Labor Relations

Labor Relations

Yolanda McNeil

Liberty University

Labor Relations

        In 1935, the Wagner Act was created by the federal government to regulate and arbitrate labor relations in the United States (St. Antoine, 1998) and Robert Wagner, a Democrat Senator from New York, sponsored this Act.  Today, the Wagner Act is known as the National Labor Relations Act.  After the creation of the National Labor Relations Act, the National Labor Relations Board was established to safeguard the rights of the workers (Hill 2013).  This allowed workers to organize their own unions thereby giving them the power of collective bargaining.  In addition, this act prevented employers from discriminating or firing workers involved in unions.

        An Unfair Labor Practice occurs when a union or an employer violates Sections 7 and 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act which protects workers’ rights regardless of whether they belong to a union.  Section 7 “guarantees employees the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, as well as the right, to refrain from any or all such activities in seeking representation by a labor union, and it also protects the rights of employees who don’t want union representation” (www.nlrb.gov).  Section 8(a)(1) of the Act “make it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act” (www.nlrb.gov).  

        In the case study, SGA Industries has demonstrated several actions of unfair labor practices.  They broke a number of rules according the National Labor Relations Act.  First, they “laid off 1,500 employees, reduced employee’s pay, and decreased perks that the workers had previously enjoyed” (Nkomo, Fottler & McAfee, 2012).  Also because of advances in technology, they required skilled labor which increased the cost of turnover to companies.  The chief executive officer of the company not only made several comments to coerce the employees to vote against the union, but he wrote a letter to that effect.  Since he did not want SGA Industries to be a part of a union, he used scare tactics.  For example, he stated in the letter that the union would increase operating expenses and put the company at risk of being merged with another company (Nkomo, Fottler & McAfee, 2012).  He also stated that unions would create a hostile environment between employees and management and teamwork would become nonexistence (Nkomo, Fottler & McAfee, 2012).