Introduction
The National Labor Relations Act/the Wagner Act has essentially been defined as perhaps the most fundamental piece of legislation that the United States Congress has ever enacted. The Act is named after Robert F. Wagner, a New York Democratic Senator. Wagner Act is a 1935 federal law, which provided for the collective bargaining and recognized the workers’ rights to choose their representatives to present them in the bargaining unit. The Act promised to prevent the recurring depressions, uphold a full flow of the purchasing power, and guarantee a wise wealth distribution between labor and management. In the mid of 1930s, the United States government and organized labor struck a deal. The time was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time, an unstable time, and the nation was trying to convalesce from a depression, the unemployment rate was high, and organized labor was essentially struggling for its existence (Higgins, 62). This analytical essay describes the economic and political considerations, critical incidents, and players in making the Wagner Act.
Before the Wagner Act, the 1933 National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA) protected the workers’ rights, but in the Supreme Court proclaimed it unconstitutional in 1935. By so doing, the employees lost their constitutional rights to join labor unions of their option besides bargaining collectively. The rate of unemployment in 1935 was over 21 percent and over 50 percent of individuals lived in poverty. During this time, large employers had huge control over their employees. The workers were remunerated less than their economic contributions measured by their output. Prior to the Wagner Act, the federal government had desisted from supporting the collective bargaining over the working conditions and wages as well as from facilitating trade union growth. Wagner Act, the new law, marked a noteworthy reversal of this attitude. The CIO and American Federation of Labor took the advantage of the encouragement by the government through carrying out countrywide organizational campaigns.
The Act had a huge effect on the industrial relations as the initial part of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The Act was made out of the necessity as well as demand for the new authority foundations besides the new participation forms in the industrial life legalization and political dimensions. Prior to the Wagner Act, the relations between employers and workers were uncertain and combative. The “Conspiracy Doctrine” was, in fact, formulated as a baseless effort at making the unions unlawful through arguing that such unions generated an aggressive environment besides harming the employers’ rights. The trade unions had over 200, 000 members during the period when the unskilled laborers and better machines replaced the hand crafted work (Higgins, 19). The short-term organizations such as National Union Labor and Knights of Labor faded rapidly. The American Federation of labor had essentially taken several crucial measures in endeavoring to establish better relations, but the strikes, brutality, and many other tactics continued being an issue.
The U.S government started its process of changing some of the issues through passing anti-trust laws as Clayton Act and Sherman Anti-trust Act. President Wilson established a tripartite War Labor Conference, which had the guiding values of barring lockouts and strikes as well as recognizing the workers’ rights to organize in the trade union besides bargaining collectively. It is worth mentioning that President Franklin D. Roosevelt took an innovative technique with National Recovery Industrial Act that was intended to get individuals back to employment during the time of Great Depression. Section 7 (a) was vital to the National Labor Relations Act /Wagner Act as it expressed the workers’ rights to become members of the trade unions as well as collective bargain that relaxed anti-trust laws (Strecker, 89).
The Act is one of the most monumental and far-reaching of all the New Deal legislation. It is worth noting that the Act redefined the relationship of the employers and workers in America. Senator Robert F. Wagner assisted in solving the difficult problem of its day through becoming among the chief bulwarks of the upcoming social justice and economic prosperity. The Act was a product of 2 entwined events. One of the events was Roosevelt’s administration inability to stabilize the labor relations. The other event was a spectacular increase in the labor activism during the early years of Great Depression. The industrial relations changed lastingly after the passage of 1933 NIRA Act. Whereas there was a necessity for Wagner Act, the Wagner’s labor bill experienced great opposition from both the predictable and unpredictable sources. The U.S Chamber of Commerce and the other employer relations lobbied against the bill (Higgins, 51). According to these associations, the proposed legislation was decidedly pro-labor and unconstitutional, thus encouraging class conflict. Nonetheless, despite its opposition, the Congress passed the Act and on July 5, 1935 President Roosevelt signed it into law.
The effects of Wagner Act were immediate. In its initial year of operation, the Act docketed 575 cases that involved 141,209 employees and about two fifths of these cases concerned discrimination due to union membership. In 95 cases, the board was appealed to hold a representation election. In 166 cases, the major complaint was the employers’ failure to bargain with the union. In addition, the board was successful and quite active during the first year, but the employers did not take the Act along with its enforcement from the bottom of their hearts. The business leaders, as well as their associations, believed that the Act was unconstitutional. In fact, they had grounds to think that the Court could rule in their good deed.
In 1918 Hammer v. Dagenhart ruling, the Supreme Court made a difference between interstate commerce and manufacturing, arguing that the Congress could not control the industry. The employers, on the other hand, hedged their bets that the Supreme Court would yet again serve the capitalists and, therefore, refuse to concede to the demands of workers. However, by the year 1937, the Supreme Court had essentially changed significantly, mainly because of the political pressure that President Roosevelt applied. Therefore, the Supreme Court in 1937 ruled that the Act was unconstitutional. After the Court’s ruling, the NLRB cases increased. For instance, there were 10, 430 docketed cases from 1937 to 1938. In the following 3 years, the board took up over 22,000 cases (Strecker, 92). In short, the Wagner Act presence gave various unions the chance to secure their membership besides working toward permanent wage and organizational advancements. Moreover, the successes of the Wagner Act provoked the states to pass same “little” National Labor Relations Acts whose “baby” NLRB’s assisted the employees that the federal legislation did not cover. The Wagner Act was very supportive of unions, and its groundbreaking nature transformed the American legal as well as business culture at all the employment levels.
The Wagner Act guaranteed the employees’ right to form unions, organize, and bargain collectively with the employers. The Act assured that the employees would have an option on whether to join a union or not besides promoting collective bargaining as the most important way to make sure peaceful industry- labor associations. Additionally, the Wagner Act also formed a new National labor Relations Board (NLRB) to guarantee democratic elections in the unions, penalize the unfair labor practices by the employers, and mediate deadlocked labor-management disputes (Strecker, 102). The good thing about the Wagner Act is that it applied to all the employees that were involved in the interstate commerce. The Wagner Act contributed to an impressive surge in the union membership.
The historians along with other scholars tend to differ sharply on the meaning, importance, and legacy of the National Labor Relations Act. From the 1960s when the achievements that unions and workers made ever since the Great Depression started to fade, the New Deal critics attacked the Wagner Act along with its enforcement agency for its inability to change the American economic power structure. They argue that the Act failed to bring justice but as an alternative it secured capital position. The Act stabilized benefits, unions, and wages so that the employers could avoid strikes, predict the production costs, and compete with the rivals. Furthermore, according to the radical scholars, the National labor Relations Board provided union bureaucrats and not the employees with the law benefits.
The Act led to the establishment of large union organizational structures, which squashed the crucial rights of protest and strikes and limited the shop floor militancy. The local autonomy was restricted as union leaders were frequently given the command to call strikes as well as bargain with the employers (Strecker, 73). Lastly, some argue that the Act linked working individuals politically to the federal government that suggested that little activism could happen without the state sanction. The unionists became tied to the Washington whereas Roosevelt’s party became workers' party. Condemnation notwithstanding, the National Labor Relations Act remains the center of attention of the American Labor law as it set the playing field for the workers and employees. Conclusively, the Act has enhanced the average worker’s life besides remaining central to the labor movement future.
Works Cited
Higgins, John E. The Developing Labor Law: The Board, the Courts, and the National Labor Relations Act. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs, 2006. Print.
Strecker, David E. Labor Law: A Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2011. Print.
