In the Shadow of Anti-Labor Law: Organizing and Collective Bargaining 60 Years after Taft-Hartley

Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, Vol. 11, p. 1, 2008

Posted: 20 Dec 2011

See all articles by Harris Freeman

Harris Freeman

Western New England University School of Law; Labor Center University of Massachusetts

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

The essays and commentary in this issue mark six decades since an overwhelming majority of Congressional Republicans and Democrats joined forces to vilify and castigate the specter of "big labor" haunting the postwar economy. In June of 1947, the U.S. had a new labor policy when both houses of Congress handily overrode Harry Truman's presidential veto to pass the Taft-Hartley Act amending the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Future amendments to federal labor law have not mitigated the fundamental antilabor impact of Taft-Hartley. Despite tumultuous shifts in the U.S. and world economy and the precipitous decline in private-sector union membership, Taft-Hartley's amendments to the NLRA remain integral to the legal framework for twenty-first century labor relations. This regime of antilabor law provides the thematic backdrop for the essays and commentary in this special issue of Working USA.

Keywords: antilabor law, labor law, Taft-Hartley, labor and employment law

Suggested Citation

Freeman, Harris, In the Shadow of Anti-Labor Law: Organizing and Collective Bargaining 60 Years after Taft-Hartley (2008). Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, Vol. 11, p. 1, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1975078

Harris Freeman (Contact Author)

Western New England University School of Law ( email )

1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01119
United States

Labor Center University of Massachusetts ( email )

Gordon Hall
418 N. Pleasant St. Suite B
Amherst, MA 01002-1735
United States

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