
From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov]
[Laws in effect as of January 2, 2001]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
  January 2, 2001 and January 28, 2002]
[CITE: 29USC151]

 
                             TITLE 29--LABOR
 
                  CHAPTER 7--LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS
 
                 SUBCHAPTER II--NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS
 
Sec. 151. Findings and declaration of policy

    The denial by some employers of the right of employees to organize 
and the refusal by some employers to accept the procedure of collective 
bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or 
unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or 
obstructing commerce by (a) impairing the efficiency, safety, or 
operation of the instrumentalities of commerce; (b) occurring in the 
current of commerce; (c) materially affecting, restraining, or 
controlling the flow of raw materials or manufactured or processed goods 
from or into the channels of commerce, or the prices of such materials 
or goods in commerce; or (d) causing diminution of employment and wages 
in such volume as substantially to impair or disrupt the market for 
goods flowing from or into the channels of commerce.
    The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not 
possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and 
employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership 
association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and 
tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage 
rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by 
preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working 
conditions within and between industries.
    Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of 
employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from 
injury, impairment, or interruption, and promotes the flow of commerce 
by removing certain recognized sources of industrial strife and unrest, 
by encouraging practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of 
industrial disputes arising out of differences as to wages, hours, or 
other working conditions, and by restoring equality of bargaining power 
between employers and employees.
    Experience has further demonstrated that certain practices by some 
labor organizations, their officers, and members have the intent or the 
necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce by preventing the 
free flow of goods in such commerce through strikes and other forms of 
industrial unrest or through concerted activities which impair the 
interest of the public in the free flow of such commerce. The 
elimination of such practices is a necessary condition to the assurance 
of the rights herein guaranteed.
    It is declared hereby to be the policy of the United States to 
eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free 
flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when 
they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of 
collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full 
freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of 
representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating 
the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or 
protection.

(July 5, 1935, ch. 372, Sec. 1, 49 Stat. 449; June 23, 1947, ch. 120, 
title I, Sec. 101, 61 Stat. 136.)


                               Amendments

    1947--Act June 23, 1947, amended section generally to restate the 
declaration of policy and to make the finding and policy of this 
subchapter ``two-sided''.


                    Effective Date of 1947 Amendment

    Section 104 of title I of act June 23, 1947, provided: ``The 
amendments made by this title [amending this subchapter] shall take 
effect sixty days after the date of the enactment of this Act [June 23, 
1947], except that the authority of the President to appoint certain 
officers conferred upon him by section 3 of the National Labor Relations 
Act as amended by this title [section 153 of this title] may be 
exercised forthwith.''
