Archibald Cox

Government Regulation of the Negotiation and Terms of Collective Agreement: An Address

For better or worse we have come a long way since 1947. The National Labor Relations Board was never able to resist the temptation to eavesdrop, or even to peek through the keyhole in order to see how the discussions between employer and employees were progressing. In recent years the government has slipped in to seek a seat at the bargaining table. Yet we have not gone too far, I think, to ask ourselves whether the governmental activities ought not to be confined to the organizational stages of industrial relations. The inquiry is obviously pertinent in any serious effort to revise our basic labor laws either by statutory amendments or by reshaping the course of administrative decisions. Thus far the gradual but nonetheless marked increase in government regulation of the negotiation and terms of collective bargaining agreements has flowed in four currents, each fed by the others: