“National Labor”

independent government agency charged with preventing or remedying unfair labor practices by private sector employers and unions. As official administrator of the nation's principal labor law, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, the NLRB has authority to investigate charges of unfair labor practices, issue complaints, prosecute cases before board members and an administrative law judge, pursue injunction proceedings, obtain compliance with board orders and court judgments, and conduct secret-ballot elections among employees to determine whether or not they desire to be represented by a labor union in bargaining with employers about their wages, hours, and working conditions. The NLRB can act only when it is formally requested to do so. Individuals, employers, or unions may initiate cases by filing charges of unfair labor practices or petitions for employee representation elections with the board field offices serving the area in which the case arises.

301 U.S. 1 (1937), sustained the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act (1935) and expanded the federal government's power to regulate commerce. The justices held in a 5–4 decision that a labor-management dispute in a Pennsylvania steel factory, though local in nature, had disrupted interstate commerce and was therefore subject to government oversight.

the single most important piece of labor legislation enacted in the United States in the 20th century. It was enacted to eliminate employers' interference with the autonomous organization of workers into unions. Sponsored by Senator Robert F. Wagner, a Democrat from New York, the Act established the federal government as the regulator and ultimate arbiter of labor relations. It set up a permanent, three-member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with the power to protect the right of most workers (with the notable exception of agricultural and domestic laborers) to organize unions of their own choosing and to encourage collective bargaining. The Act prohibited employers from engaging in such unfair labor practices as setting up a company union and firing or otherwise discriminating against workers who organized or joined unions. Under the Act, the NLRB was given the power to order elections whereby workers could choose which union they wanted to represent them. The Act prohibited employers from refusing to bargain with any such union that had been certified by the NLRB as being the choice of a majority of employees.