Compare the Wagner Act and the Taft-Harley Act
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, more popularly known as the Wagner Act is the most important labor law of the United States . Because of the Wagner Act, the US federal government became the official arbiter of employee-employee relations. The agency that was mandated to fulfil the implementation of the Wagner Act is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and was tasked to mediate between the new-found right of workers to organize themselves and negotiate collectively with their employers. The Wagner Act was the first US legislation that cleared labor unions as legitimate employee action and not a violation of any employment contracts.
The Wagner Act was introduced in 1935 during the Great Depression by New York Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner. Originally opposed by then President Roosevelt, the act was passed into law due to the inevitability of labor unions forming, based on the premise that imbalance between the rights of employers and those of employees will lead to further economic instability. Thus, the Wagner Act enabled labor rights to progress by giving employees the full right to “organize, join or aid labor unions and to participate in collective bargaining through their representatives”. The main criticism of the Wagner Act however, was that there was no imposition on labor unions to reciprocate any employee obligations, despite the federal government being mandated to prepare to move against employers that violate employee rights .
In 1947, the Labor Management Relations Act (more popularly known as the Taft-Harley Act) was passed into law by the US Congress and superseded the Wagner Act. The Taft-Harley Act balanced the initial criticisms of the Wagner Act, particularly the absence of any imposition on labor unions to reciprocate employee obligations. In short, the Taft-Harley Act was passed into law with the view of balancing the advantages that were allowed to labor unions.
The creation of the Taft-Harley Act was due to large-scale labor strikes that almost crippled the automobile, steel and other critical industries in the United States in the 1940s. These strikes caused state-side panic leading to public clamour to amend the then existing labor laws, particularly the Wagner Act. Thus the passage of the Taft-Harley Act paved the way for the US federal government to control excessive labor behaviour. In particular, the Taft-Harley Act provided for rights to “refrain from union activities” which was a feature that was needed to balance employee and employer rights in the 1940s. The act also restricted labor unions the same way it restricted employers. The Taft-Harley Act was received unfavourably causing a lot of protests against it by labor groups and rights advocates.
Both the Wagner Act and the Taft-Hartley Act are effective labor laws that were suited for the time they were crafted. The Wagner Act provided for labor rights that were needed in a time when employees had fewer rights than their employers. The need to provide these rights were pushed by the economic circumstances in the 1930s (the Great Depression) and the social imbalance that were observed that experts believed would lease to greater economic loss. As the country was able to maneuverer through the economic depression, it faced another issue in imbalance between employee and employer rights thus spurring the enactment of the Taft-Harley Act. To this day, we benefit from the valuable protection that these laws have afforded the United States economy, including the many benefits it has afforded employers, employees and labor unions. If these laws were not enacted, the United States may very well be a diminutive economy. Labor strikes, caused by grieving and disgruntled employees, have a profound negative effect on productivity, efficiency and overall economic viability, things that the United States have been able to champion in the last 50 years.
Bibliography
Anderson, Janell A and Ali M. Raza. Labor Relations and the Law. Upper Saddle-River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1996.
Iserman, Theodore R. Changes to Make in Taft-Hartley. New York: Dealer's Digest Publishing, 1953.
Reese, Holly A. Taft-Harley Act (1947). 2004. 4 July 2013 <http://www.enotes.com/taft-hartley-act-1947-reference/taft-hartley-act-1947>.
The Free Dictionary. The Wagner Act. 2013. 4 July 2013 <http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Wagner+Act>.
