Editing Taft–Hartley Act (section)

==Effects of the act==
As stated in Section 1 ({{USC|29|141}}), the purpose of the NLRA is:
<blockquote>[T]o 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, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce.</blockquote>

The amendments enacted in Taft–Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or [[unfair labor practice]]s, 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 strike]]s, [[wildcat strike action|wildcat strikes]], [[general strike|solidarity or political strikes]], [[solidarity action|secondary boycotts]], secondary and mass [[Picketing (protest)|picketing]], [[closed shop]]s, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. [[Union shop]]s were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass [[right-to-work law]]s that ban agency fees. Furthermore, the executive branch of the federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking [[injunction]]s if an impending or current strike imperiled the national health or safety.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/60feb/cox.htm |date=February 1960 |title=Strikes and the Public Interest – A Proposal for New Legislation |first=Archibald |last=Cox |work=The Atlantic}}</ref>

===Jurisdictional strikes===
In jurisdictional strikes, outlawed by Taft–Hartley, a union strikes in order to assign particular work to the employees it represents. Secondary boycotts and common situs picketing, also outlawed by the act, are actions in which unions picket, strike, or refuse to handle the goods of a business with which they have no primary dispute but which is associated with a targeted business.<ref>29 U.S.C. §§ 151–169 Section 8(b)(4)</ref>{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} A later statute, the [[Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act]], passed in 1959, tightened these restrictions on secondary boycotts still further.

===Campaign expenditures===
According to [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] scholar [[Floyd Abrams]], the act "was the first law barring unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in support of or [in] opposition to federal candidates".<ref name=Nation>[http://www.thenation.com/article/157720/debating-citizens-united Debating 'Citizens United'], ''[[The Nation]]'' (2011-01-13)</ref>

===Closed shops===
{{Main|Closed shop}}
The law outlawed closed shops which were contractual agreements that required an employer to hire only [[trade union|labor union]] members. Union shops, still permitted, require new recruits to join the union within a certain amount of time. The National Labor Relations Board and the courts have added other restrictions on the power of unions to enforce [[union security]] clauses and have required them to make extensive financial disclosures to all members as part of their [[duty of fair representation]].{{citation needed|date=March 2015}} On the other hand, Congress repealed the provisions requiring a vote by workers to authorize a union shop a few years after the passage of the act when it became apparent that workers were approving them in virtually every case.{{citation needed|date=March 2015}}

===Union security clauses===
{{Main|Union shop}}
The amendments also authorized individual states to outlaw union security clauses (such as the union shop) entirely in their jurisdictions by passing [[right-to-work law]]s. A right-to-work law, under Section 14B of Taft–Hartley, prevents unions from negotiating contracts or legally binding documents requiring companies to fire workers who refuse to join the union.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} Currently all of the states in the [[Deep South]] and a number of states in the Midwest, Great Plains, and [[Rocky Mountains]] regions have right-to-work laws (with six states—[[Alabama]], [[Arizona]], [[Arkansas]], [[Florida]], [[Mississippi]], and [[Oklahoma]]—going one step further and enshrining right-to-work laws in their states' constitutions).{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}

===Strikes and lockouts===
====Notice provisions====
The amendments required unions and employers to give 80 days' notice to each other and to certain state and federal mediation bodies before they may undertake [[Strike action|strikes]] or other forms of economic action in pursuit of a new [[collective bargaining agreement]]; it did not, on the other hand, impose any "cooling-off period" after a contract expired. 

====National emergency provisions====
Section 206 of the Act, codified at 29 U.S.C. § 176, also authorized a president to intervene in strikes or [[lockout (industry)|lockouts]], under certain circumstances, by seeking a court order compelling companies and unions to attempt to continue to negotiate.<ref name=2023CRSEmergency>[https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12506 The UAW-Automakers Labor Dispute and Taft-Hartley's National Emergency Provisions], Congressional Research Service (October 2, 2023).</ref> Under this section, if the president determines that an actual or threatened lockout affects all or a substantial part of an industry engaged in interstate or foreign "trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication" and that the occurrence or continuation of a strike or lockout would "imperil the national health or safety," the President may empanel a [[board of inquiry]] to review the issues and issue a report.<ref name=2023CRSEmergency/> Upon receiving the report, the president may direct the [[U.S. Attorney General]] to seek an injunction from a [[U.S. federal court|federal court]].<ref name=2023CRSEmergency/> If a court enters an [[injunction]], then a strike by workers or a lockout by employers is suspended for an 80-day period; employees must return to work while management and unions must "make every effort to adjust and settle their differences"<ref name=2023CRSEmergency/><ref name=Wiseman>Paul Wiseman, [https://apnews.com/article/port-strike-longshoremen-dockworkers-union-law-27c7eaa7b199fba1903a637eb6c7db0c The president could invoke a 1947 law to try to suspend the dockworkers' strike. Here's how], Associated Press (October 2, 2024).</ref> with the assistance of the [[Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (United States)|Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service]].<ref name=2023CRSEmergency/> Presidents have invoked this provision 37 times.<ref name=Wiseman/> In 2002, President [[George W. Bush]] invoked the law in connection with the employer lockout of the [[International Longshore and Warehouse Union]] during negotiations with West Coast shipping and stevedoring companies.<ref name=Greenhouse>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/09/us/president-invokes-taft-hartley-act-to-open-29-ports.html?pagewanted=all |title=President Invokes Taft-Hartley Act To Open 29 Ports |first1=David E. |last1=Sanger |first2=Steven |last2=Greenhouse |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 9, 2002}}</ref> This was the first successful invocation of the emergency provisions since President [[Richard M. Nixon]] intervened to halt a longshoremen's strike in 1971.<ref name=Greenhouse/>

====Prohibition on federal employee strikes====
Section 305 of the Act prohibited federal employees from striking.<ref name=Fleischli1968>{{cite journal |last=Fleischli|first=George R.|title=DUTY TO BARGAIN UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 10988|journal=Air Force Law Review|date=May–June 1968}}</ref> This prohibition was subsequently repealed and replaced by a similar provision, 5 U.S.C. § 7311, which bars any person who "participates in a strike, or asserts the right to strike against the Government of the United States" from federal employment.<ref>Kurt L. Hanslowe and John L. Acierno, [https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol67/iss6/2/ Law and Theory of Strikes by Government Employees], 67 Cornell L. Rev. 1055, 1059 n.16 (1982).</ref>

===Anti-communism===
{{main|McCarthyism}}
The amendments required union leaders to file affidavits with the [[United States Department of Labor]] declaring that they were not supporters of the [[Communist Party USA|Communist Party]] and had no relationship with any organization seeking the "overthrow of the United States government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means" as a condition to participating in NLRB proceedings. Just over a year after Taft–Hartley passed, 81,000 union officers from nearly 120 unions had filed the required affidavits.<ref name=laborstory/> This provision was at first upheld in the 1950 Supreme Court decision ''[[American Communications Ass'n v. Douds]]'', but in 1965, the Supreme Court held that this provision was an [[Constitutionality|unconstitutional]] [[bill of attainder]].<ref>{{cite court |litigants=United States v. Brown (1965) |vol=381|reporter=U.S. |opinion=437 |court=[[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] |date=June 7, 1965|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/381/437 |access-date=November 24, 2015 |quote=Held: Section 504 constitutes a bill of attainder and is therefore unconstitutional. }}</ref>

===Treatment of supervisors===
The amendments expressly excluded supervisors from coverage under the act, and allowed employers to terminate supervisors engaging in union activities or those not supporting the employer's stance.<ref name="nrhpinv1">{{cite web|url=http://www.politicalaffairs.net/taft-hartley-signed-60-years-ago/|title=Taft-Hartley Signed 60 Years Ago|last=Gruenberg|first=Mark|date=June 11, 2007|publisher=[[Political Affairs Magazine]]|access-date=2012-06-06|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130518121009/http://www.politicalaffairs.net/taft-hartley-signed-60-years-ago/|archive-date=May 18, 2013}}</ref> The amendments maintained coverage under the act for professional employees, but provided for special procedures before they may be included in the same bargaining unit as non-professional employees.<ref>{{cite book|title=PUBLIC LAWS-CHS.114, 120-JUNE 21, 23,1947|publisher=80Ta CONG ., 1ST SESS .-CH. 120-JUNE 23, 1947|page=136|url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/80th-congress/session-1/c80s1ch114.pdf}}</ref>

===Right of employer to oppose unions===
The act revised the Wagner Act's requirement of employer neutrality, to allow employers to deliver anti-union messages in the workplace.<ref name="McCarthy">Anna McCarthy, ''The Citizen Machine: Governing by Television in 1950s America'', New York: The New Press, 2010, p. 54. {{ISBN|978-1-59558-498-4}}.</ref> These changes confirmed an earlier [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] ruling that employers have a constitutional right to express their opposition to unions, so long as they did not threaten employees with reprisals for their union activities nor offer any incentives to employees as an alternative to unionizing. The amendments also gave employers the right to file a petition asking the board to determine if a union represents a majority of its employees, and allow employees to petition either to decertify their union, or to invalidate the union security provisions of any existing collective bargaining agreement.

===National Labor Relations Board===
{{Main|National Labor Relations Board}}
The amendments gave the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board discretionary power to seek injunctions against either employers or unions that violated the act.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} The law made pursuit of such injunctions mandatory, rather than discretionary, in the case of [[Secondary action|secondary boycotts]] by unions.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} The amendments also established the general counsel's autonomy within the administrative framework of the NLRB. Congress also gave employers the right to sue unions for damages caused by a secondary boycott, but gave the general counsel exclusive power to seek injunctive relief against such activities.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}

===Federal jurisdiction===
The act provided for federal court jurisdiction to enforce [[collective bargaining agreements]]. Although Congress passed this section to empower federal courts to hold unions liable in damages for strikes violating a no-strike clause, this part of the act has instead served as the springboard for creation of a "federal common law" of collective bargaining agreements, which favored [[arbitration]] over litigation or strikes as the preferred means of resolving labor disputes.{{citation needed|date=December 2012}}

===Conciliation Service===
The [[United States Conciliation Service]], which had provided mediation for labor disputes as part of Department of Labor, was removed from that department and reconstituted as an independent agency, the [[Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (United States)]]. This was done in part because industry forces thought the existing service had been too "partial" to labor.<ref name="nyt-1947">{{cite news | last=Stark | first=Louis | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1947/06/24/archives/analysis-of-the-labor-act-shows-changed-era-at-hand-for-industry.html | title=Analysis of the Labor Act Shows Changed Era at Hand for Industry | newspaper=The New York Times | date=June 24, 1947 | pages=1, 4 }}</ref>

===Other===
The Congress that passed the Taft–Hartley Amendments considered repealing the [[Norris–La Guardia Act]] to the extent necessary to permit courts to issue injunctions against strikes violating a no-strike clause, but chose not to do so. The Supreme Court nonetheless held several decades later that the act implicitly gave the courts the power to enjoin such strikes over subjects that would be subject to final and binding arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement.

Finally, the act imposed a number of procedural and substantive standards that unions and employers must meet before they may use employer funds to provide pensions and other employee benefit to unionized employees. Congress has since passed more extensive protections for workers and employee benefit plans as part of the [[Employee Retirement Income Security Act]] ("ERISA").