HR 5117 ELL Chapt 1

labor shortage encouraged demands for higher wages and better conditions

Ruler's responses were swift and severe

1339- Britain's King issues proclamation which required everyone to accept the same wages they received 2 years earlier

New Labor laws established stiff penalties for refusing to work, for leaving a job in search of higher pay, and for an offer of higher wages by the employer

denouncing not only workers who had the temerity to demand higher wages, but decrying those chose "rather to beg in idleness that to earn their bread in labor

generosity in bestowing money or gifts upon others

excessive confidence or boldness; audacity

witnessed the rise of the employee-at-will doctrine in the common law

Both the employee and the employer are free to unilaterally terminate the relationship at any time and for any legally permissible reason, or for no reason at all

Judge-made law as opposed to statutes and ordinances enacted by legislative bodies

had all the bargaining power; real negotiation of terms and conditions of employment was, for the most part a myth

Early court cased concluded that labor organizations were criminal conspiracies

Supreme Court of Mass. held that unionized workers could only be indicted if either their means or their ends were illegal and that the "tendency" of organized labor to "diminish [the employer's] gains and profits" was not in itself a crime

• allowed for alternative methods of dispute resolution
• first in the railroad and later in the airline industry

• 1. Social Security Act (1935) - provides modest pensions to retired workers
• 2. The National Labor Relations Act (1935) - sets the ground rules for the give and take between labor unions and corporate managers
• 3. The Walsh-Healy Act (1936) - the first of several statutes to set the terms and conditions of employment to be provided by government contractors
• 4. The Merchant Marine (Jones) Act (1936) - provides remedies for injured sailors
• 5. The Fair Labor and Standards Act FLSA (1938)- set minimum wages, mandates overtime pay, and regulates child labor

In the early years of FDR's presidency (1933-1936) the Justices repeatedly refused to enforce New Deal legislation consistently declaring the new laws unconstitutional

• legislature was entitled to adopt measures to reduce the evils of what was know as the "sweating system"
• referring to the exploiting of workers at wages so low as to be insufficient to meet the bare cost of living

similar laws were growing in a number of states as evidence of a broadening national consensus that (1) sweatshop were evil and (2) these kinds of laws significantly contributed to their eradication

The broader impact was essentially to sweep away judicial opposition to the flood of legislation at both the federal and state levels

One result, workers rushed to join a union

Corporations which resisted were charged with unfair labor practices under the National Labor Relations Act (1935) and compelled by the National Labor Relations Board to recognize and bargain with organized labor