Government Involvement in Labor Relations

Government involvement in labor relations has been varied in form over the history of the country. In the nineteenth century, the government often sided with management as a matter of course, protecting the rights of owners and refusing to admit that the labor force had any right to organize for the protection of its rights. After a century of struggle over this issue, Congress settled the matter with the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, in 1935. The underlying conception of the Wagner Act was affirmed in subsequent legislation, notably the Taft-Hartley Act of 1949 and the Landrum-Griffin changes of 1959. Morris (1987) writes: "Although there may be room for wide debate as to the extent of the influence which labor legislation has on shaping the contours of a nation's industrial relations system, it cannot be denied that the legislative impact in the United states has been substantial" (p. xiii). The National Labor Relations board developed out of this legislation and has become an important player in government efforts to mediate labor disputes and to administrate changes in labor laws, aspects of wage and price controls, and related matters.

Zollitsch and Langsner (1970) are concerned with the development of wage controls and with the issue of compensation as it developed during the first 150 years of U.S. history. It was during this period, from 1776 to 1942, when the United States converted from an ag

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t was weak primarily because it lacked administrative machinery, but it was still a breakthrough for labor because it stressed the importance of collective bargaining in the rail industry. McCulloch and Bornstein (1974) next consider the 1930s and the Great Depression and find that it had three major influences in the shape and content of labor-management polices: 1) widespread unemployment shocked the country about industrial conditions and created a climate in which Congress was willing to experiment with new approaches; 2) the harshness of industrial life during the 1930s, particularly low wages and job insecurity, caused part of the labor movement to reach out to the long-ignored workers in the mass production industries; and 3) the fear of revolutionary social formulas from the Far Left and Right persuaded opinion-makers that meaningful reform in the workplace was vital to the maintenance of a democratic society (pp. 7-9). It was during the 1935 convention when 32 of the participating unions in the AFL were expelled because they wanted to organize all the workers in the mass-production industries with no restriction as to trade or craft. These expelled unions formed a Committee for Industrial Organization and in 1938 mad

Category: Government - G