The Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act, supported by a bipartisan coalition in Congress, would enable working people to bargain for better benefits, wages and working conditions by restoring workers’ freedom to choose for themselves whether to join a union. It would:
1. Establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during
first-contract negotiations.
2. Provide mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes (PDF).
3. Allow employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
The link is: http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/whatis.cfm
Federal Labor Laws Summary
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/emp26.htmClayton Antitrust Act
Clayton Antitrust Act, 1914, passed by the U.S. Congress as an amendment to clarify and supplement the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Labor unions and agricultural cooperatives were excluded from the forbidden combinations in the restraint of trade. The Act stated that "the labor of a human being is not commodity or article of commerce," and provided further that nothing contained in the Federal antitrust laws: “shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor... organizations... nor shall such organizations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade under the anti-trust laws.”The act restricted the use of the injunction against labor, and it legalized peaceful strikes, picketing, and boycotts. Organized labor was as heartened by the act as it had been dejected by the doctrine of the Danbury Hatters' Case, but subsequent judicial construction weakened the act's labor provisions. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0812484.html
Davis-Bacon Act
In 1931, Congress passed the Davis-Bacon Act, requiring that contracts for construction entered into by the Federal Government specify the minimum wages to be paid to persons employed under those contracts.http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/regs/statutes/dbra.htm
Fair Labor Standards Act
Known as the wage-hour law, this 1938 Act established minimum wages and maximum hours for all workers engaged in covered "interstate commerce."http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/29/ch8.html
Norris-LaGuardia Act
When it adopted the Norris-LaGuardia Act (47 Stat. 70) in 1932, Congress liberated organized labor from the crippling restraints of federal court injunctions. Prior to the act's passage, a federal judge, persuaded that a potential or actual strike, picketing, or boycott might violate the law, would issue an injunction to halt a union's activities.http://www.enotes.com/major-acts-congress/norris-laguardia-act
Railway Labor Act
In 1926, the Railway Labor Act (RLA) was passed, requiring employers to bargain collectively and prohibiting discrimination against unions. It applied originally to interstate railroads and their related undertakings. In 1936, it was amended to include airlines engaged in interstate commerce.http://railwaylaboract.com/
National Industry Recovery Act
In 1933, Congress passed the National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) at the request of newly inaugurated President Franklin Roosevelt. The Act sought to provide codes of "fair competition" and to fix wages and hours in industries subscribing to such codes.Title I of the Act, providing that all codes of fair competition approved under the Act should guarantee the right of employees to collective bargaining without interference or coercion of employees, was held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1935.
http://www.answers.com/topic/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933
National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)
Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy.http://www.nlrb.gov/about_us/overview/national_labor_relations_act.aspx
Taft-Hartley Labor Act, 1947, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Relations Act. Sponsored by Senator Robert Alphonso Taft and Representative Fred Allan Hartley, the act qualified or amended much of the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935, the federal law regulating labor relations of enterprises engaged in interstate commerce, and it nullified parts of the Federal Anti-Injunction (Norris-LaGuardia) Act of 1932. The act established control of labor disputes on a new basis by enlarging the National Labor Relations Board and providing that the union or the employer must, before terminating a collective-bargaining agreement, serve notice on the other party and on a government mediation service. The government was empowered to obtain an 80-day injunction against any strike that it deemed a peril to national health or safety. The act also prohibited jurisdictional strikes (dispute between two unions over which should act as the bargaining agent for the employees) and secondary boycotts (boycott against an already organized company doing business with another company that a union is trying to organize), declared that it did not extend protection to workers on wildcat strikes, outlawed the closed shop, and permitted the union shop only on a vote of a majority of the employees. Most of the collective-bargaining provisions were retained, with the extra provision that a union before using the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board must file with the U.S. Dept. of Labor financial reports and affidavits that union officers are not Communists. The act also forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns. Although President Truman vetoed the act, it was passed over his veto. Federal courts have upheld major provisions of the act with the exception of the clauses about political expenditures. Attempts to repeal it have been unsuccessful, but the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) amended some features of the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.
http://plus.aol.com/aol/reference/TaftHart/TaftHartley_Labor_Act?flv=1
The Labor-Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley)
The Labor–Management Relations Act, informally the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States Federal Law greatly restricting the activities and power of labor unions. The Act still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and legislated by overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947; labor leaders called it the "slave-labor bill" while President Truman argued it would "conflict with important principles of our democratic society," though he would subsequently use it twelve times during his presidency. The Taft-Hartley Act amended theNational Labor relations Act (NLRA; informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in 1935.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-Hartley_Act
Landrum-Griffin Act
The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) — also known as the Landrum-Griffin Act — deals with the relationship between a union and its members. The LMRDA grants certain rights to union members and protects their interests by promoting democratic procedures within labor organizations. The Act establishes a Bill of Rights for union members; reporting requirements for labor organizations, union officers and employees, employers, labor-relations consultants, and surety companies; standards for the regular election of union officers; and safeguards for protecting labor organization funds and assets.http://www.uaw.org/lmrda.cfm
Executive Order 10988 Law & Legal Definition
Executive Order 10988 was issued by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and recognizes the rights of federal employees to bargain with management. It established a broad government-wide labor relations policy for the first time. With respect to official time for union representatives, it required that, whenever practicable, union representatives be on official time when consulting or otherwise meeting with management representatives.http://definitions.uslegal.com/e/executive-order-10988/
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