CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Solidarity Strikes and Taft-Hartley’s Long Shadow

David Dubinsky of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union speaks against the Taft–Hartley Act, May 4, 1947. The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archive, Cornell University. CC BY 2.0

This week marks the anniversary of the enactment of one of the most consequential pieces of labor legislation in US history. The Labor Management Relations Act, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act, was passed over President Truman’s veto on June 23, 1947, and substantially narrowed the forms of collective action protected under federal labor law. The Taft-Hartley Act provided employers with a myriad of new legal weapons while suppressing some of organized labor’s most powerful tactics, dramatically reshaping the US labor landscape. Most of the provisions in the Taft-Hartley Act remain in effect nearly eight decades later.

For most private-sector workers, one of the costliest parts of the Taft-Hartley Act is its prohibition on secondary or “solidarity” actions. In a secondary action, workers at one company strike, picket, or boycott to support workers at another. Secondary actions enable workers across a supply chain to join forces and exert pressure, giving employees across different shops more leverage together than they would have........

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