Generally a friend of organized labor, Chandler supported miners' efforts to unionize, organized the state Department of Industrial Relations, and prohibited mine operators from being appointed as deputy sheriffs. He also endorsed the proposed Child Labor Amendment to the US Constitution and secured passage of a state anti-child-labor law that had been defeated twice in the state legislature by overwhelming margins. However, he opposed closed shops and sitdown strikes, and he used the Kentucky National Guard to quell labor-related violence in Harlan County.