American union law: Sources of conflict

Japanese union-management relations are reputed to be cooperative, while American union-management relations are perceived to be adversarial. This study examines three sources of the adversarial union-management relations in the United States: union history, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and the Wagner Act, as amended. Union history is a tale of conflict between workers who wished to cartelize and other workers who wished to be independent. It is not, primarily, a tale of conflict between capital and labor. The Norris-LaGuardia Act institutionalized conflict, and the Wagner Act enshrined it. To improve American unionmanagement relations significantly, so that American firms can be more effective international competitors, it is necessary, though not sufficient, to repeal both pieces of legislation.