National Labor Relations Board

Type: Government Agency
On the web: http://www.nlrb.gov/

Boss not treating you right? See the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It investigates and rectifies unfair labor practices by employers and unions; it also conducts elections to see if employees want union representation and helps determine which union is the most appropriate. Congress created the NLRB as an independent agency in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act. The act covers relationships between private sector unions and employers involved in interstate commerce except airlines, railroads, the government, and agriculture. The NLRB acts through 51 regional offices throughout the country. Its annual budget is about $260 million.

Officers:
Chairman: US Federal

Independent agency created by Congress that oversees relationships between unions and employees. The board has the power to settle labor disputes and to enforce its judgments in the federal courts.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent federal agency. Its creation in 1935 by Congress was in response to the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act). Later acts, such as the Taft-Hartley Act, have amended the original NLRB.

The NLRB is made up of three principal parts: The board, the general counsel, and the regional offices. The board is made up of five members who serve five-year terms. It acts as a quasi-judicial body in deciding cases on formal records. The general counsel is independent of the board, and is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of unfair labor practice cases, as well as overseeing the regional offices. Members of the general counsel serve four-year terms. Both the board and general counsel are appointed by the president with Senate approval. The regional offices and its subdivisions serve certain geographic areas, and they are dispersed throughout the United States—mainly in or near large cities.

The function of the NLRB is twofold. First, it determines and implements, through secret ballot elections, the choice by employees as to whether or not they wish to be represented by a union (and if so by which union) in dealing with their employers. Secondly, it prevents unlawful acts (unfair labor practices), either by employers or by the unions.

Congress, through the National Labor Relations Act, regulates labor-management relations, thereby giving the NLRB its authority. The NLRB, though, has no independent power to enforce its mandates; instead, enforcement is done through the courts of appeals.

One example of what the NLRB does was provided in 1995, when it helped bring a speedy end to the baseball strike. The NLRB secured a 10(j) injunction requiring the owners to withdraw their one-sided imposed changes to the negotiated system of setting baseball wages.

Bibliography

Gross, James A. (1974). The Making of the National Labor Relations Board. New York: State University of New York Press.

[Article by: TOD W. REJHOLEC]

For more information on National Labor Relations Board, visit Britannica.com.

The National Labor Relations Board (nlrb) is a five-person federal agency charged with regulating the process of collective bargaining between American employers and their workers. The nlrb serves, in effect, as a court of appeals, investigating and resolving charges of unfair labor practices and disputes over the delineation of bargaining units and elections for union representation. Members of the board are appointed to five-year terms by the president, with the approval of the Senate.

A forerunner of the nlrb, the National Labor Board, was established in 1933 to enforce the collective bargaining provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act (nira), but it had little power and was in any case invalidated when the Supreme Court struck down the nira in the spring of 1935. Senator Robert Wagner of New York had been pressing for some time for a more comprehensive labor law (including a strong three-person National Labor Relations Board), but had received little support from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then, in the summer of 1935, during a period of dramatic reform initiatives that came to be called the Second Hundred Days, Roosevelt suddenly announced his support for the Wagner-Connery Labor Relations Act. Despite conservative opposition, the bill passed both houses easily and was signed on July 5, 1935.

The nlrb, established under the Wagner Act, took an active role in supporting and extending labor's right to organize during the late 1930s. In earlier years, the Supreme Court had struck down a succession of New Deal laws; its upholding of the Wagner Act in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937) marked the beginning of a series of decisions favorable to New Deal reforms.

The nlrb's role began to change after World War II. The Taft-Hartley Act (1947), in addition to expanding the board from three members to five, removed its power to prosecute, leaving it a solely judicial agency. And whereas the Wagner Act had focused exclusively on restraining unfair practices by employers, Taft-Hartley required the nlrb to examine unfair practices by unions as well. The Landrum-Griffin Act (1959) added further to the list of prohibited union actions the nlrb must investigate.

See also Labor.

An independent agency created by Congress that oversees relationships between unions and employees. 29 U.S.C. §153. The Board has the power to adjudicate claims before it and to enforce its judgments in the federal courts. See labor organization [union].

An agency of the United States government, charged with mediating disputes between labor and management, and responsible for preventing unfair labor practices, such as the harassment of labor unions by business corporations. The NLRB attempts to maintain a position of neutrality, favoring neither labor nor management.

National Labor Relations Board NLRB
Agency overview
Formed	July 5, 1935
Jurisdiction	Federal government of the United States
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Employees	1,628 (2008)
Agency executives	Wilma Liebman, Chairman   Peter C. Schaumber, Member   Ronald Meisburg, General Counsel
Website
www.nlrb.gov

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union related situations or instances of protected concerted activity. The NLRB is governed by a five-person board and a General Counsel, all of whom are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. Board members are appointed to five-year terms and the General Counsel is appointed to a four-year term. The General Counsel acts as a prosecutor and the Board acts as an appellate judicial body from decisions of administrative law judges.

Contents 1 History 2 Jurisdiction 3 Structure 4 Processing of charges 5 See also 6 References 7 Bibliography 8 External links

History

A predecessor organization, the National Labor Board, was established by the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, an act that was subsequently struck down by the Supreme Court.

The NLRB was established in 1934 through passage of Executive Order 6763.

Leon Despres, the noted Chicago civil rights activist and lawyer, was a trial examiner for the NLRB from 1935-1937.^[1]

Jurisdiction

The Board's jurisdiction is limited to private sector employers and the United States Postal Service; other than Postal Service employees, it has no authority over labor relations disputes involving governmental, railroad and airline employees covered by the Adamson Railway Labor Act, or agricultural employees. On the other hand, in those parts of the private sector its jurisdictional standards are low enough to reach almost all employers whose business has any appreciable impact on interstate commerce.

Structure

Union members picketing NLRB rulings outside the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters in November 2007.

The Taft-Hartley Act also created a formal administrative distinction between the Board and the General Counsel of the NLRB. In broad terms, the General Counsel is responsible for investigating and prosecuting unfair labor practice claims; the Board, on the other hand, is the adjudicative body that decides the unfair labor practice cases brought to it. While the General Counsel has limited independence to argue for a change in the law in presenting cases to the Board, once the Board has decided the issue it is the General Counsel's responsibility to uphold the Board's decision, even if it is contrary to the position he advocated when presenting the case to the Board. The Board is also responsible for the administration of the Act's provisions governing the holding of elections and resolution of jurisdictional disputes.

The General Counsel oversees four divisions: the Division of Operations Management, the Division of Administration, the Division of Advice, and the Division of Enforcement Litigation.

The Board has more than thirty regional offices. The regional offices conduct elections, investigate unfair labor practice charges, and make the initial determination on those charges (whether to dismiss, settle, or issue complaints). The Board has jurisdiction to hold elections and prosecute violations of the Act in Puerto Rico and American Samoa.

Processing of charges

Charges are filed by parties against unions or employers with the appropriate regional office. The regional office will investigate the complaint. If a violation is believed to exist, the region will take the case before an Administrative Law Judge who will conduct a hearing. The decision of the Administrative Law Judge may be reviewed by the five member Board. Board decisions are reviewable by United States Courts of Appeals. The Board's decisions are not self-executing: it must seek court enforcement in order to force a recalcitrant party to comply with its orders. (For greater detail on this process see the entry for unfair labor practice).

See also

Organized Labour portal

• NLRB election procedures
• Union Organizer
• subpoena duces tecum
• subpoena ad testificandum

References

1. ^ "Leon Despres, civil rights champion and former Hyde Park alderman, dies at 101". Hyde Park Herald. May 2009. http://www.hpherald.com/breakingnews.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-07. 

Bibliography

• How To Take A Case Before The NLRB by the Bureau of National Affairs (Seventh Edition) ISBN 1-57018-183-7
• William B. Gould IV, Labored Relations: Law, Politics, and the NLRB (MIT Press, 2001). ISBN 978-0262571555

External links

• National Labor Relations Board official website
• NLRB Fact Sheet

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