The crucial turning point for nearly all radicals, however, occurred with two historic developments: the New Deal, particularly the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 [...]

The NLRA recognized workers’ right to form unions of their own choosing, to take “concerted action” to win union demands, and to negotiate with employers over wages, working conditions and other issues of mutual interest. The NLRA did not mandate that union labor and employers reach a collective bargaining agreement, but it did make negotiations with a union that had won a representation election compulsory—a matter of law, not voluntarism—if the union showed majority support in a unit deemed by the Labor Relations Board appropriate for collective bargaining. The Labor Relations Board was established by government not only to determine this eligibility but also to administer the representation election; it also adjudicated “unfair labor practices” that might thwart labor’s right to form independent unions. It is worth noting that the ACLU opposed the NLRA, on the grounds that the law granted exclusive bargaining rights only to victorious unions. But most unions wanted exclusive representation because they feared that a plurality of representatives would open the door to the company unions that had been dominant in the 1920s. Exclusive bargaining proved a boon for the formation of a strong labor bureaucracy, but it limited workers’ ability to choose alternatives when the union failed to support their struggles. Even so, the NLRA provided for the possibility of minority unionism, an option few labor organizations took. [...]