COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Collective bargaining, which is considered to be the main purpose of labor unions today, first gained permanent government sanction in the New Deal era. Collective bargaining is defined by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics as the process by which "representatives of employees (unions) and employers determine the conditions of employment through direct negotiation, normally resulting in a written contract setting forth the wages, hours, and other conditions to be observed for a stipulated period." Since the founding of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886, unions had sought to bargain collectively. This method worked for unions when they were powerful enough to bargain directly with employers, or in times of national emergency, such as during World War I, when the federal government decided that the best interests of the nation were served by collective bargaining. It was not until the onset of the Great Depression, however, that a permanent government body was created to promote collective bargaining agreements.

Senator Robert Wagner of New York was the leading politician in the promotion of collective bargaining. Wagner advocated expanding the government's role in planning the economy of the United States. As a part of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which allowed companies within targeted industries to form legal cartels and set prices and production quotas, Wagner insisted upon the insertion of section 7a, which guaranteed employees the right to join unions of their own choosing and to bargain collectively. This was the first time that the government claimed the obligation to play a constructive role in managing industrial relations. The creation of this legislation was spurred by a bill introduced by Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, and drafted by the AFL, which would have created a thirty-hour workweek; although the National Industrial Recovery Act undermined that effort, the AFL enthusiastically endorsed the Act, section 7a in particular.

Soon after enactment of the legislation, the National Labor Board (NLB) was formed to adjudicate labor disputes. The NLB had members drawn from industry, labor, and government. Wagner hoped the NLB would serve as a mediator between labor and management, but neither labor nor management was enthusiastic about this development. William M. Leiserson, who was appointed the NLB's secretary, warned Wagner that reliance upon mediation as a first step would simply reproduce the conflict within the NLB, which is indeed what happened. Leiserson recommended to Wagner that the NLB become an arbitral body that only considered matters of policy, and that a separate body of mediators be established, which is the direction toward which the NLB slowly evolved. The NLB issued rulings regarding the behavior of the two sides in the course of collective bargaining, but it did not mediate disputes itself. The NLB declared that each side had obligations that it had to meet during the collective bargaining process—management had to meet and bargain with employee representatives and sign written contracts, and unions had to present grievances and demands to the employer before striking. By obliging management to meet with representatives of employees, the NLB began to develop the idea of majority rule within union representation elections, which it began to oversee.

In response to the strike wave of 1934, however, it became apparent to the Roosevelt administration that the NLB was ineffective. After obtaining passage from Congress of public resolution 44, in which Congress gave to the president the power to establish one or more labor boards for a one-year period, Roosevelt created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which had the authority to hold hearings and make findings of fact concerning violations of section 7a. Despite these changes, it became clear that new legislation was needed, and in 1935 the National Labor Relations Act, more popularly known as the Wagner Act, was passed. This act authorized the NLRB to oversee union elections in order to determine majority representation of employees by unions. The act also authorized the NLRB to investigate "unfair labor practices" by both employers and unions, and to seek injunctive relief from the courts while these investigations were ongoing. This induced both employers and unions to seek collective bargaining agreements in signed contracts. Industrial strife was not ended by this legislation; numerous strikes took place throughout the second half of the New Deal era, including the famous sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, in early 1937. A structure was put in place, however, which eventually diminished the violence that had characterized strikes in earlier eras.

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

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