Having held the National Labor Relations Act constitutonal, the Court then had to identify labor tactics that the NLRA protected and those it prohibited. In doing so it relied in substantial part on preexisting accounts of employers' property rights. It found no labor law violation when employers hired permanent replacement workers for those who went out on an “economic” strike rather than an “unfair labor practices” strike, and held that the NLRA did not bar employeres from firing workers who engaged in “sit down” strikes. It also limited the scope of the remedy of awarding back pay to workers unlawfully fired. All these decisions reduced the ability of unions to place economic pressure on employers.

This chapter first scans the historical context of the “labor question” in the United States and the radically diverse interpretations and experimentation with “industrial democracy,” widely seen as the answer.Second, it outlines how industrial democracy ultimately came to have meaning through collective bargaining, with the enactment of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, and how optimism about the law’s promise and achievements turned into disenchantment. Third, the essay sketches the glimmerings of industrial democracy’s revival, with the labor question’s reemergence.Creative experimentation is underway, older notions are being reimagined, collective action is on the rise, and the threat posed by worker’s diminished bargaining power is a matter of public debate.

As the Republican Party narrowed and weakened in the late 20t century, it became home to a succession of conservative movements which largely defeated the party’s moderate wing, lent it a more ideological coloration, and initiated the sharp polarization in American politics that lasted into the early 21st century.