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The National Industrial Recovery Act created the National Recovery Administration (NRA) to ensure (among other things) what it called at least a “living wage” for all working people. It also generated labor-code language, later incorporated into the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which guaranteed workers the right to organize and have access to the collective bargaining process. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) sponsored great public-works projects, as did the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). And the Rural Electrification Act (RLA) made electrification for all Americans its goal. In addition, Prohibition was repealed.

1934 saw an upswing in IBEW membership. The AFL also experienced modest growth. Although unemployment was still short of its 1935 peak of 15 million able men and women, and workers were striking nationally against several leading industries, by 1934 attitudes were changing. The end was not exactly in sight, but people were beginning to see some hope for the future.

President Roosevelt signed the landmark Social Security Act in 1935 which, for the first time, provided for a guaranteed pension for retirees and set up state-run unemployment-compensation programs. At first people had trouble embracing the idea of giving all workers a number, and many weren’t thrilled by the idea of a payroll tax. But it’s hard to imagine the United States today without Social Security. Another first for the Roosevelt administration was the selection of Frances Perkins as secretary of labor, the first woman cabinet member ever appointed.

Business reacted harshly to labor’s hard-won victories. Violence against strikers was escalating to an all-time high. A peaceful demonstration by striking Republic Steel workers and their families in South Chicago on Memorial Day 1937 was turned into a bloody battle when police opened fire on the crowd. Ten protesters were killed (seven shot in the back), and over 100 were severely beaten including women and children. The country was outraged; and the Senate Civil Liberties Committee, chaired by Robert M. LaFollette Jr. (D-Wisc.), a longtime labor ally, launched a full-scale investigation. The committee convincingly exposed the ruthlessness of the strikebreakers.

Congress had had enough of the unfair, antilabor work practices in which employers engaged. In 1935 New York Senator Robert Ferdinand Wagner authored what has become one of the most-important pieces of labor legislation of all time, the National Labor Relations Act, also called the Wagner Act. The law made clear that the explicit policy of the U.S. government was to respect and encourage the collective bargaining process, to eliminate unfair labor practices, and to allow workers to organize and stand up for their rights. Many have tried to this day to weaken or repeal the Wagner Act, but it remains even now the legal “Bill of Rights” of the labor movement.

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1930-1939 Storm Clouds of Depression and War