery in Montgomery.

Memorials: Hospice of Cincinnati, 4310 Cooper Road, Cincinnati 45242, or a charity of the donor's choice.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com