National Labor Relations Board

Examples of National Labor Relations Board in the following topics:

• Resistance to Business Reform

  • As NIRA included no provisions on how to dissolve labor disputes, the National Labor Board was established under the auspices of the NRA to handle conflicts between labor and employers.  
  • In the aftermath of NIRA's failure, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; known also as the Wagner Act) was passed.
  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board (not to confuse with the National Labor Board created under NRA!)
  • The League's lawyers challenged NLRA but the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in National Labor Relations Board v.
  • Contrast opposition to the National Industrial Recovery Act with opposition to the National Labor Relations Act

• National Labor Relations Act

  • The National Labor Relations Act limits employers' relations to workers who create labor unions and collectively act in support of demands.
  • The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands.
  • The law holds that wildcat strikes are illegal, and that workers must formally request that the National Labor Relations Board end their association with their labor union if they feel that the union is not sufficiently supportive of them before they can legally go on strike.
  • The act was a means of demobilizing the labor movement by imposing limits on labor's ability to strike and by prohibiting radicals from their leadership.
  • The act authorized the President to intervene in strikes or potential strikes that create a national emergency, a reaction to the national coal miners' strikes called by the United Mine Workers of America in the 1940s.

• National Labor Relations Act

  • The National Labor Relations Act establishes the right of most private-sector workers to form unions, bargain with management and strike.
  • Charge filed by Laundry, Dry-Cleaning & Allied Workers Joint Board.
  • In 1935, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act, establishing the right of most private-sector workers to form unions, bargain with management over wages and working conditions, and hold strikes to obtain their demands.
  • The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency, was established to oversee union elections and address unfair labor complaints.
  • The National Labor Relations Act is to establish the right of most private-sector workers to form unions, bargain with management.

• Landrum-Griffin Act

  • The Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 is a U.S. labor law regulating labor unions' internal affairs and officials' relationships with employers.
  • The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (also "LMRDA" of the "Landrum-Griffin Act"), is a United States labor law that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.
  • Unions had to hold secret elections, reviewable by the Department of Labor.
  • Congress also amended the National Labor Relations Act, as part of the same piece of legislation that created the LMRDA, by tightening the Taft-Hartley Act's prohibitions against secondary boycotts, prohibiting certain types of "hot cargo" agreements, under which an employer agreed to cease doing business with other employers, and empowering the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board to seek an injunction against a union that engages in recognitional picketing of an employer for more than thirty days without filing a petition for representation with the NLRB.
  • Explain how the Landrum-Griffin Act affected labor unions in the US

• Depression and Post-War Victories

  • One of these, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act) gave workers the right to join unions and to bargain collectively through union representatives.
  • The act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to punish unfair labor practices and to organize elections when employees wanted to form unions.
  • After the United States entered World War II, key labor leaders promised not to interrupt the nation's defense production with strikes.
  • In 1947, Congress passed the Labor Management Relations Act, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act, over President Harry Truman's veto.
  • Chavez, a Mexican-American labor leader, for example, worked to organize farm laborers, many of them Mexican-Americans, in California, creating what is now the United Farm Workers of America.

• Empowering Labor

  • One important attempt were labor protection and regulation provisions included in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA, June 1933).
  • Although eventually the National Labor Board was established to handle labor-employers conflicts, NIRA failed to secure long-term workers' rights.
  • In the aftermath of NIRA's failure, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; known also as the Wagner Act) was passed.
  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which was to guarantee the rights included in NLRA (as opposed to merely negotiating labor disputes) and organized labor unions representation elections.
  • Francis Perkins, the Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration, looks on as Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Labor Relations Act.

• A New Direction for Unions

  • One of the flagship legislative proposals of the First New Deal (1933-34/5) was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA, June 1933).
  • The Roosevelt administration immediately followed with the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; known also as the Wagner Act), which offered many of the labor protection and regulation provisions that were earlier included in NIRA.
  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which was to guarantee the rights included in NLRA (as opposed to merely negotiating labor disputes) and organize labor unions representation elections.
  • It established a national minimum wage and overtime standards.
  • Consequently, in the context of labor legislation and labor unions discussed in this module, the term "worker" refers mostly to industrial workers.

• Industrial Recovery

  • The National Recovery Administration (NRA), which was one of the outcomes of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), was the main New Deal agency focused on industrial recovery.
  • Johnson called on every business establishment in the nation to accept a stopgap "blanket code": a minimum wage of between 20 and 45 cents per hour, a maximum workweek of 35–45 hours, and the abolition of child labor.
  • Between 4,000 and 5,000 business practices were prohibited, some 3,000 administrative orders running to over 10,000 pages promulgated, and thousands of opinions and guides from national, regional, and local code boards interpreted and enforced the Act.
  • Many of NIRA labor provisions reappeared in the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), passed later the same year.
  • Francis Perkins looks on as Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Labor Relations Act.

• Economic Hardship and Labor Upheaval During the Transition to Peace

  • The nation needed to turn from a wartime climate to domestic peace following the war.
  • Combined with a major recession, labor strikes and social upheaval including race riots, this became a difficult time for the nation.
  • Rather than consenting to the appointment of commission members to counter Republican gains in the Senate, Wilson favored the prompt dismantling of wartime boards and regulatory agencies.
  • In many countries, especially those in North America, growth was continual during the war as nations mobilized their economies.
  • Discuss the causes of the post-war economic recession, and its effects on race relations and organized labor.

• Modern Labor Organizations

  • Labor unions have lost power in the United States over the years and, today, union membership varies by sector.
  • The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States.
  • It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association.
  • Private sector union members are tightly regulated by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935.
  • The strike collapsed, PATCO vanished, and the union movement as a whole suffered a major reversal, which accelerated the decline of membership across the board in the private sector.