Union membership used to mean something in America. Then in the immediate post-war era, with Republicans ascendant in Congress and a pliant president, along came Taft-Hartley, and that was all she wrote.

The NRA, a depression-era Act, was fine. Taft-Hartley gutted it, flooding the legislation with a laundry list of "unfair labor practices" by employees for the first time. The 1935 Wagner Act, the magna carta of the labor union movement, only defined unfair labor practices as acts committed by employers.

All sorts of things were now illegal. Wildcat strikes, secondary boycotts, political donations under many circumstances, the affirmation of state "right to work" laws, the right of the government to seek injunctions to break strikes, the outlawing of closed shops (different than union shops), the requirement that union leaders sign anti-communist loyalty oaths, the removal of supervisors from labor law protection allowing employers to fire supervisors for union activities, new rules for de-certification of unions. The list goes on.

Truman vetoes Taft-Hartley but the veto was overridden by the Republican congress. It hasn't been changed yet. And absent a filibuster proof Senate, not likely to.

One bright spot may be the NLRB, because the all important General Counsel, a political appointee, has the power to pursue injunctions against either employers or employees. In recent years those enforcement efforts were one-sided. That could change.

Taft-Hartley has done its job, in essence killing the American labor movement for all practical purposes. It used to be, in the 50's, that holding a union card was lifetime security. Its hard to find anybody who even remembers those days now.

Time to repeal Taft-Hartley. Period, full stop.

You support secondary boycotts? Why should a non involved party be held responsible for the actions of another???? Please I'd love to hear the logic.

Unions did not decline because of Taft-Hartley, they declined because the industries that supported them fell victim to competition. Those industries with the strongest unions, autos, coal, steel, railroads worked because the corporations had a monopolistic hold on their markets. They could give nice raises and benefits because they could pass on those higher costs without fear of competition. Then along came Japanese cars, better built and cheaper, other sources of coal, other ways of moving freight and companies and their customers moved away. GM and Ford are not failing because they cannot build a good car, they are failing because they have too much money tied up in benefits and promises made to unions in their heyday. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen and BMW are all successfully building cars in this country now because they have a business model that is built for today and not for the 1930,s 40s, and 50s. The only strong unions in the country today are the teachers and the public employees and guess what, they are the only groups whose employers have no outside competition and even those unions particularly the teachers have overplayed their hand by trying to use the hardball confrontational tactics of the old style unions. Adversarial unionism is dying in this country because modern American workers are not sheep who can be herded around by unions. It takes much more than an 8th grade education and a strong back, there will always be another country with plenty of people with little education and a strong work ethic to do the mundane, repetitive labor that characterized the manufacturing workforce of the early 20th century. The modern educated American worker is looking for and needs more freedom and independence to succeed than was permitted under the old style labor agreements.

lawpol, Union membership used to mean something, because Unions used to stand for something. Now Unions are just huge corporations where the people on top get millions of dollars to do basically nothing, because most rights are protected already, for example a minimum wage, right to breaks, right to time off in case of injury, there is really nothing more for unions to do except talk a lot and take union dues.

Those industries with the strongest unions, autos, coal, steel, railroads worked because the corporations had a monopolistic hold on their markets.

Before 1940 or so that monopolistic hold was because it was too far to ship things (and other countries didn't have their act together). But transportation costs have gone down.

After WWII came the golden period... when union dominated industries faced competition only from factories bombed into parking lots during the war.

Well said OkieDoug