Taft–Hartley Act

Labor Management Relations Act of 1947

Long title	An Act to amend the National Labor Relations Act, to provide additional facilities for the mediation of labor disputes affecting commerce, to equalize legal responsibilities of labor organizations and employers, and for other purposes.
Nicknames	Taft–Hartley Act
Enacted by	the 80th United States Congress
Effective	June 23, 1947
Citations
Public law	80–101
Statutes at Large	61 Stat. 136
Codification
Titles amended	29 U.S.C.: Labor
U.S.C. sections created	29 U.S.C. ch. 7 §§ 141-197
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 3020 by Fred A. Hartley, Jr. (R–NJ) on April 10, 1947 Passed the House on April 17, 1947 (308-107) Passed the Senate on May 13, 1947 (68-24, in lieu of S. 1126) Reported by the joint conference committee on June 4, 1947; agreed to by the House on June 4, 1947 (320-79) and by the Senate on June 6, 1947 (54-17) Vetoed by President Harry S. Truman on June 20, 1947 Overridden by the House on June 20, 1947 (331-83) Overridden by the Senate and became law on June 23, 1947 (68-25)
Major amendments
Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act

The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 29 U.S.C. § 141-197 better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, (80 H.R. 3020, Pub.L. 80–101, 61 Stat. 136, enacted June 23, 1947) is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert A. Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr., and became law by overcoming 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 would subsequently use it twelve times during his presidency. The Taft–Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in 1935. The principal author of the Taft–Hartley Act was J. Mack Swigert, of the Cincinnati law firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister.

Historian James T. Patterson concludes that:

Taft–Hartley was one of more than 250 union-related bills pending in both houses of Congress in 1947. After World War II, 25 percent of the workforce was unionized (around 14.8 million workers had union contracts, 10 million of them being union security agreements), and with the war now over, their promise not to strike so as not to impede the war effort had expired.

As a response to the rising union movement and Cold War hostilities, the bill could be seen as a response by business to the post–World War II labor upsurge of 1946. During the year after V-J Day, more than five million American workers were involved in strikes, which lasted on average four times longer than those during the war.

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