34-19-1 - Declaration of policy.
34-19-1. Declaration of policy.
In the interpretation and application of this chapter, the public policy of this state isdeclared as follows:
(1) It shall not be unlawful for employees to organize themselves into or carry on laborunions for the purpose of lessening hours of labor, increasing wages, bettering the conditions ofmembers, or carrying out the legitimate purposes of such organizations as freely as they could doif acting singly.
(2) The labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothingcontained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labor,agricultural or horticultural organizations, instituted for the purpose of mutual help and not havingcapital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of suchorganizations from lawfully carrying out the legitimate object thereof; nor shall suchorganizations or membership in them be held to be illegal combinations or conspiracies inrestraint of trade under the antitrust laws.
(3) Negotiations of terms and conditions of labor should result from voluntary agreementbetween employer and employee. Governmental authority has permitted and encouragedemployers to organize in the corporate and other forms of capital control. In dealing with suchemployers the individual unorganized worker is helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract andto protect his freedom of labor and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions ofemployment. Therefore, it is necessary that the individual employee have full freedom ofassociation, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing to negotiatethe terms and conditions of his employment, and that he shall be free from the interference,restraint or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of suchrepresentatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collectivebargaining or their mutual aid or protection.
Enacted by Chapter 85, 1969 General Session