What is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)?
In order to learn what the NLRB does we need to discuss who they are.
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to join together to improve their wages and working conditions. The NLRB has the power to safeguard employees' rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative.
What does this mean then for those private sector employees (workers employed in non-government agencies)?
That can be answered with what they do. The National Labor Relations Board has a history of enforcing the National Labor Relations Act. What this Act provides to employees in non-government workplaces is the basic right to seek better working conditions and allows them representation without fear of retaliation. This all began back during the Great Depression, continued through World War II and the economic growth and challenges that followed. The NLRB works to guarantee the rights of employees to bargain collectively within a union, if they choose to do so.
Simply put, the laws the NLRB enforces give employees the right to act together to try to improve their pay and working conditions or fix job-related problems.
When you hear that board charges have been filed against an employer this is the part of the federal government that handles those cases.
You can read more about the NLRB on their website at https://www.nlrb.gov/
