Union Membership Growth. National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

Union Membership Growth
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Union Membership Growth
In 1935, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The essence of the Act was to protect the rights of both the employers and employees. Further, the law sought to prevent particular labor and management practices in the private sector that have adverse effects on the welfare of the employees, organizations add the economy.
Before the enactment of the law, employers used different tactics to suppress employees. On the one hand, employers utilized aggressive opposition to unionization. One of the approaches was open-shop union where employers required workers to operate in a non-unionized workplace. In principle the concept of open shop was meant to prevent employers from discriminating against workers who were not members of a union (Breda, 2013). However, in practice, employers used it to weaken the labor unions. Another was the use of the American Plan where employers deemed membership to labor unions to be “un-American.” Employers used the approach to reduce membership to labor unions, where some companies required their workers to sign a pledge that they could not join a union. Additionally, employers utilized Mohawk Valley Formula which involved discrediting the union leaders and painting them as “agitators.” Employers would intimidate workers involved in strikes and influence puppet groups of what they called “loyal workers” to influence the rest of the employees.
On the other hand, employers offered their employees union alternatives. The first one included paternalism where employers demanded loyalty from all the workers (Erden & Otken, 2019). Employees were required to support the decisions of the management. Unions were deemed unnecessary since both organizations and workers were considered to be mutually exclusive. Both employers and employees could...