Nine-Eleven

The Norris LaGuardia Act was one of the first attempts to limit the power of federal courts in labor disputes. In addition, this act gave labor unions the right to organize, strike, and use other forms of leverage against management without the interference of the federal court system. Prior to the creation of the Norris- LaGuardia many courts viewed actions by groups of employees, such as strikes, boycotts, and picketing as criminal conspiracies punishable by law.

The Great Depression led to many changes within labor relations. For the first two years of the economic crisis, President Hoover and Congress insisted that relief was the responsibility of the local governments. Believing that recovery was just a matter of restoring business confidence, the Hoover administration organized conferences to persuade corporate executives to resume production and stop cutting wages and to hasten the recovery just around the corner. Congress began to explore new approaches to the industrial conditions and economic policy when unions started to lose more strikes in industries such as steel, coal, and rail. The introduction of the Norris-LaGuardia Act established three basic policy goals:

1. To nullify the equity powers of federal courts in labor disputes.

2. To declare nonunion oaths ("yellow-dog contracts") unenforceable in U.S. courts.

3. To relieve labor organizations from liability acts under antitrust laws.

The Norris LaGuardia Act allowed employees a greater voice in seeking to advance and protect their legitimate interests. Many employers used labor injunctions to intervene in labor disputes. Labor injunctions, by definition, are court orders directing a party to perform a certain act or to refrain from an act or acts. During the 19th century employers were often granted injunctions against strikes or boycotts when they alleged that the purpose of labor's activity (e.g., unreasonably limiting the employer's freedom by requiring him to hire only union members) was illegal. The appeal of the labor injunction from an employer's perspective lay not only in the language of the decree, but also in the ease and swiftness of obtaining and enforcing it. The criminal process was slow; but one could appear before an equity judge with a handful of affidavits and obtain a temporary decree against a strike in a matter of hours; one did not even have to notify the defendants until after the order was issued. The Norris-LaGuardia Act allowed workers to participate in peaceful picketing or publicity; encourage other workers to join a union; and also provided economic or legal aid to employees during a labor dispute. A temporary restraining order obtained solely on the basis of an employer's statements could be effective for only five days to restrict some alleged unlawful employee conduct. In order to extend the ban past five days an employer must prove in a hearing which employees or their union representative can offer counter evidence that the following conditions exist:

1. Unlawful acts have been committed

2. Substantial and irreparable injury to the employer's property has or will likely occur as a result of the unlawful act.

3. Greater injury would be inflicted on the employer by denial of an injunction than on the union by granting the injunction.

4. The Employer has no other adequate legal remedy

5. Public safety officers are either unable or unwilling to adequately protect the employer's property

6. The employer has satisfied any existing legal duty to bargain in good faith in an effort to settle the labor dispute (including the offer of mediation, voluntary arbitration, etc) before going to court.

The second purpose of the Norris-LaGuardia Act specifically prohibited Federal courts from enforcing "yellow-dog contracts" as well. A yellow-dog contract is an agreement between an employee and an employer in which the employee indicates that he or she is not a member of a labor union and that joining a labor union in the future will be sufficient grounds for dismissal. Unionists labeled non-union workers as "yellow dogs" because anyone who disagreed with union policies was considered a cowardly yellow dog, with its tail between its legs. These contracts were widely used by employers to prevent the formation