FDR’s War Board Shifts Towards Government Control of Workplaces, Weakens Owners’ Rights

National War Labor Board (NWLB), established during World War II (primarily the 1942–1945 version under President Franklin D. Roosevelt). 

Context After Fansteel (1939) 

• The Supreme Court’s Fansteel ruling made sit-down strikes (plant occupations) legally risky: employers could fire participants, and the NLRB could not force reinstatement for that misconduct. 

• Sit-downs declined sharply by the late 1930s/early 1940s as unions shifted to conventional walk-out strikes, and courts/NLRB treated occupations as unprotected (and often illegal) activity. 

Role of the National War Labor Board (WWII) 

• Created by Executive Order 9017 in January 1942 (building on a short-lived National Defense Mediation Board). 

• Tripartite structure: representatives from labor (AFL & CIO), industry, and the public. 

• Primary goals: Prevent strikes and lockouts in war production industries to maintain output for the war effort, mediate/ arbitrate disputes, and stabilize wages (to control inflation). 

• Labor and management had agreed to a no-strike, no-lockout pledge after Pearl Harbor. The NWLB acted as a quasi-judicial body to resolve disputes when voluntary bargaining failed. 

• It handled thousands of cases, including wage adjustments (e.g., the “Little Steel” formula limiting increases), union security (maintenance of membership), and grievance procedures. It could issue binding orders, and non-compliance could lead to government seizure of plants or other sanctions. 

Relation to Strikes (Including Sit-Downs) 

• The NWLB operated under the no-strike pledge, so any strikes—especially disruptive ones like sit-downs/occupations—were viewed as violations that undermined the war effort. 

• Wildcat strikes (unauthorized) and some authorized ones still occurred (e.g., by the United Mine Workers under John L. Lewis), but the Board and government pressured unions to end them quickly. 

• Sit-downs were rare during WWII due to Fansteel, the no-strike pledge, and wartime patriotism/production priorities. Then, the Board focused on conventional disputes rather than reinstating or protecting participants in illegal occupations of businesses. 

• Post-war, the NWLB was dissolved (1945–46), and the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). 

In short, while Fansteel directly addressed the legality of sit-down strikes under the NLRA, the War Labor Board reflected the wartime shift toward government-mediated labor peace, prioritizing production over militant tactics. It helped institutionalize collective bargaining and exposed the huge costs to America and its war efforts if a few union bosses could shut down factories, particularly during a war. Simultaneously, this pushed private enterprise under the control of politically appointed boards that could ignore private property rights and were outside the conventional legal system’s constitutional restraints.