Harmony in Words

Preludes to a National Policy

The industrial relations school of thought, underlies this New Deal philosophy (116)

Prelude 1: The National Industrial Recovery Act

The Norris–LaGuardia Act did not actively protect or promote union activity, and it did little to combat employers’ open shop tactics: infiltrating unions with spies, using armed guards and professional strikebreaking agencies to break strikes, firing union activists, creating racial tension to divide workers, and using nonunion employee representation plans (company unions) to prevent the creation of independent labor unions.

An early New Deal initiative was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933. The NIRA contained a public works program to create jobs and an ambitious framework for establishing industry codes of fair competition for preventing destructive competition and promoting economic recovery. (116)

Prelude 2: The Railway Labor Act

series of attempts to improve the regulation of railroad labor relations before the 1920s was unsuccessful, so the railroad industry and its unions were asked by President Coolidge to jointly develop procedures for achieving labor peace. The result was a unique bill that was jointly crafted by labor and management, and enacted into law as the Railway Labor Act in 1926. 40 Airlines were added to the act in 1936, and both industries are still regulated by this act today.

The primary purpose of the Railway Labor Act is to avoid strikes and other forms of labor–management conflict that disrupt interstate commerce and weaken the economy. Thus the act protects the rights of employees to form labor unions, provides government mediation of bargaining disputes, and establishes adjustment boards to resolve grievances. Consistent with American values, note the importance of individualism—unions specifically are not granted rights; rather, individual employees are granted the right to select a union to represent them. (117)

In fact, while nonunion...