NLRB MARKS 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

US Fed News Service, Including US State News July 7, 2010 WASHINGTON, July 6 — The National Labor Relations Board issued the following press release:

The National Labor Relations Board today celebrates 75 years of enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between employers and employees in the private sector, which was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on July 5, 1935.

In the midst of the Great Depression, at a time marked by high unemployment and severe economic distress for many workers, President Roosevelt stated that the law sought to achieve “common justice and economic advance.” Since then, through the Second World War and the economic growth and challenges that followed, millions of employees have voted in NLRB-conducted workplace elections and millions more have bargained collectively with their employers under the NLRB’s protection. web site national labor relations act

“Both our country and our world have changed a great deal over the last eight decades, but the values reflected in the National Labor Relations Act – democracy in the workplace and fairness in the economy – are still vitally important,” said Chairman Wilma Liebman. In fiscal year 2009 alone, the Agency conducted 1.690 representation elections, received 22,941 charges of unfair labor practices, recovered more than $77 million in back pay and ensured that more than 1,500 wrongfully discharged employees were offered reinstatement to their jobs. this web site national labor relations act

The Agency is celebrating the anniversary with a commemorative website and events across the country, culminating in a two-day symposium in late October on the legacy of the law and prospects for its future, co-sponsored by the NLRB and the George Washington University School of Law. (To register, click here: https://ssl.law.gwu.edu/webforms/FAC_NLRA.html.) The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency vested with the power to safeguard employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.