The NLRB in Administrative Law Exile: Problems with Its Structure and Function and Suggestions for Reform
Files
Description
The great hope of administrative law in the New Deal was that expertise and professionalism, balanced by political accountability and careful institutional design, would yield the best possible governance in a decidedly imperfect world. Administrative agencies were to step in where both the judiciary and the legislature had failed, avoiding the dangers of government by plutocracy and government by patronage. Agencies would discharge government's "responsibility not merely to maintain ethical levels in the economic relations of the members of society, but to provide for the efficient functioning of the economic processes of the state." To do so, they would study social and economic problems thoroughly and regulate wisely relying on scientific or empirical information that courts and legislatures did not consider. Moreover, they would provide a forum in which the stakeholders in a regulated industry could participate in resolving disputes. Sensible policy would emerge through careful and inclusive procedure, reliance on experts and empirical evidence, and political accountability for value choices. Agencies would be responsive to changing circumstances and innovate when necessary, but they would do so with a healthy respect for the rule of law and the value of process. One can find in the early discussion of administrative law particularly high hopes for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). James Landis, in his classic 1938 lectures on the administrative state, said the NLRB had as its "jurisdiction the general problem of unfair practices" regarding labor and had as its responsibility the "policing of industry as a whole," not merely, as in the case of other agencies, the "supervision over the welfare of a definable line of business."
Source Publication
Labor and Employment Law Initiatives and Proposals Under the Obama Administration: Proceedings of the New York University 62nd Annual Conference on Labor
Source Editors/Authors
Zev J. Eigen
Publication Date
2011
Recommended Citation
Fisk, Catherine L. and Malamud, Deborah C., "The NLRB in Administrative Law Exile: Problems with Its Structure and Function and Suggestions for Reform" (2011). Faculty Chapters. 2091.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2091
