The Wagner Act

In 1934, the Wagner Act was first introduced, also called the National Labor Relations Act (NLRB), it promised "to ensure a wise distribution of wealth between management and labor, to maintain a full flow of purchasing power, and to prevent recurrent depressions." (Babson, p. 85) During the mid-1930's organized labor and the United States Government struck a deal. It was the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A volatile time, the country was attempting to recover from a depression, unemployment was at an all-time high and organized labor was struggling for its own existence. "Vast numbers of the unemployed are right on the edge," observed Lorent Hickock, a Pennsylvania reporter hired by the federal government to report on social conditions. "It wouldn't take much to make communists out of them." (Babson, p. 65) This essay will highlight the argument that the NLRB wasn't a giant step for the labor, but just an attempt by the government to appease the American worker to avoid continued social unrest that lead to the development of a third political party or even a revolution. Prior to analyzing labor's attempts to forge ahead one must understand the circumstances which led to the militancy amongst working Americans in the 1920's and 1930's. Organized labor experienced a decline in membership during the 1920's, an era during which labor confronted a multitude of problems which attacked it from every conceivable angle. The Woodrow Wilson administration enacted the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917-1918 which made it a crime to advocate draft resistance and opposition to the war, consequently thousands of Union Activists were branded as subversives and arrested or fired. In addition, the Wilson administration established the National Ware Labor Board (NWLB) to prevent strikes that might interrupt wartime production. The immergences of company unions or employee representation plans were formed in an effort to repel left winged unions. The Scientific