National Labor Relations Act: 75 years of worker protection (link corrected)

[Omaha Steve]

My NLRB case file: http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Board%20Decisions/261/261-38.pdf

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4630

By Mark Gruenberg
21 September 2010

WASHINGTON - Though filled with loopholes and weak remedies, subject to court rulings and prevailing political winds, the National Labor Relations Act and its basic protections for workers nevertheless turns 75 years old this year.

And without it, labor relations in the United States could well have remained as they were prior to 1935: Years of anti-worker violence and oppression, a history of scabs, goons, militia and security guards killing unarmed workers in Chicago, Colorado, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, of mass general strikes, of venal and vicious employers – and of grinding poverty and exploitation.

The NLRA, by contrast, sought to “secure common justice and economic advance,” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in backing it.

Pushed by Sen. Robert F. Wagner, Sr., D-N.Y., and his Labor Secretary, Frances Perkins, Roosevelt finally got behind the NLRA – also called the Wagner Act – that year. He later became an enthusiastic proponent of workers’ rights, going so far as to say “If I was a factory worker, the first thing I would do would be to join a union.”

The National Labor Relations Board, established by the NLRA to enforce worker-management relations, is celebrating the anniversary of its enactment, with a special section on its website and a symposium this fall.


Strikes and demonstrations across the country, including the milestone 1934 truckers' strike in Minneapolis, drove Congress to pass the NLRA.

“Both our country and our world have changed a great deal over the last eight decades, but the values reflected in the National Labor Relations Act – democracy in the workplace and fairness in the economy – are still vitally important,” NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman says.

FULL story at link.

[End Of The Road]

1. My (former) boss acts like the FLSA doesn't exist

He works people seven days a week for weeks on end with no overtime pay, no comp time. Employee turnover at his company is outrageous. But he knows he won't get caught. The many former employees are just so glad to have found other jobs, that they don't get together to file a lawsuit.

I brought up to him, several times, that he'd save money in the long run by obeying the law. It usually resulted in him screaming at me.

I think this behavior is not uncommon at small companies.

Still, I'm very glad we have the FLSA, and I won't work for anyone in the future that doesn't abide by it.

EDIT: I think the way to stop the abuse is to teach kids their labor rights during high school (just the basics). Use the time wasted on abstinence-only sex ed to give them info they can actually use. My mostly-young coworkers had no clue what their rights were under FLSA.