The Labor Relations Acts of the States
| Date | 01 November 1942 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271624222400104 |
| Published date | 01 November 1942 |
| Author | Paul M. Herzog |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
19
The
Labor
Relations
Acts
of
the
States
By
PAUL
M.
HERZOG
M UCH
American
social
legislation
M
has
had
its
beginnings
in
the
states,
with
the
Federal
Government
finding
models
for
its
own
expanding
program
in
the
successful
experiments
of
such
states
as
Massachusetts,
New
York,
and
Wisconsin.
The
history
of
labor
relations
legislation
has
run
in
the
opposite
direction.
It
was
the
Fed-
eral
Government
which
moved
first,
in
times
of
national
crisis,
to
curtail
strikes
by
protecting
the
right
of
employees
to
organize
and
bargain
collectively
through
representatives
of
their
own
choosing.
The
pronouncements
of
the
War
Labor Board
of
1918
and
Section
7 (a)
of
the
National
Industrial
Recov-
ery
Act
were
the
initial
steps.
The
Na-
tional
Labor
Relations
Act,
enacted
in
1935,
cemented
this
Federal
policy
into
the
law
of
the
land.
It
created
an
ad-
ministrative
board,
charged
with
the
duty
of
preventing
unfair
labor
practices
by
employers
and
providing
election
ma-
chinery
to
resolve
controversies
concern-
ing
the
representation
of
employees.
EIGHT
STATE
ACTS
The
states
did
not
act
until
1937,
when
the
Supreme
Court
upheld
the
constitutionality
of
the
National
Labor
Relations
Act.
Then
five
states,
acting
in
quick
succession,
passed
&dquo;Little
Wag-
ner
Acts,&dquo;
which
differed
but
little
from
their
Federal
prototype.
These
states
were
Massachusetts,
New
York,
Utah,
Pennsylvania,
and
Wisconsin.
The
first
three
of
these
acts,
with
minor
amend-
ments,
are
still
on
the
statute
books
to-
day,
but
1939
brought
a
new
trend
in
other
states.
The
Pennsylvania
law
was
so
substantially
amended
in
that
year
that
it
now
varies
greatly
from
the
Wag-
ner
Act.
The
original
Wisconsin
statute
was
repealed
in
1939
and
supplanted
by
a
new
act,
which
likewise
bears
little
re-
semblance
to
the
Federal
law.
During
1939
Michigan
and
Minnesota
first
en-
acted
labor
relations
laws,
different
in
purpose
and
in
content
from
the
1937
statutes
of
the
other
states.
The
principal
novel
features
of
the
1939
legislation
were
the elimination
of
the
administrative
process
as
found
in
the
earlier
statutes,
and
the
addition
of
certain
provisions
designed
to
control
practices
of
employees
and
labor
organi-
zations,
as
well
as
those
of
employers.
A
return
to
the
original
Federal
model
is
to
be
found,
however,
in
the
most
recent
state
statute,
enacted
in
Rhode
Island
in
1941.
Today
there
are
eight
state
labor
relations
acts
in
effect,
differently
written
and
differently
administered,
but
all
contributing
to
the
elimination
of
strikes
in
an
America
at
war.
Of
course
most
of
the
states
in
the
Union,
including
these
eight,
had
long
provided-and
still
provide-mediation
machinery
for
those
employers
and
employees
who
voluntarily
sought
the
assistance
of
government
in
compos-
ing
their
differences.
But
the labor
relations
laws
go
much
further.
They
proclaim
a
public
policy
in
favor
of
peaceful
industrial
relations;
they
stress
(with
two
exceptions)
the
importance
of
equality
of
bargaining
power
and
therefore
collective
bargaining
as
pre-
requisites
to
such
peaceful
relations,
and
declare
that
certain
unfair
practices
by
employers,
or
by
both
employers
and
employees,
constitute
such
serious
ob-
stacles
to
industrial
peace
that
the
state
must
intervene,
regardless
of
the
wishes
of
the
parties,
to
bring
these
practices
to
an
end.
Three-man
tribunals,
known
as
labor
relations
boards,
are
established
to
make
this
public
policy
effective.1
1
In
Wisconsin
the
board
is
called
the
Em-
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