National Labor Relations Act

Questions for Further Study

• 1. The NLRA has been seen as one of the most radical pieces of legislation in American history. The Taft-Hartley Act, on the other hand, has been viewed by most liberals as a profoundly conservative reaction that gutted federal labor policy. Compare and contrast the two pieces of legislation to determine whether either view is fully justified.
• 2. The NLRA extended into law a view of industrial democracy developed by labor and its liberal allies over the previous thirty years. It was a view of rights and privileges that ran counter to the bulk of court rulings since the 1880s, in which the property rights of employers were considered paramount, corporations were considered to be individuals dealing in legal equality with their individual employees, and labor unions were considered to be coercive and illegitimate restraints on trade. How has this debate changed or remained the same in the twenty-first century?
• 3. The NLRA was passed to extend democracy to the workplace, to alter the relations of power between workers and their employers, and to eliminate what was seen as an abuse of power by employers through “unfair labor practices.” How has the NLRA been altered in the years since 1935, and does it still fulfill these functions? In the twenty-first century, do you think it is still necessary or should employers have a free hand in the conduct of their own businesses?