Collective Bargaining by Teachers

With the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935, the U.S. Congress guaranteed the right of private employees to bargain collectively by forming unions. This legislation was viewed as a method of curtailing the effects of the potentially harmful private sector management practices observed during the years of the Industrial Revolution. However, concern over the power of labor unions later resulted in the passage of the [Page 400]Labor Management Relations Act, also known as the Taft-Hartley Act, in 1947. The Taft-Hartley Act sought to restrict the impact of unfair labor practices by unions and allowed states to pass right-to-work legislation while severely restricting union closed-shop activities. However, the NLRA and the Labor Management Relations Act extended coverage to only private sector employees, ...