The 10 years following the 1935 enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) were something of a golden era for organized labor in the United States. World War II brought an immense surge in production and hiring by increasingly unionized heavy industries. By the end of the war, union penetration had surged to nearly 36 percent of the private sector workforce.
But a rash of strikes following the end of World War II, coupled with fear of Communist influence in the ranks of labor leadership, promoted an anti-labor backlash. Republicans recaptured Congress in the 1946 mid-term elections, and the following year-they enacted the Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of President Harry Truman.
But a rash of strikes following the end of World War II, coupled with fear of Communist influence in the ranks of labor leadership, promoted an anti-labor backlash. Republicans recaptured Congress in the 1946 mid-term elections, and the following year-they enacted the Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of President Harry Truman.
As a Wikipedia entry relates, "The Taft-Hartley Act was seen as a means
of demobilizing the labor movement by imposing limits on labor's ability
to strike and by prohibiting radicals from their leadership, people who
were typically more active in union activities." It allowed the
president to seek injunction blocking strikes seen as imperiling the
nation's health and safety. It was the first law barring unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in support of federal political campaigns,
causing Truman to denounce it as "a dangerous intrusion on free
speech." And it restricted the closed union shop, making it possible for
states to pursue right-to-work laws.
Just as Taft-Hartley
represented the first claw-back of union power in the
private sector, Gov. Scott Walker's program represents the first serious
attempt to weaken public sector unions in a state with mandated
collective bargaining in the public sector. If Walker wins, it could be
public-sector labor's Taft-Hartley moment. And not a moment too soon:
while less than 8 percent of private workers are covered by union
contracts, union penetration in the public sector is 40 percent (and about 50 percent in Wisconsin).
Government employees are now more than half of all remaining union
members, and government unions increasingly dominate what is left of the
organized labor movement--along with the politics of states that have granted them the widest array of rights and privileges.
Among other things, Walker's "budget repair bill" would immediately raise employee contributions to pensions and health insurance, limit collective bargaining of pay increases and eliminate collective bargaining of benefits. It would require that government unions be recertified in annual votes by the employees they represent.
But by far the biggest threat Walker's bill poses to labor leaders is the loss of the automatic, compulsory "dues checkoff" on employee paychecks. This would hit the unions directly in the wallet, with ripple effects that ultimately will weaken their political operations as well as their organizational efforts.
An ironic postscript to Taft-Hartley: although Truman fought the law, he invoked his new-found injunction powers a dozen times to halt subsequent strikes. In similar fashion, if Walker is successful, future Wisconsin politicians in both parties, at the state and local levels, will find themselves grateful for the added leverage it gives them to manage their costs.
Just as Taft-Hartley
represented the first claw-back of union power in the
private sector, Gov. Scott Walker's program represents the first serious
attempt to weaken public sector unions in a state with mandated
collective bargaining in the public sector. If Walker wins, it could be
public-sector labor's Taft-Hartley moment. And not a moment too soon:
while less than 8 percent of private workers are covered by union
contracts, union penetration in the public sector is 40 percent (and about 50 percent in Wisconsin).
Government employees are now more than half of all remaining union
members, and government unions increasingly dominate what is left of the
organized labor movement--along with the politics of states that have granted them the widest array of rights and privileges. Among other things, Walker's "budget repair bill" would immediately raise employee contributions to pensions and health insurance, limit collective bargaining of pay increases and eliminate collective bargaining of benefits. It would require that government unions be recertified in annual votes by the employees they represent.
But by far the biggest threat Walker's bill poses to labor leaders is the loss of the automatic, compulsory "dues checkoff" on employee paychecks. This would hit the unions directly in the wallet, with ripple effects that ultimately will weaken their political operations as well as their organizational efforts.
An ironic postscript to Taft-Hartley: although Truman fought the law, he invoked his new-found injunction powers a dozen times to halt subsequent strikes. In similar fashion, if Walker is successful, future Wisconsin politicians in both parties, at the state and local levels, will find themselves grateful for the added leverage it gives them to manage their costs.
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