Not long ago, I blogged about the fact that our key labor law, the National Labor Relations Act, protects workers even if they don’t have a union or seek to have one represent them. When workers join together to protest working conditions, to petition management for raises or plead against pay cuts, or to report unsafe conditions to government agencies, the National Labor Relations Board backs them up. The NLRB can protect workers against retaliation by the employer, can order reinstatement for fired workers, and can obtain back pay.

It isn’t widely known, but since its inception, the National Labor Relations Act has given employees the right “to engage in … concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”

Now, for the first time, the NLRB has a nice-looking, somewhat interactive webpage devoted to this issue of “other mutual aid or protection.” Visitors to the site can read some heartening stories about how employers overreacted—almost always by firing someone—, to employees organizing to protest or to make a problem known to management and how the NLRB intervened to restore the job or lost wages of the workers.

It’s great to see the government helping people understand their rights and how to enforce them.