National War Labor Board

Examples of National War Labor Board in the following topics:

• America and WWI

  • Food Administration, the War Industries Board, and the National War Labor Board.
  • The War Industries Board (WIB), created in the mid-summer of 1917, was another federal agency tasked with ensuring that Americans at home and abroad had access to acceptably-priced merchandise and equipment.
  • Secretary of Labor William B.
  • Wilson created the National War Labor Board (NWLB) in 1918.
  • Food Administration, the War Industries Board, and the National War Labor Board.

• A New Labor Force

  • World War I saw a change in U.S. labor: women entered the workforce as never before, and labor unions gave firm support to war efforts.
  • Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and nearly all labor unions were strong supporters of the war effort.
  • President Wilson appointed Gompers to the powerful Council of National Defense.
  • To keep factories running smoothly, Wilson established the National War Labor Board in 1918, which forced management to negotiate with existing unions.
  • Examine the new labor force of women, and the strong support of labor unions, during World War I.

• Mobilizing a Nation

  • Oversight and administration of the draft was entrusted to local boards of civilians that issued draft calls, which were ordered by numbers drawn in a national lottery, and determined exemptions.
  • The War Labor Administration (WLA), headed by Wilson’s Secretary of Labor, Scottish-born former Congressman William B.
  • Wilson, oversaw most of the wartime labor programs and included a War Labor Board to adjudicate disputes.
  • To keep factories running smoothly, the president established the National War Labor Board in 1918, which forced management to negotiate with existing unions.
  • In March 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack organized the National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign.

• Economic Hardship and Labor Upheaval During the Transition to Peace

  • After World War I, the U.S. faced hard economic times and problems over labor, race and reintegration of veterans.
  • The nation needed to turn from a wartime climate to domestic peace following the war.
  • Combined with a major recession, labor strikes and social upheaval including race riots, this became a difficult time for the nation.
  • In many countries, especially those in North America, growth was continual during the war as nations mobilized their economies.
  • Discuss the causes of the post-war economic recession, and its effects on race relations and organized labor.

• Economic Conversion

  • The most powerful of all war-time organizations whose task was to control the economy was the War Production Board (WPB), established by Roosevelt on January 16, 1942 by executive order.
  • The WPB and the nation's factories effected a great turnaround.
  • Coffee was rationed nationally on 29 November 1942.
  • There was a growing labor shortage in war centers, with sound trucks going street by street begging for people to apply for war jobs.
  • Describe how the War Production Board and the transition to a wartime economy helped stimulate U.S. economic growth.

• A New Direction for Unions

  • The New Deal and the economic growth during World War II greatly empowered American labor unions, which resulted in the dramatic increase of union membership.
  • The Roosevelt administration immediately followed with the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; known also as the Wagner Act), which offered many of the labor protection and regulation provisions that were earlier included in NIRA.
  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which was to guarantee the rights included in NLRA (as opposed to merely negotiating labor disputes) and organize labor unions representation elections.
  • It established a national minimum wage and overtime standards.
  • By the end of the war, unemployment was practically non-existing.

• Depression and Post-War Victories

  • One of these, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act) gave workers the right to join unions and to bargain collectively through union representatives.
  • The act established the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to punish unfair labor practices and to organize elections when employees wanted to form unions.
  • After the United States entered World War II, key labor leaders promised not to interrupt the nation's defense production with strikes.
  • When the war ended in 1945, the promise not to strike ended as well, and pent-up demand for higher wages exploded.
  • Chavez, a Mexican-American labor leader, for example, worked to organize farm laborers, many of them Mexican-Americans, in California, creating what is now the United Farm Workers of America.

• Government Involvement

  • This attitude started to change during the latter part of the 19th century, when small business, farm, and labor movements began asking the government to intercede on their behalf.
  • The 1929 stock market crash had initiated the most serious economic dislocation in the nation's history, the Great Depression (1929-1940).
  • New Deal leaders flirted with the idea of building closer ties between business and government, but some of these efforts did not survive past World War II.
  • This confluence of power grew even more during the war, as the U.S. government intervened extensively in the economy.
  • The War Production Board coordinated the nation's productive capabilities so that military priorities would be met.

• Empowering Labor

  • One important attempt were labor protection and regulation provisions included in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA, June 1933).
  • Although eventually the National Labor Board was established to handle labor-employers conflicts, NIRA failed to secure long-term workers' rights.
  • In the aftermath of NIRA's failure, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; known also as the Wagner Act) was passed.
  • The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which was to guarantee the rights included in NLRA (as opposed to merely negotiating labor disputes) and organized labor unions representation elections.
  • Francis Perkins, the Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration, looks on as Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Labor Relations Act.

• Conclusion: WWII and the U.S.

  • The post-World War II period in the United States witnessed unprecedented economic prosperity and important social developments, including critical shifts on the labor market, rise of mass consumerism, "baby boom," and the rapid growth of civil rights movement.
  • After the Cold War began in 1947 and especially after the Korean War began in 1950, military spending soared.
  • Kennedy made a manned mission to the moon a national priority.
  • In addition, labor strikes rocked the nation, in some cases exacerbated by racial tensions due to African-Americans having taken jobs during the war and now being faced with irate returning veterans who demanded that they step aside.
  • President Eisenhower nationalized state forces and sent in the US Army to enforce federal court orders.