The New Deal,Collective Bargaining,and the Triumph of Industrial Pluralism

Abstract

This paper addresses what the author views as a prevailing misconception of labor law theorists and practitioners: that the goal of the Wagner Act was no more than the promotion of peaceful negotiating procedures and written agreements between organized interests—unions and employers—presumptively equal in power. The author argues that in fact the NLRA was drafted, and for a time implemented, with the avowed purpose of giving workers equality with employers in all aspects of industrial policy making, and that the now-prevalent approach became ascendant only after considerable conflict and the displacement of the Act's original administrators.