THE INFLUENCE OF MR. JUSTICE MURPHY ON LABOR LAW

Authors

Archibald Cox, Harvard UniversityFollow

Abstract

When Mr. Justice Murphy took his place on the Supreme Court in 1940, a period of major development in labor law was beginning. In 1935 Congress had laid one of the two principal foundation stones by enacting the Wagner Act. But the NLRA did not become effective in any practical sense until after its constitutionality was upheld in 1937, and it was in the next decade that the farthest reaching questions of interpretation and application were to be decided. The second stone was laid in 1938 when passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act committed the nation to the policy of guaranteeing both organized and unorganized workers the minimum labor standards "necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being of workers." The constitutionality of the FLSA, its scope, and perplexing questions vitally affecting its administration were determined during the Justice's tenure. Scarcely less important than the implementation of these statutory policies was to be the construction of a constitutional framework for state and Congressional regulation of strikes and picketing.

Recommended Citation

Archibald Cox, THE INFLUENCE OF MR. JUSTICE MURPHY ON LABOR LAW, 48 Mich. L. Rev. 767 (1950).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol48/iss6/8