Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") in 1935 to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy.

Employers and their allies in Congress also criticized the NLRA for its expansive definition of "employee" and for allowing supervisors and plant guards to form unions, sometimes affiliated with the unions that represented the employees whom they were supposed to supervise or police.

Wagner–Connery Act (official name National Labor Relations Act) Source: A Dictionary of World History Author(s): Edmund WrightEdmund Wright. (1935)A US labour Act, introduced by Senator Robert Wagner of New York, that intended to outlaw employer‐dominated ...

The act contributed to a dramatic surge in union membership and made labor a force to be reckoned with both politically and economically. Women benefitted from this shift as well, and, by the end of the 1930s, 800,000 women belonged to unions, a threefold increase over 1929.