Legislation

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A precautionary note: Many students of labor relations find the numerous pieces of legislation confusing. A considerable amount of this confusion occurs because the majority of the more significant pieces are known and discussed under two different names. So, it is helpful if you become familiar with both such names.

Initially, around the turn of the century, unions were usually considered by the courts to be conspiracies. These "conspiracies" were seen to be in violation of the antitrust provisions of the Sherman Act of 1890. Since they were believed to be in violation, injunctions against them were summarily issued.

While there were several previous legislative acts that addressed labor and union related issues, the first real legislative attempt in the opinion of many to give unionism a chance to succeed came in 1932 in the form of the Norris-La Guardia Act (also known as the Anti-Injunction Act). This legislation gave employees the right to organize and form unions and laid the groundwork for a change in the way workers were viewed and treated. The philosophy encouraged by this act implied that the public interest would be served with union organizations, and collective bargaining would ensure proper rights for both employers and employees.

Several years after the Norris-La Guardia Act was passed, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, was passed. It guaranteed the rights of all (private) workers to organize and to bargain collectively. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly at the time, it spelled out prohibited employer behaviors. Among the prohibited behaviors included employer interference, restraint, or intimidation directed against union activity; domination of unions; and discrimination against union employees or those who take part in collective activities. Additionally it prohibited employer retaliation against the filing of unfair-labor-practice charges or cooperating with the NLRB. It also expressly prohibited the employer from refusing to bargain in good faith (National Labor Relations Act, n.d.).

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was created as a federal agency to ensure industrial harmony by administering and enforcing the Wagner Act. The agency could certify unions as the bargaining representative, oversee negotiations, and break deadlocks.

And, it is this act, referred to by some as the "Magna Carta for American labor," which became the cornerstone for labor relations as we think of them today (National Labor Relations Act, n.d.).

With the advent of the National Labor Relations Act union membership quadrupled from three million to fifteen million between 1935 and 1948 (Mondy & Noe, 2005).

With the growth and the additional power and influence gained by the unions, concern emerged regarding the maintenance of a balance between labor and management. This led to the legislation known as the 1947 Labor-Management Relations Act, also referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act.

The Taft-Hartley Act created some significant revisions to the NLRA. The amendments enacted in Taft-Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or "unfair labor practices," on the part of unions to the NLRA, which had previously only prohibited unfair labor practices committed by employers. And, perhaps its most controversial provision, it permitted states to enact right to work laws.

So what are the " unfair labor practices" on the part of the union? Among others, the listing included such union activities as interfering through restraint or coercion with the employee's exercise of their collective bargaining rights; creating a situation in which the employer was "caused" to discriminate against employees in an effort to encourage or discourage union membership; engaging in certain kinds of strikes or boycotts; charging excessive initiation fees or dues for union members; featherbedding; and of course, refusing to bargain with the employer in good faith (Mondy & Noe, 2005).

Right to work laws are laws that prohibit management and unions from entering into agreements requiring union membership as a condition of employment. Currently twenty-two states have right to work laws.

Reading Assignment: To find out if your state is a right to work state, visit the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc.'s website at http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm. If your state is a right to work state, read the law. If your state is not a right to work state, read through one or two of the laws in right to work states.

The Landrum-Griffin Act (also known as the Labor-Managment Reporting and Disclosure Act) of 1959 was passed in response to what was perceived as abuses by unions, many of which impacted their own members. It required additional accountability from employers and put new restrictions on the activities of unions. It also gave support to the right to work states which outlawed union shop clauses, essentially allowing them to remain intact.

All of the significant labor relations legislation excluded the public employee, so renewed emphasis was placed on passing legislation at the state level to provide public employees with recognition and limited collective bargaining rights. By the sixties, the federal government began to recognize the rights of federal employees.

By 1962, with an Executive Order signed by John F. Kennedy, public workers could join unions and bargain collectively. Public employees in federal, state, and local governments, however, are technically not included in the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act nor other general labor legislation (Mondy & Noe, 2005).

The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, Title VII created the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to "oversee labor-management relations within the federal government" (Edwards, 2005). Federal employees still may not strike or bargain collectively with respect to wages and benefits.

Reading Assignment: Please read Chapter 11, pages 212-218 from the Fire Service Personnel Management textbook by Steven Edwards.

References

Edwards, S. Fire Service Personnel Management. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Education, 2005.

Mondy, W. & Noe, R., Human Resource Management. 9th Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2005.

"The National Labor Relations Act." http://home.earthlink.net/~local1613/nlra.html, A comparable listing is also found in Mondy and Noe.

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