Let’s talk about Taft-Hartley, and how big business started to defeat American workers. (7 Pics)

 

TL,DR: Taft-Hartley sucks, workers deserve a fair share of the wealth they create, and we should pass the PRO-act. Before we begin, we need to look at what labor was like in the 1930s and 40s. During the great depression labor unionism shot up significantly with an active, dedicated, and militant labor movement in every major city, organizing workers, the unemployed, tenants and anyone else (except the bosses). They made a coalition with the existing Socialist and Communist parties to start putting pressure on President Roosevelt to pass some pro worker reforms, essentially threatening a revolution, not unlike Russia in 1917. But Roosevelt was willing to listen, and with the 1935 National Labor Relations act, it became federal policy to support unionization of workplaces. Front page edit: Would folks like more labor history snippets? I've fallen down the US labor history rabbit hole, and am also thinking of creating a Delaware Valley labor history podcast, so doing more posts like this would give me a good impetus for doing more research. Anyway, workers are cool.

This is a Communist Party Rally in NYC in the 30s. (Note, I'm not a Communist, I align more so with the Jewish Labor Bund, more of a moderate Democratic Socialist, with some Yiddishisms thrown in)

This brought about the era of “Industrial Democracy” where workers had a real say in how companies operated, and often organized work stoppages, wildcat strikes (strikes not sanctioned by the union proper), and sit down strikes (where you sit down in the factory, prevent scabs from taking your place) if things didn’t go their way. It was through labor actions like this that folks were able to push the federal government to create programs like Social Security, and many of the other New Deal programs which helped pull us out of the depression (the CCC, WPA, NRA, and others).

This unionization, and the massive amounts of federal spending, both before and during WW2, led to a strong labor movement after the war. It’s also worth noting, that the loose coalition of Communists, Socialists, Anarcho-Syndicalists (the IWW was weakened, but still around) and labor still existed after the war, and that the era of big strikes wasn’t over when the war ended. (Image is of the Oakland General Strike in 1946)

In 1946 a strike wave spread across the country, with the UMWA (United Mine Workers of America) coal miners being the most significant. It was clear to everyone that the labor movement had finally grown to the point that it held real political power and was willing to use that power to get what it wanted, namely: a better life for working class Americans who had just endured 4 years of wartime austerity, bloodshed and loss. It was time to build a better world, and labor demanded to be at the table this time. (John L. Lewis, president of the CIO and the UMWA signing a compromise agreement with the Federal Government after the end of the 1946 coal strike)

But, big business and the politicians they’d bought out didn’t want that to happen. Enter: the Taft-Hartley Act. This bill, passed on June 23rd, 1947, put restrictions on the many rights labor had earned in the 1935 NLRA. Most notably, an end to the “closed shop”. This meant that unions could no longer require membership, BUT, union contracts still applied to non-members. So, if you took a job at a factory with a good union contract, you’d get all the benefits, but wouldn’t have to pay dues, didn’t have to go on strike, didn’t have to do anything aside from show up to work each day. It also, in a fit of McCarthy fueled red terror, banned Communists and radicals from holding elected office within unions. This meant that the hardest fighting members in union leadership (the ones who didn’t just want higher wages, but wanted the workers to run the factories themselves) were forced out. Over the years this provision has been softened, but its effect on union militancy was noticeable.

Since the passage of Taft-Hartley, union membership has steadily declined, union power has weakened, the American working class (ANYONE who doesn’t have the ability to hire or fire other workers) has held a smaller and smaller slice of the overall wealth in this country.