How Taft-Hartley Works

During World War II, most of the country's unions agreed to an unofficial ban on strikes, but after V-J day a series of walkouts shook the coal, steel and railroad industries. Antilabor feeling helped elect a Republican Congress. In 1947 Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft and New Jersey Representative Fred A. Hartley Jr., both conservative Republicans, sponsored bills to amend drastically the Wagner Act of 1935, at that time the basic federal labor-relations law. While the Wagner Act had enumerated unfair labor practices by employers, the new bills were intended to do the same for the unions.

The law forbade a number of then common union actions: interunion jurisdictional strikes, and strikes to enforce featherbedding, secondary boycotts and the closed shop. Its key section provides a system to stop strikes that could "imperil the national health and safety." If a President believes a strike poses such a threat, he can appoint a board to investigate the dispute. After he receives the board's report, the Government can seek an injunction from a federal judge forbidding the continuation or start of a strike for 80 days.

During the first 60 days of the cooling-off period, federal mediators attempt to get the two sides to agree to a pact. In the next 15 days, the National Labor Relations Board must hold a secret ballot of the strikers on management's final offer. If the offer is rejected, the Government must ask the court for a dissolution of the injunction, and the President must report to Congress on the dispute. After the injunction is lifted, the union is free to resume its strike.

In practice Taft-Hartley has been neither as unworkable nor unfair as its opponents feared. Before last week's action, it had been invoked 34 times, and in all but five instances injunctions were issued. In five cases, the injunction prevented strikes, 14 disputes were settled during the cooling-off period, four disputes continued past the 80 days but without further work stoppages, and nine times strikes continued after the cooling-off period before a settlement was reached. According to Labor Department officials, only the United Mine Workers have ever defied Taft-Hartley injunctions. In 1948 a federal judge fined Union Chief John L. Lewis $20,000 and the union $1.4 million.

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