Franklin Delano Roosevelt championed the cause of labor; labor union membership more than tripled during the time FDR was in office as president.
President Roosevelt's New Deal programs sided with America's laborers and farmers, to improve their standard of living. In an address delivered in 1935, Roosevelt said, "It is a fundamental individual right of a worker to associate himself with other workers and to bargain collectively with his employer."
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (or Wagner Act, as it was called, after its Senate sponsor) was a cornerstone of FDR's New Deal programs. It created the independent National Labor Relations Board to oversee management interaction with labor. Business leaders were highly critical of these moves, claiming they would ruin business and the US economy. But the economy had been in a state of ruins (the Depression), and Roosevelt's policies actually helped the national economy to grow as well as fostering a stronger position for workers and labor unions.
