Proposing this measure, known as the National Labor Relations Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner (Dem–NY) argued that the government must ensure democracy in industry and workers the right to organize and bargain collectively through their representatives.

While eyeing such ends, the Wagner Act did not prohibit racial discrimination in hiring or cover farm and domestic labor. It formed a National Labor Relations Board with the authority to regulate interstate commercial work and employer–employee relations. It banned blacklisting or other reprisals against employees who joined unions, picketed, and participated in strikes. It required employers to recognize and negotiate with workers’ spokesmen. In short, it aimed to elevate working conditions, increase wages, and secure a peaceful workplace. Employers widely rejected the law, as did many in the press and legal community. Even so, the Supreme Court upheld it in 1937. Workers continued to unionize, sometimes across the color line, in the steel, auto, tobacco, coal, meatpacking, railroad, and shipping industries, among others.