Labor Board Appointee

From the letter's section of yesterday's NYTimes

To the Editor:

Business groups fear that the appointment of Craig Becker, a lawyer for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., to the National Labor Relations Board will promote unionism (“Deadlock Is Ending on Labor Board,” Business Day, April 1).

But that is the precise purpose of the Wagner Act of 1935. Section 1 declares that it is “the policy of the United States” to encourage “the practice and procedure of collective bargaining.” It notes that “inequality of bargaining power” aggravates “recurrent business depressions.” Both the policy and its rationale have been ignored for too long.

Judith Stein
New York, April 1, 2010

The writer is a professor of history at the Graduate Center and City College, CUNY.

ht alr