The Labor Management Relations Act, or the Taft-Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and limits the power of labor unions. The act was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947 . Labor leaders called it the "slave-labor bill," while President Truman argued that it was a "dangerous intrusion on free speech," and that it would "conflict with important principles of our democratic society. " Nevertheless, Truman subsequently used it twelve times during his presidency. The Taft–Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which Congress passed in 1935.
Senator Robert A. Taft
Co-sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act.
NLRA's Purpose
- To promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce.
- To provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other.
- To protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce.
- To define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare
- To protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce
Taft-Hartley Amendment's Impact
The amendments enacted in Taft-Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or unfair labor practices, on the part of unions to the NLRA, which had previously only prohibited unfair labor practices committed by employers. The Taft–Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass right-to-work laws that outlawed closed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the Federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike imperiled the national health or safety, a test that has been interpreted broadly by the courts.
Opposition to the Act
President Harry Truman vetoed Taft-Hartley, but Congress overrode his veto. Majorities of both parties voted for the bill as well as the override. Union leaders in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) vigorously campaigned for Truman in the 1948 election based upon a (never fulfilled) promise to repeal Taft-Hartley. Organized labor nearly succeeded in pushing Congress to amend the law to increase the protections for strikers and targets of employer retaliation during the Carter and Clinton administrations, but failed on both occasions because of Republican opposition and lukewarm support for these changes from the Democratic president in office at the time.