National Labor Relations Act

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, commonly referred to as the Wagner Act, is the basic bill of rights for unions. It was enacted to eliminate employers' interference with the organization of workers into unions. Before, many employers would threatened the employees that if they would be joining a union they would receive less pay, benefits, hours, or even be fired. This caused an outcry in American society because many of the employers weren’t giving the employees much security for their jobs and they weren’t able to join any unions. So to help out with this problem the Wagner act was signed in on July 5th, 1935 and it investigates and charges ventures on unfair labor practices. This law gives the workers many rights as far as being able to organize and join unions, to bargain collectively, and to actively pursue their objectives whatever they may be. The problem with the law at first was that many people were ignoring this as a law all together. Many of the initial appellate courts agreed that this law was unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable. It took many years and many court cases that were won because of the NLRA that it became an enforceable law that could be upheld in court. The Wagner Act requires that employees to bargain in good faith with the union when it comes too wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment. A part of the NLRA is National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This board consists of 5 members that are appointed by the President of the United States and the senate and are given 5 year terms. They are given the responsibility for determining appropriate bargaining units, conducting elections to determine union representation, and preventing or correcting employer actions that can lead to unfair labor practice charges. Since the act as come about more than 900,000 unfair labor practice charges and conducted in excess of 360,000 secret-ballot elections. The Agency handles approximately 40,000 cases each year, including more than 7,000 representation