Labor Relations project
Maya Peoples
April 17, 2017
The NLRA
I have been in this class for like a month or two, this course was almost confusing. I had to use the internet for this course and for my homework. The person who wrote the textbook did not put any effort, and didn't even add a lot of definitions for the key terms. I had to look up half of the key terms online. I had some trouble with the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
National Labor Relations Act
One of Congress' responses to the Depression was the National Labor Relations Act, which officially motivates collective bargaining between employers and workers to negotiate the terms and conditions of employment. The act has been reduced in recent decades by rules from a National Labor Relations Board bitter to union organizing and too ready to accept the claims of businesses that they are torment by hard-charging labor officials. (latimes)
The 1806 case led the Philadelphia court to find the union to be nothing more than a form of criminal conspiracy. The conspiracy doctrine was based on a several governing principles of
English common law, including: Unions impede with the freedom of contract and property rights of both individual workers and employers. Unions have monopoly power and are consequently disruptive to both market competition and to the political system. The so-called conspiracy doctrine took hold in the many other courts of early America and workers were largely discouraged from even forming unions. (Cooke pp. 7-26)
Not until the early 1840s did the conspiracy doctrine begin to give way. In the landmark case of Commonwealth v. Hunt, a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge decided a case where an union of shoemakers refused to work for their employer unless the employer fired a non union worker. Judge Shaw logical that the court must be a neutral referee in deciding union organizing and collective bargaining rights. To find a union unlawful under the conspiracy doctrine, Judge Shaw held, the courts must find the objectives and/or activities of a union illegal. In and of themselves, unions were not illegal. (Cooke)
English common law, including: Unions impede with the freedom of contract and property rights of both individual workers and employers. Unions have monopoly power and are consequently disruptive to both market competition and to the political system. The so-called conspiracy doctrine took hold in the many other courts of early America and workers were largely discouraged from even forming unions. (Cooke pp. 7-26)
Not until the early 1840s did the conspiracy doctrine begin to give way. In the landmark case of Commonwealth v. Hunt, a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge decided a case where an union of shoemakers refused to work for their employer unless the employer fired a non union worker. Judge Shaw logical that the court must be a neutral referee in deciding union organizing and collective bargaining rights. To find a union unlawful under the conspiracy doctrine, Judge Shaw held, the courts must find the objectives and/or activities of a union illegal. In and of themselves, unions were not illegal. (Cooke)
As things stand, businesses that don't want their workers to unify and bargain collectively have understand tactics to tilt organizing campaigns in their favor. They can devote as much of the workday as they like to lecturing employees — together or even individually — on the wickedness of unions. They routinely dare the eligibility of workers to vote — before voting, to put off the election date, or after, to block the results from taking effect. By dashing up the process, the board proposes to give elections some teeth. Either the workers want the union to speak on behalf of them, in which case the union should be able to engage in contract talks as soon as possible, or they don't, in which case the union should be barred for a time from trying to organize. (latimes)
The contradiction by some employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by some employers to accept the standard procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of overloading or barricading commerce by (a) impairing the efficiency, safety, or operation of the instrumentalities of commerce; (b) occurring in the current of commerce; (c) materially affecting, restraining, or controlling the flow of raw materials or produced or processed goods from or into the channels of commerce, or the prices of such materials or goods in commerce; or (d) causing reduction of employment and wages in such volume as considerably to impair or disrupt the market for goods flowing from or into the channels of commerce. (nlrb)
Experience has proved that the protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively protects commerce from injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices foundational to the friendly adjustment of industrial debates arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or other working conditions, and by restoring equality of bargaining power between employers and employees. It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain appreciable obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to reduce and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self- organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection. (nlrb)
Under the NLRA, it is illegal for the union or for the union that represents you in bargaining with your employer to threaten you that you will lose your job unless you support the union, refuse to process a grievance because you have criticized union officials or because you are not a member
of the union,use or maintain discriminatory standards or policies in making job referrals from a hiring hall and cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against you because of your union-related activity.(dol.gov)
of the union,use or maintain discriminatory standards or policies in making job referrals from a hiring hall and cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against you because of your union-related activity.(dol.gov)
Both employers and employees declared that they needed protection from union overreaching, such as coercing workers to join by using threats and violence. The public joined in the outcry, protesting about work discontinuation that threatened health, safety, and the food supply. In 1947, the Labor Management Relations Act, known as the Taft-Hartley Act, was passed. It was aimed at preventing unfair union practices and banned unions from: restraining or coercing employees who were practicing their rights under the NLRA, including the right to select a bargaining representative. Causing or influencing an employer to discriminate against an employee due to a membership or nonmembership in a union.In a third venture to right the balance among employees, employers, and unions, Congress passed the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. (nolo)
This is how much I have learned throughout my research. This wasn’t easy doing all this research. I have learned more about the NLRA than I have in the last few months.This is my conclusion for this research paper.
References
www.nlrb.gov
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/11/opinion/la-ed-nlrb-20110711
Cooke, William N. 1985. "Evolution of the National Labor Relations Act." In Union Organizing and Public Policy: Failure to Secure First Contracts. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, pp. 1-21.
https://www.dol.gov/olms/regs/compliance/EmployeeRightsPoster11x17_Final.pdf
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