NORRISLA GUARDIA ACT

(1932), in the history of the United States, legislative act that removed certain legal and judicial barriers against the activities of organized labour. The act declared that the members of labour unions should have full freedom of association unmolested by employers, and it made illegal the yellow-dog contracts by which employers had forced workers to state that they would not join a union. It barred the federal courts from issuing injunctions to sustain such contracts or to prevent strikes, picketing, or boycotts by labour groups. The NorrisLa Guardia Act was cosponsored in Congress by George Norris and Fiorello La Guardia. It was passed during the depths of the Great Depression, when public opinion had shifted both against employers who sought to prevent workers from joining unions and against judges who were willing to proscribe normal union activities. The act was a precursor to the more sweeping Wagner Act of 1935.