Chris Fults, age 8, of Globe, Ariz., for his question:
WHAT IS TAFT HARTLEY?
In 1884 Congress established a Bureau of Labor in the Department of the Interior. Then in 1888 an independent status was given to the department, but its head did not serve on the President's Cabinet. A department of Commerce and Labor was established in 1903, with the Department of Labor becoming a separate department on March 4, 1913. Closely associated with labor in the United States is the federal legislation known popularly as the Taft Hartley Act. The law's full name is the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947.
The Taft Hartley Act receives its name from its two main sponsors: Sen. Robert A. Taft and Rep. Fred Hartley. It was an amendment to the Wagner Act (the National Labor Relations Act of 1935) .
The Taft Hartley Act provides that strikes which might cause a national emergency can be delayed for 80 days. It also continues the Wagner Act's basic guarantees of workers' rights and outlaws certain union practices.
Unions are forbidden to use force or discrimination against individuals during organizing campaigns, according to provisions of the Taft Hartley Act. It also prohibits union political contributions in national elections.
Secondary boycotts, sympathy strikes and jurisdictional strikes are also prohibited by provisions in the Taft Hartley Act. A secondary boycott takes place when striking employees bring pressure on a party not involved in the dispute in hopes that the party will stop doing business with their employer. A sympathy strike is called by one union when it supports another union striking against its employer. A jurisdictional strike is called by rival unions over which union has the right to work on a job.
The Taft Hartley Act also outlaws the closed shop, a practice of hiring only union members. It gives the various states power to restrict the union shop in which employees have to join the union after being hired. It also requires unions to file such information as constitutions and financial statements with the federal government.
Supporters of the Taft Hartley Act say that the provisions equalize power between management and union. Some unions call it a "slave labor law'' and have tried to repeal or amend it. The Landrum Griffin Act of 1959, which became the first major amendment to the Taft Hartley Act, strengthened federal regulation of internal union affairs.
President Jimmy Carter invoked the provisions of the Taft Hartley Act to get the country's mine workers back on their jobs following a long strike.