National+Labor+Relations+Act

** The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) **
by Sean O'Keefe and Dan Macko

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was created by Congress in 1935. Before this act was passed, employers were previously able to interrogate and keep a close eye on employees/union members. However, these people began to strike against their employers. This caused a great amount of strikes to occur from 1933 to 1934. While the strikers looked for the benefits of the working class, the police forces looked to help defend the cause of the anti-union employers/companies.

Congress passed the NLRA mainly because of the violent striking going on. This act allowed these employees to join a labor union without fear of losing their job or reduced wages from the managment. While many workers benefited from this act, this Act did not apply to workers who are covered by the Railway Labor Act, agricultural employees, domestic employees, supervisors, federal, state or local government workers, independent contractors and some close relatives of individual employers.

While this act resulted in many successful campaigns such as the automobile industry, their were still many opponents to a unionized workforce. In 1947, these opponents proceeded to pass the Taft-Hartly Act, which allowed unions to be prosecuted, enjoined, and sued for a variety of activities, including mass picketing and secondary boycotts.

The last major revision of the NLRA occurred in 1959, when Congress imposed further restrictions on unions in the Landrum-Griffin Act.

While this act had many sections of it, the most important defined things such as //protected activities// to allow workers to join labor unions, allowed these groups of labour unions to organize in specific events such as strikes, and also defined specific unfair labor practices for employers.