Labor Law Reform in the United States

In The 1970s, President Carter amended labor reform legislation and improved upon the National Labor Relations Board and the National Labor Relations Act. Three new provisions were added to the act which included equal access, expedited elections for unions and punitive remedies. However, Congress NEVER approved of these provisions and unions are still trying to get them approved today.

The equal access provision required employers to allow employees to campaign for the unions and to allow unions to exist in the workplace and for the employees in the workplace to be represented by a union. Employers thought that this was unfair because they believed that it would interfere with work time and that it violated the employer's right to a private property grounds.

The provision for expedited elections allowed for a set time that the workers would have in a workplace to approve or not approve of a union representation. Employers believed that expedited union elections were unfair because it did not allow for the employer to adequately represent his position of why there shouldn't be a union and how it was bad for the company. Employers also believed that the act was unfair because it allowed for union representatives to call a union election at any particular time when they felt they had enough votes to win in the election. Employees and unions favored this provision because they felt that the less time that elapsed between the campaigning for the union representation and the actual election, the better the chance of the employees voting for a union representation.

Another provision in this expedited elections allowed for the employees to hold secret ballots in which they did not have to put their names on the ballots so that they didn't have to fear punishment for the employers.

The final category for legislation was punitive damages that would have been passed against the employer. In this provision the employers would have been fined hefty amounts for unfair labor practices that interfered with having a free and fair election for union representation.

One of the main reasons why the bill was defeated by Congress was that Southern Cngressmen and Senators saw the bill as a direct threat against their Southern economy.

Since these failed proposals in union elections, there have been no current proposals to change the existing laws.