NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin: Labor's Turning Point
Pennsylvania
In the nineteen thirties, the right of workers to form unions was contested at every level of American society, including the courts. The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation operated a massive plant here in Aliquippa and fired workers who tried to organize. The National Labor Relations Board ordered their reinstatement.
Jones and Laughlin refused and challenged the constitutionality of the whole National Labor Relations Act in court. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled on April twelfth, nineteen thirty-seven, upholding the act by a five-to-four margin. It was one of the most consequential labor decisions in American history, establishing that workers had a federally protected right to organize and bargain collectively, and that Congress had the authority to protect that right under the commerce clause.
The ruling came in the shadow of President Roosevelt's court-packing proposal and signaled the shift that historians call the switch in time that saved nine.
