National Labor Relations Act

Provisions of the NLRA

The primary purpose of the NLRA is to guarantee employees “the right to self-organization, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection….” Under the act, employers cannot restrain or coerce employees in their exercise of these rights. The NLRA also ensures the right of employees to refrain from joining unions, collective bargaining, and related activities “except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment [Page 330]as authorized in section 8(a)(3).” The federal government, states and their political subdivisions, and labor organizations except when they are acting as employers were not included as employers under NLRA. In order to enforce the NLRA, Congress created a three-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to arbitrate labormanagement disputes, ensure democratic union elections, penalize specified unfair labor practices by employers (but not unions), and administer all components of the law.

Impact and Evolution of the NLRA

Stated simply, the NLRA was intended to improve wages, hours, and conditions of employment for American workers in both public and private sectors. When enacted in 1935, management viewed the NLRA as biased and one sided, because it listed unfair labor practices for employers but did not include unfair labor practices for which the unions would be sanctioned. From the perspective of many in corporate management, the NLRA was blatantly prolabor, and its passage prompted a contentious debate about the fairness and constitutionality of the act. Differences of opinion about the NLRA notwithstanding, it did provide the legal framework necessary for civil and productive labor-management dialogue and cooperation.

Ultimately, the NLRA fostered reasonably peaceful labor relations during the tumultuous period between 1935 and the end of World War II. In 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRA in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., ruling that the statute did not violate the constitutional rights of employers or employees. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) responded to the NLRA with aggressive, nationwide membership campaigns, and the number of unionized workers increased from about 3.5 million in 1935 to approximately 15 million in 1947.

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