national labor relations act essay

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National Labor Relations Act: an overview

The focus of the traditional law of unions, which makes up the major part of the area of law known as labor law , is on workers collectively and their rights as a group. This may be distinguished from employment law which focuses more on issues relating to the rights of individual employees. The body of law of which labor law is comprised is notable for the primacy of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) . The NLRA is codified at 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-169 and purports to serve the national interest of the United States regarding labor relations within the country. As may be noted during periods of widespread strikes, uneasy relations in this sphere can very quickly and severely have an adverse effect on the entire country. Clear policy regarding labor and management encourages the best interests of the United States which is to maintain full economic production.  Industrial peace is essential to a functioning economy. The NLRA seeks to limit industrial strife among employers, employees, and labor organizations which could hinder full production in the United States economy. 

There are three major groups under the NLRA whose rights and roles with regards to one another are strictly defined.  It is easy to understand why such strict definition of roles is important- it allows employers, employees, and labor unions to know exactly what to expect from one another. In addition to defining and protecting the rights of these groups, it also encourages collective bargaining   and eliminates certain practices on the part of labor and management. These practices are referred to as unfair labor practices ("ULPs") and have been singled out for their potential to harm the general welfare.  Through the NLRA, employees are guaranteed the right to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers through representatives of their own choosing.  If they desire not to exercise these rights, they are also guaranteed the right to refrain from them.  The NLRA establishes a procedure by which employees can exercise their choice whether or not to join a union in a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB").  When and at whose discretion a secret-ballot election may be exercised as opposed to other election procedures is currently a matter of contention between employers and labor groups.

jurisdiction of the NLRA

In order to determine if the National Labor Relations Act applies to a particular case, courts look to the following factors: (1) whether or not there is a labor dispute as defined under the NLRA, (2) Whether the employer’s business activity is “commerce” under the definition offer in the NLRA, (3) Or whether or not the activity falls under activity that is “affecting commerce” under the NLRA.  The NLRB has discretion to decline to exercise jurisdiction if interstate activities are only minimal and may leave settlement of disputes to appropriate state or local agencies.  This agencies may not undermine the policies of the NLRA when reaching decisions.

jurisdiction over employers

In general, the NLRA applies only to those who act as employers or as direct or indirect agents of employers.  However, the following employers are not covered: 1. Government or Union Employers. Certain employers are specifically are specifically excluded by the NLRA:  federal and state offices, Federal Reserve Banks, employers subject to the Railway Labor Act, and labor unions and their officers and agents (except when they are acting as employers). 2. Companies that have a municipal function.  A privately-owned company with an essentially municipal function is exempted from the NLRA.   3. Religious schools. (An exception here is schools that are largely secular and not pervaded by a religious purpose). Healthcare workers were previously exempted but are now included. 

jurisdiction over employees

Though the NLRA broadly covers many "employees" as the term is used in common parlance, there are significant exceptions that must be noted.  

right of employees

The NLRA, in general covers the rights of employees, such as the rights to self-organization and collective bargaining.  It also contains provisions regarding the requirements for union-security agreements. Additionally, the right to strike, the right to picket, the obligations of collective bargaining, and selection of employee representatives, and a definition of ULPs are covered. The NLRA also contains provisions that protect what is known as protected concerted activity- when two or more employees acting together protest or complain about wages, benefits, or other terms and conditions of employment.

enforcement

The NLRA has an enforcement mechanism written into it.  It looks to the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") and the General Counsel acting through 52 regional and field offices located in major cities all over the country.  There are offices in cities ranging from Portland to Brooklyn and from San Diego to Birmingham. Both the General Counsel as well as the staff of the Regional Offices is responsible for investigation and prosecution of charges of ULPs. Additionally, they are responsible for conducting elections to decide employee representatives. The Board is made up of five members who are appointed by the President with consent of the Senate for 5-year terms.  The appointment process is often considered to be highly political. The Board decides cases involving charges of ULPs.  It also determines representation election questions that it receives from Regional Offices. The mechanism for enforcement through the NLRB is laid out in the NLRA, including the boundaries of its authority and limits to this authority.   The NLRA also covers its procedures and powers in representation matters, in unfair labor practice cases, and in certain special proceedings under the Act; and the Act’s provisions concerning enforcement of the Board’s orders.

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National Labor Relations Act (1935)

Citation: An act to diminish the causes of labor disputes burdening or obstructing interstate and foreign commerce, to create a National Labor Relations Board, and for other purposes, July 5, 1935; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

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Also known as the Wagner Act, this bill was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. It established the National Labor Relations Board and addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector.

After the  National Industrial Recovery Act  was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, organized labor was again looking for relief from employers who had been free to spy on, interrogate, discipline, discharge, and blacklist union members. In the 1930s, workers had begun to organize militantly, and in 1933 and 1934, a great wave of strikes occurred across the nation in the form of citywide general strikes and factory takeovers. Violent confrontations occurred between workers trying to form unions and the police and private security forces defending the interests of anti-union employers.

In a Congress sympathetic to labor unions, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was passed in July of 1935. The broad intention of the act, commonly known as the Wagner Act after Senator Robert R. Wagner of New York, was to guarantee employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, 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 and protection.” The NLRA applied to all employers involved in interstate commerce except airlines, railroads, agriculture, and government.

In order to enforce and maintain those rights, the act included provisions for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to arbitrate deadlocked labor-management disputes, guarantee democratic union elections, and penalize unfair labor practices by employers. To this day, the board of five members, appointed by the President, is assisted by 33 regional directors. The NLRB further determines proper bargaining units, conducts elections for union representation, and investigates charges of unfair labor practices by employers. Unfair practices, by law, include such things as interference, coercion, or restraint in labor’s self-organizing rights; interference with the formation of labor unions; encouragement or discouragement of union membership; and the refusal to bargain collectively with a duly chosen employee representatives.

The constitutionality of the NLRA was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in  National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.  in 1937. The act contributed to a dramatic surge in union membership and made labor a force to be reckoned with both politically and economically. Women benefited from this shift to unionization as well. By the end of the 1930s, over 800,000 women belonged to unions, a threefold increase from 1929. The provisions of the NLRA were later expanded under the Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1947 and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959.

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National Labor Relations Act

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Abraham, S.E. (2022). National Labor Relations Act. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66252-3_2771

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National Labor Relations Act

Updated 28 September 2023

Subject Corporations ,  Management ,  Work

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Category Business ,  Life

Topic Company ,  Labor

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also named the "Wagner Act" of the United States Labor Law allows workers to organize themselves into trade unions, campaign for collective bargaining and take collective action to advocate for their rights if necessary. It can be found in Section 29 of the U.S. Constitution and has been active since 6th July 1935 (Amato, 2014). Before its enactment, trade unions were considered illegal in the United States of America. Besides allowing the workers to join labor unions, it also empowers them to organize strikes and boycotts to command the attention and address by the employer, elect a bargaining representative, campaign for better working conditions, wages and protection from occupational hazards. The act also facilitates the establishment of the National Labor Relations Board which regulate trade unions, organize their elections, review their active as and ensure proper implementation of the act (Amato, 2014). It also gives legal advice to the labor unions. All these are to benefit the American workforce.

Mediation vs. Arbitration

Mediation is the process of dispute resolution outside a court of law, where the parties have the right to decide whether or not to agree to the settlement proposed by the mutually agreed and neutral mediator (Stipanowich, " Lamare, 2014). In this case, the mediator only recommends and uses the power of persuasion to nail the agreement. On the other hand, arbitration is a dispute resolution process, where the parties give the power to decide to the arbitrator (Blattmachr, 2017). Arbitration mainly takes place in a courthouse and can be time-consuming, costly and truth-oriented. Unlike arbitration, mediation seeks to come up with an agreement which satisfied both parties to restore peace regardless of the evidence or truth. The most significant difference between these two processes is the power vested in the mediator or arbitrator and the relevance of the agreed decision (Blattmachr, 2017). However, in both methods, a neutral third party is decided on and trusted by both parties.

Amato, T. A. (2014). Labor Rights Conditionality: United States Trade Legislation and the International Trade Order. NYUL Rev., 65, 79.

Blattmachr, J. G. (2017). Reducing estate and trust litigation through disclosure, in terrorem clauses, mediation, and arbitration. Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., 9, 237.

Stipanowich, T. J., " Lamare, J. R. (2014). Living with ADR: Evolving Perceptions and Use of Mediation, Arbitration, and Conflict Management in Fortune 1000 Corporations. Harv. Negot. L. Rev., 19, 1.

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Contract Under National Labor Relations Act Essay

Introduction: issue.

Ms. Julia Cumlaude sent a note to one of her professors, Prof. Minnie Wage, on the 10th of April. The note stated her willingness to work for this professor for the period of the 10th of June – the 15th of August. Ms. Cumlaude specified that she would like to be paid $20 per hour and asked Prof. Wage to reply by the 16th of April. In three days, on the 13th of April, Prof. Wage replied with a note that stated the professor’s dissatisfaction with the required wage and proposed $15 instead of $20. Julia received the note on the 14th of April.

On the 16th of April, Prof. Wage gets to know from her colleague, Prof. Max E. Loudmouth, that he had outbid and hired Julia Cumlaude for $18 per hour. Mr. Loudmouth highlighted Ms. Cumlaude’s outstanding working skills. Prof. Wage, in her turn, decided to catch Ms. Cumlaude and offered her $20 per hour with a note stating that she would be away at a conference until the 12th of June. Prof. Wage proposed Ms. Cumlaude a job which could start after the 13th of June. The note was sent the same day, and the next day, on the 17th of April, Ms. Cumlaude received it. The issue here is whether Julia Cumlaude and Prof. Minnie Wage could and would have a contract.

National Labor Relations Act (1935) includes the worker’s right to choose a workplace. NLRA ensures that Julia Cumlaude did not have to opt for Prof. Minnie Wage’s first job offer.

There are two types of reasons for the contract between Julia Cumlaude and Prof. Minnie Wage not to happen: subjective and objective. Subjective reasons involve the fact that Prof. Minnie Wage offered Julia a job which would start after the 13th of June, and Ms. Cumlaude specifically stated that she would want to start working from the 10th of June. The matter was being discussed during April; thus, Prof. Minnie Wage could have figured how to provide the job for the required period. Second, Julia Cumlaude asked the professor to reply by the 16th of April, and she got the offer from Minnie Wage only on the 17th of April. Not having received the note from Prof. Wage by the 16th of April would mean to Julia that the discussion was closed.

However, the main reason for the contract not to happen is the fact that Prof. Max E. Loudmouth had already hired Julia by the 16th of April. There are three elements of a contract: offer, consideration, and acceptance. Ms. Cumlaude specified the period during which the consideration phase was active. The final date was the 16th of April. By that day, she had been offered two jobs: at Prof. Minnie Wage with $15 per hour and Prof. Loudmouth with $18 per hour. Given the financial advantage of the latter, Julia opts for the Loudmouth’s job. Thus, job acceptance happened on the 16th of April, the last day of the consideration period. Being hired presupposes a contract with the University; thus, the acceptance led to the parties’ formal obligations.

Julia Cumlaude and Prof. Minnie Wage did not have a contract for the reason that Ms. Cumlaude had already been hired by the time she got a job offer from Prof. Wage.

National Labor Relations Act, Publ. L. No. 74-198, 49 Stat. 449 (1935). Web.

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The National Labor Relations Act

23 Aug 2022

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Discussion 1 

The National Labor Relations Act is a very important act of employees in an organization. It gives them the freedom to join unions and groups without fear of the management. The National Labor Relation Board formulated the Act with the intention to protect employees from being enslaved by employers and discourage them from entering into inappropriate contracts. The most important provision in National Labor Relations Act is provision seven which protects the rights of employees ( Levi et al., 2016 ). The protection extends to include their ability to join some unions and enter into contracts willingly without being forced. Additionally, the provision protects employees taking part in the presentation of grievances, protest, and those who demonstrate because of disagreement on certain issues in the organization. The provision is very important, as it allows the employees to have the right to organize and join or even assist in bargaining collectively through their representatives. 

Discussion 2 

The selection process for determining members of the National Labor Relation Board is too politicized. NLRB was established with the aim of regulating the activities and powers of employers against discrimination ( Garcia, 2016 ). However, the selection process is manipulated with stakeholders with various businesses with the aim of selecting members whom they will easily influence to make decisions that favor them. In such circumstances, it is difficult for employees to fight for their rights through the labor unions because of the infiltration of the employers using the members selected to restrict the labor unions. The selection process leads to instability in the interpretation of LMRA. The responsibility of LMRA is to regulate the powers and activities of labor unions. Since the selection process is politicized and compromised, it will positive for the employers and negative for the employees. Nonetheless, the employees benefit from the labor unions as they present their grievances through the union ( Green, 2016 ). Due to the compromised selection of members, the board will lean on the side of the employers and LMRA will be interpreted to suit their interest. 

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References 

Garcia, R. A. (2016). Modern Accountability for a Modern Workplace: Reevaluating the National Labor Relations Board's Joint Employer Standard. Geo. Wash. L. Rev. , 84 , 741. 

Green, M. Z. (2016). What Non-Union Lawyers Need to Know About Employment Policy Enforcement at the National Labor Relations Board. 

Levi, M., Melo, T., Weingast, B., & Zlotnick, F. (2016). Opening Access, Ending the Violence Trap: Labor, Business, Government and the National Labor Relations Act. In Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development . University of Chicago Press. 

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Paychecks, Drafts and Firings: The Possible Future of College Sports

National Labor Relations Board testimony, now in the hands of a judge, could have wide-ranging consequences — positive and negative — for athletes and their institutions.

By Billy Witz

Reporting from Los Angeles

As Elijah Higgins sat on a witness stand last week, he detailed the similarities between his experience last season as a rookie tight end for the Arizona Cardinals and the four years he had spent playing football at Stanford University.

Five or six days a week at each level of play, he was immersed in football activities: lifting weights, practice, film study, physical therapy and playing games. There is travel on charter jets. Free tickets for friends and relatives. Robust coaching staffs setting rules.

There are some differences, Higgins allowed. In the National Football League, there are no classes to attend, though at Stanford, he said, academics took a back seat to football, which is why he still has a few classes to take before earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology.

The only other distinction is that, in contrast to Stanford, he now earns a paycheck. The minimum salary in the N.F.L. last season was $750,000.

Higgins said that at Stanford, in an environment where critical thinking was encouraged, he had begun to consider how money drove what he called the college football “system,” where even at an elite university like Stanford, the pursuit of academics was encouraged only so long as it did not interfere with football.

“I do agree with the fact that college football players are employees without status,” he said.

Higgins was the last of about two dozen witnesses who had testified over the last five months in a National Labor Relations Board hearing that bears wide-ranging consequences for a narrow question: Should football players, and basketball players, at the University of Southern California be classified as employees?

The case may not be decided for many months. But it will almost certainly end up in an appeals court, which is why there is such a voluminous record: 3,040 pages of transcripts from 21 days of testimony, along with more than 150 exhibits.

The record is so enormous that Eleanor Laws, the presiding administrative law judge who will determine how the National Labor Act applies to those players, granted lawyers an additional nine weeks to file their closing written arguments, which will now be due by July 31.

The charges have been brought by the N.L.R.B.’s general counsel on behalf of Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association, which advocates for college athletes’ rights. The defendants are U.S.C. along with the Pac-12 Conference and the N.C.A.A., which may have to classify athletes at member universities as employees even though the board has jurisdiction only over private institutions.

The testimony was often dry, and the hearing, which closed on Thursday, drew little attention as rafts of lawyers — as many as 16 at times — haggled over picayune details of control and compensation and whether athletes had actually been given the U.S.C. student-athlete handbook. (Though U.S.C. generated $212 million in athletic department revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, that is not relevant to the case, only that there is compensation and control.)

At times, the elasticity of reasonable arguments was tested.

For example, Jacob Vogel, the U.S.C. marching band director, spent more than three hours discussing with boundless enthusiasm the intricate details of his program, including how band members got dressed before football games.

The argument that playing football was little different from playing the tuba then came under cross-examination from Amanda Laufer, the lead lawyer for the general counsel, who asked how many of the 300 band members had no prior musical experience.

“About 10 to 15,” Vogel said.

“No further questions,” Laufer said, satisfied that she had provided a distinction with the football team.

The case is one of several fronts in the assault on the amateur model of college athletics. Emboldened state attorneys general have chipped away at the N.C.A.A.’s rule-making authority. Antitrust lawsuits that could force universities to pay out billions in damages are working their way through the courts. And last month, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize after winning the right to be classified as employees, a decision the college is appealing.

The N.C.A.A. is looking for relief from Congress, but any hope for an antitrust exemption is unlikely to come until after the presidential election — if at all.

The arguments before Judge Laws lay out contrasting visions of what college sports might look like if athletes were employees.

One is apocalyptic. The other is sanguine.

Teresa Gould, the newly appointed commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, which is losing 10 of its member universities to other conferences by August, including U.S.C., which is leaving for the Big Ten, testified that high school football stars could be subject to a draft. She also argued that poor play — say a point guard who committed too many turnovers — might lead not to the player’s being benched but to his or her being fired.

Sonja Stills, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, testified that her collection of historically Black — and historically underfunded — colleges and universities “can’t afford paying out students,” who in turn wouldn’t be able to afford college if their scholarships were taxed as income. She expected Olympic sports to be axed if money had to be redirected to athletes. Women’s sports could also be imperiled, she said.

And Anastasios Kaburakis, the founder of a company that helps international athletes find opportunities to play at American colleges, described how many of those athletes would be shut out by having to obtain work visas in the United States.

Those cataclysmic assessments were waved away by another witness: Liam Anderson, a distance runner at Stanford, who characterized them as “fear mongering.” He said that not every athlete should be considered an employee and that universities would adjust — much as they have as market forces have affected big-time college sports through so-called name, image and likeness payments that are often made through booster-funded collectives .

And if college football players and players in men’s and women’s basketball could be paid as employees?

“I’d celebrate that outcome,” said Anderson, who served two years as co-president of Stanford’s student-athlete advisory committee.

Anderson’s testimony was among the more compelling during the hearing, which took place in a conference room in a nondescript office building in West Los Angeles.

Anderson described staying at the same Las Vegas hotel last year during the N.C.A.A. tournament as the Arkansas men’s basketball team. A security guard told Anderson his job was to ensure that players did not leave their rooms — a sign of control that buttressed testimony from former U.S.C. football players, who said they had been required to check in for meals with fingerprint scans and to text photos to anonymous attendance checkers to prove they were in class.

A loophole in the board’s byzantine rules allowed Anderson and Higgins, neither of whom attended U.S.C., to testify — even after the general counsel had exhausted its list of witnesses. Because the N.C.A.A. had called upon athletes from other universities to testify, the general counsel was able to call rebuttal witnesses who also did not attend U.S.C.

Opposing lawyers did not know who would be testifying until a witness took the stand, a procedure that protects witnesses in fair labor cases from intimidation. This often set off a flurry of computer searches by lawyers with sometimes only 30 minutes or so before cross-examination.

In the case of Anderson, that led to his being pressed by Daniel Nash, the lead lawyer for the Pac-12, to explain statements he had made in The Stanford Daily that were at odds with his testimony, including an instance in which he had called the idea of paying college athletes an “obvious financial impossibility” in a 2021 op-ed piece .

“My views on this have evolved,” Anderson said.

Lauren Herstik contributed reporting.