Collective Bargaining and Unionization in America

Feb 20, 2011 Michael Streich

Senator Robert Wagner Speaks About the NLRA - Library of Congress/U.S. Gov't Photo Image

The National Labor Relations Act allowed for collective bargaining in union disputes between workers and employers, ensuring fair negotiations.

1877 was a difficult year for American labor and capitalism. Over the next twenty years, industrialization widened the gulf between rich and poor. In 1886 alone, there were over 1,400 strikes across the nation. Often turning violent, as with the 1892 Homestead steel plant strike in Pennsylvania or Chicago’s Haymarket strike in 1886, the goals of labor were equated with socialism and anarchism. Not until 1935 was collective bargaining legalized under the National Labor Relations Act. Today collective bargaining is again under attack.

Collective Bargaining and the NLRA

The National Labor Relations Act guarantees private sector workers the right to organize unions and bargain collectively through union representatives with employers. Public sector employers like teachers are excluded, although many public sector employees are represented by unions. Both state and past judicial decisions have broadened collective bargaining to include almost all employees, even if publicly employed.

Individual states can regulate collective bargaining and arbitration or outlaw union activity by public sector employees altogether, as many Southern states have done. Collective bargaining, as part of the NLRA, was a means toward good faith negotiation between employees and employers. Eliminating collective bargaining would deprive employees of a way to protect benefits like health care and pensions.

The Continued Need for Unions in America

The economic downturn that began in 2008 continues with unemployment rates at or over 9%. Many states are facing budget “shortfalls” in the billions of dollars, necessitating the elimination of public sector jobs and the curtailment of vital social services. Caught in between are millions of workers that will lose health and pension benefits.

Unions in America were originally formed to organize workers against the excesses of labor practices such as 12-14 hour work days. Industrial workers lived in “factory towns” like Pullman town near Chicago, subsisting at the mercy of employers. In the South, factory towns sprang up around large textile enterprises like Fieldcrest Mills in Reidsville, NC or Cannon Mills in Salisbury, NC.

Originally, unions like the 1869 Knight of Labor combined temperance with worker agendas. Craft unions like Samuel Gompers’ American Federation of Labor catered to skilled workers, fighting for an eight-hour workday and higher wages. Not until the Progressive Era were many of these complaints addressed.

Unemployment and the Great Depression

Senator Robert Wagner’s National Labor Relations Act was designed to establish rights for workers through union representation. Collective bargaining was one important tool in reestablishing equilibrium between labor and capital, although critics deemed it socialism.

The NLRA became a hallmark of New Deal legislation. At the same time, unionization was viewed as a form of monopoly that could restrict the number of workers employed. Despite this, however, collective bargaining continues to ensure an open dialogue between employer and worker. It continues to serve as a form of protection against arbitrary actions designed to strip workers of key benefits.

Sources:

Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute

J. Joseph Huthmacher, Senator Robert Wagner And The Rise of Urban Liberalism (Atheneum, 1968)

Page Smith, The Rise of Industrial America: A People’s History of the Post-Reconstruction Era (Penguin Books, 1984)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.