Three Years of National Labor Relations Act

Report Outline
Criticism of National Labor Relations Act
Background and Provisions of Labor Relations Act
Administration of the Labor Relations Act
Proposals for Modification of Labor Relations Act

Criticism of National Labor Relations Act

Demands for Repeal or Amendment of Labor Act

The National Labor Relations Act, signed by President Roosevelt en July 5, 1935, has been in effect for three years. As Edwin S. Smith, member of the National Labor Relations Board, pointed out in an address on June 18, “few governmental agencies have had a more tempestuous career.” Immediately after passage of the act, Smith said, “storm signals were run up and the board has been steering a course in the midst of heavy winds of criticism ever since.”

At the outset, the act was widely assailed as unconstitutional. Since April, 1937, when the Supreme Court closed the door to attacks on this ground, employers' organizations and other groups have charged that the law is one-sided in its operation, that the N. L. R. B. has been biased and arbitrary in enforcing it, and that, contrary to the law's purpose, the board's activities have increased industrial strife. Repeal, or at least amendment of the act to safeguard the rights of employers, has been demanded by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and many other business groups. Although supporting its main provisions, both the American Federation of Labor and the Committee for Industrial Organization have voiced dissatisfaction with the manner in which the law has been administered, each declaring that the board favors the form of union organization championed by the other.

While Congress gave no consideration at its last session to a series of amendments offered by Senator Vandenberg (R., Mich.) to “mutualize” the act, efforts to obtain a thorough revision of the law will be renewed when the new Congress meets in January. On June 3, in announcing his intention to establish a commission to study the workings of the British Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act of 1927, President Roosevelt emphatically denied published reports that the study would be directed toward amendment of the N. L. R. A., but notwithstanding the President's statement, the belief persisted in some quarters that the commission's report might pave the way for revision of the act.