Taft Hartley
For a complete statement on workers’ rights, click here.
For sixty years, the American people have lived under the anti-union Taft Hartley law.
It’s passage was a great blow to democracy.
The law was drafted by employers.
The law impedes employees’ right to join together in labor unions, undermines the power of unions to represent workers’ interests effectively, bans secondary boycotts and authorizes an array of anti-union activities by employers.
The political damage of Taft-Hartley was just as severe.
The law kicked off an era of red-baiting with the American labor movement which led to harmful internal division. A now-invalidated provision of Taft-Hartley required union leaders to sign anti-communist affidavits.
The Taft Hartley law sent a message to employers: It was OK to bust unions and deny workers their rights to collectively bargain.
Taft-Hartley entrenched significant executive tyranny in the workplace, with ramifications that are more severe today than ever.
Union membership is at historic 60-year lows, with only 8 percent of the private economy’s workforce unionized.
Employer violations of labor rights are routine, and illegal firings of union supporters in labor organizing drives are at epidemic levels.
Nader/Gonzalez would abolish Taft-Hartley and not concede this monumental employer usurpation, during this period of giant multinational corporate power and massive job exports.
It is past time for the repeal of Taft-Hartley. That would be one important step in restoring workers right to organize into unions, achieve a living wage in the Wal-Marts, McDonald’s and other workplaces, and in revitalizing American democracy.
