The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), or the Wagner Act, expanded upon the steps taken by the Railway Labor Act and the Norris-LaGuardia Act by providing a comprehensive legislation and regulating collective bargaining in the private sector. The NLRA was amended in 1974 by the Taft-Hartley Act, but it is still the basic foundation of federal labor law.
The NLRA accomplished three principles:
- It established the right of private sector employees to form labor unions;
- It legalized employee collective bargaining with their employers and protected employees who engaged in other concerted (group or collective) activities; and
- It gave employees the right to strike to support their economic demands or to protest illegal practices by employers.
The NLRA also created a new federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, to administer and enforce provisions of the NLRA.