Taft-Hartley Act

Context

Business executives and conservatives reacted negatively to the support for labor unions demonstrated by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The business campaign to amend the Wagner Act led to a House of Representatives investigation by a special committee to investigate the NLRB in 1939–1940, named the Smith Committee, for chairperson Howard Smith, a Virginia Democrat. Investigators publicized charges of pro–Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and pro-Communist bias in the administration of the law. Although a restrictive bill was passed by the House of Representatives, Roosevelt was able to fend off the drive to amend the Wagner Act by appointing moderates to replace liberals on the NLRB. This led to resignations by left-wingers who held leading staff positions at the agency.

Business remained dissatisfied with unions' economic and political power, but a climate of cooperation between business and the Roosevelt administration and business and labor prevailed when the country pulled together during World War II. The National War Labor Board gave some assistance to unions but kept wages in check. Unions made a no-strike pledge and, for the most part, restrained their members during the war. Negative public reaction to wartime coal mine strikes, however, led to the passage over Roosevelt's veto of the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act (also called the War Labor Disputes Act) in 1943. This act provided for a notification procedure and injunctions against nationally significant strikes during the war emergency.

After World War II, several large corporations, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce renewed the campaign to amend the Wagner Act. CIO unions sought sizable wage increases to make up for reduced take-home pay after the war. Hoping to avoid reconversion shutdowns, Truman vacillated between supporting and opposing unions. In May 1946 he proposed legislation to draft railroad workers in response to a union strike threat. With few reform achievements and divisions on labor and foreign policy issues, Democrats failed to turn out their vote in the 1946 congressional election. The Republican campaign against shortages, strikes, and Communists in government gave them majorities in both houses of Congress. A massively financed antiunion campaign by business groups created a climate that led Congress to ignore large protests by unions and enact the Taft-Hartley Act, overriding Truman's veto. Truman's veto message contained sharp criticisms of the law, but he did not work to persuade Democrats to sustain his veto. His message was aimed at securing labor's vote in the 1948 election rather than preventing the bill, which he privately favored, from becoming law.