Legal and Political History of US Labor Relations

Introduction: The Evolving Nature of American Labor Unions

According to the textbook Labor Relations by Arthur A. Sloane and Fred Witney, the history of labor relations in the United States has seen the increasingly professional nature of the labor union toward the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. This phenomenon has caused unions and management to form a more amicable relationship with one another, by and large, across many industries. However, this positive relationship has been a relatively recent development over the long course of American history. Legally speaking, labor unions have gained more rights in terms of their bargaining power with management, and workers have gained the right to freely organize and join such unions. But these legal rights came only with great difficulty.

The American public's attitude toward unionization has also alternately waxed and waned. Thus, although the legal history of the union in the 20th century has largely been marked by positive developments—favoring and protecting workers' efforts to join and create unions—a historian cannot state categorically that labor movements and unionization movements have been free of difficulties and setbacks, both in public perception and in membership rosters. Still, the protective legislation that made unions an integral part of the national fabric remains and continues to give workers crucial collective leverage in their negotiations with management.

One of the most interesting aspects of "the state of unions today," as Sloane and Witney term their first chapter, is the fact that labor in the term labor unions no longer refers simply to industrialized labor in its negotiating relationship with management. The white-collar labor leader is often the current face of labor unions in many crucial industries and professional organizations (42). However, even though labor organizers of both white- and blue-collar organizations are not in a consistently adversarial relationship with management, this does not mean that labor leaders lack so-called "staying power" as advocates for their members (3–4).

Rather, labor organizations have had to change with the times. Industry and labor are no longer viewed as adversaries but frequently as partners who attempt to make businesses profitable and fair for both employees and employers. Labor organizations also act as advocates and voices for workers within particular industries, demanding rights and benefits for their members, as well as recognition of issues specific to different spheres of industry and organization. Thus, "labor" as a movement is no longer as unified as it once was, but has become increasingly diverse. Labor unions have themselves taken on managerial roles and organizational structures, although they always attempt, at least in theory, to represent the people of their membership.

Origins of Labor Unionization in Europe and Early America

Union optimism has fluctuated in recent years given what many older unions have viewed as the increasing power of middle management within specific spheres of industry (15). The 1980s were a particularly dark time for traditional labor, especially with the breaking of unions during the early part of that era, beginning with the air traffic controllers' union. Most unions remain optimistic in the present day, however, particularly in regard to the performance of such organizations as teachers' unions and other professional associations (15–18). The death of unionization, despite America's increasingly white-collar image, has not come to pass as was once predicted. Rather, unions have changed their character and tone.

To understand the conflicted view of unions today, one must understand the history of labor unionization as a movement—not simply within the United States, but as a movement stretching back to the 1700s in Europe. The first unions met with quite limited success because of government intervention in their activities and because their activities were viewed as ideologically suspect. The relationship between "masters" and "servants" was ideologically fraught in Europe for religious, political, and economic reasons, and the idea that individuals could mobilize from the bottom up was widely discouraged (51–52).

The American ideology of individualism and worker autonomy also initially ran counter to unionization, although the heavy class stigma against workers' unions was not as pronounced in America as it was in Europe. The Knights of Labor initially failed as an organization, but the American Federation of Labor (AFL), in its wake, proved to be a success. It demonstrated to workers that unionization could serve as an effective counterweight to the power of management and industry (55–58). Many of the early conflicts between management and labor were marked by violence, and at the turn of the century, in the wake of rapid industrialization, labor was viewed with suspicion as potentially socialist in nature.

The Growth of Organized Labor in the Early Twentieth Century

Despite this hostility, labor continued to organize successfully over the course of the 1900s, weathering legal setbacks during times of greatest prosperity—such as the 1920s—and during the wartime era, when labor's efforts to protect workers' rights were denounced as anti-American and contrary to the war effort (58). The rivalry between the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the AFL provided another obstacle to unity, fragmenting the industrial voice of labor (64).

It was during the 1930s that labor came into its fullest flower, as Americans grew less confident in the unregulated market and became more open to collective organization as a means of asserting a voice in the workplace. World War II provided a boon to United States industry, allowing America to recover from the economic ravages of the Great Depression. It also established a precedent for government intervention in American business, as the federal government was compelled to control and ration industrial output to maximize the war effort (64).

Government intervention in industry was an extension of the protective policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. It created the precedent, in the public's mind, that not all worker-based advocacy was socialistic in nature, and that government intervention in favor of workers—as well as control of certain industrial excesses—could be positive for the American system of values. The merging of the AFL and the CIO toward the end of the war marked another great victory for the modern labor movement, as these two organizations were no longer set against one another and could work in something approaching harmony (69).

Landmark Labor Legislation of the 1930s Through the 1950s

The modern labor movement's formative period in the 1930s has been called an era of judicial control, marked not only by a reformation of public attitude but also by the American legal system's extension of protection to labor. The courts began to protect labor's right to organize as part of citizens' right to freely assemble (81). The Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932, the Wagner Act of 1935, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, and the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959, viewed collectively, all provide examples of the increasingly positive legal history of labor in the United States (82–110).

The Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 was the first act to protect workers and to prohibit employers from dictating the terms of employment by fiat without limitation. Before its passage, employers could require workers to sign so-called "yellow dog" contracts stating they would not join a union as a condition of employment. The Norris-La Guardia Act made workers more willing to join unions even during relatively prosperous times. During the Great Depression, many workers had felt compelled to accept any employment they could find. The passage of the act meant that even during the difficult years of 1930s America, workers retained some standing and protection through union advocacy.

Other pioneering labor legislation included the Wagner Act of 1935, which further extended the rights of workers and curtailed employers' exclusive power to dictate the terms of hiring. Officially known as the National Labor Relations Act, it was enacted to protect workers' autonomous entry into unions. The Supreme Court later upheld the protective terms of the act in 1937 when the National Steel Corporation attempted to violate it.

Because of the blow dealt to the economy by the Great Depression, many American workers began to distrust the nature of American industrialization and even capitalism itself. The 1930s were thus a relatively prosperous time for the labor movement in the sense that long-standing legal prohibitions impeding worker autonomy were struck down. After World War II, however, the balance between employees and employers began to shift slightly again in favor of management. Management, though, never regained the same unregulated position in industry it had occupied before the Great Depression. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 ceded some bargaining power back to management at the expense of union membership, as did the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959. However, these acts clarified the terms of the earlier legislation rather than openly prohibiting labor's right to exist, organize, and negotiate with managerial structures.