American labor law and the American industrial relations system have a symbiotic relationship, and neither can be understood without reference to the other. This should come as no surprise; after all law, lawyers, and litigation play a major role in our society. Our collective bargaining system has been devised predominantly by labor and management, however, not by the government and the courts. In fact we often forget – and foreign observers fail to grasp – that our most important tool in the resolution of labor disputes is our private arbitration system, which operates outside the formal legal system of courts and administrative agencies. Before examining the history and substance of American labor law, then, let us begin with their impetus in the American industrial relations system: organized labor.

As a result of the evolution of the industrial relations system in the United States, the unions have a remarkably different attitude toward law than, for instance, those in Britain. This is not to say that American trade unions do not have a healthy and often well-founded distrust of lawyers; one can see this attitude manifested in countless ways. But the unions are not against the law here. And this is because the American unions – especially the industrial unions that emerged during the Great Depression of the 1930s – obtained political power before industrial power. American unions were willing and eager to look to the law as a useful adjunct to their growth and the achievement of recognition and bargaining relationships with employers.