Collective bargaining rights: National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)

[steve2470]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Industrial_Recovery_Act

<snip>

The legislation was enacted in June 1933 during the Great Depression part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislative program. Section 7(a) of the bill, which protected collective bargaining rights for unions, proved contentious (especially in the Senate),<1><3> but both chambers eventually passed the legislation and President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 16, 1933.

<snip>

The House of Representatives easily passed the bill in just seven days.<4><19> The most contentious issue had been the inclusion of Section 7(a), which protected collective bargaining rights for unions.<3> Section 7(a) had nearly not made it into the bill, but Senator Wagner, Jerome Frank, and Leon Keyserling (another Roosevelt aide) worked to retain the section in order to win the support of the American labor movement.<1>

The bill had a more difficult time in the Senate. The National Association of Manufacturers, Chamber of Commerce, and industrialist Henry Ford all opposed its passage.<1><7> Senator Bennett Champ Clark introduced an amendment to emasculate Section 7(a), but Wagner and Senator George W. Norris led the successful opposition to the change.<1><3>

End of excerpt. Anyone else see a striking parallel to today's anti-union climate ?

[Bigmack]

1. Even earlier....

American Federation of Labor was formed in 1886, and The Railway Labor Act (1926) required employers to bargain collectively with unions.

In 1930, the Supreme Court upheld the act's prohibition of employer interference in the selection of bargaining representatives.

The Fact-Deprived anti-union crowd knows nothing about the history of this country and certainly not the history of the Labor movement.... or the fact that the unions built America.

[steve2470]

2. thanks for the info ! :) nt