When he vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, President Harry Truman called it "a slave-labor bill." The Republican-controlled Congress called it "an end to chaos," and overrode Truman's veto immediately. They were both politicking ahead of a defining campaign year.
The Presidential election of 1948 was a pivotal, fiercely fought contest for the soul of America. Post-World War. Early Cold War. Backlogged domestic issues. A nation starving for a new direction. A time when working people thought their wartime sacrifices and unresolved problems on the home front would take center stage. Indeed, the parties vying for the Oval Office crafted their campaigns (and parties themselves) around varying notions of what it would take to swing the working class vote their way. >>
The Progressive Party's Henry Wallace stood against distracting Foreign Affairs adventures, like the Cold War and Marshall Plan, in favor of domestic efforts to end racial discrimination, establish a living wage, and reign in Big Business.
The Dixiecrats, led by Strom Thurmond, vowed to preserve racial segregation in the South, assuring white working class families that their jobs, their economy, and their ‘traditional way of life’ would be kept safe from ‘the negro.’
The Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey, talked down to the working class by employing the rhetoric of the obvious, asserting, “You know that your future is still ahead of you.”
The Democrats' and Truman promised workers a continuation of New Deal projects and adherence to those ideals, including the immediaterepeal of the Taft-Hartley Act.
The Democrats won. The tough-talking Truman then used the Taft-Hartley Act ten times against U.S. Labor Unions in his first year as an elected President.
Taft-Hartley celebrated its 60th birthday in 2007.
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In an age that scorns all forms of market regulation, why does strict regulation of the United States' own labor market still hold sway? Is it not hypocritical to demand that domestic labor markets be bound by rules made for and by the very people the labor movement exists to be a natural check and balance on? Why more protection for the same group that stashes taxes through loopholes and into havens that rob all American citizens of the fruit of their labor to the tune of $100 billion every year? Where is the law that requires a loyalty oath of American CEOs, as Taft-Hartley did of American labor leaders? Meanwhile, the ruling class of 'patriots' shuts U.S. factories in favor of cheaper, more exploitable workers in other parts of the world, workers more desperate and unprotected than workers here. Why is it that capital is borderless, yet unionism is confined to geographical limitations?
Why does the corporate-right dogma against government sticking its nose into business affairs apply only when advantageous to business owners? Yet in the spirit of small government, it could be argued that unleashing labor from the shackles of pro-business law (Taft-Hartley) would allow the dangerous income inequality divideto 'correct itself' naturally – without 'big government,' 'socialist' legislation intervening.
Further, all existing and future trade agreements should require the same, unfettered labor/capital dynamics to play out as they would here in the U.S. – thus lifting third world wages, while leveling the competitive playing field for workers here. Under these realities, quality, productivity, and safety would determine the value of a workforce – not merely who has the dirt poorest wages.
So, Senator Obama, be pro-free market, pro-small government. Be pro-labor, anti-world poverty. Repeal Taft-Hartley and ensure that our trade agreements reflect these principles to benefit workers at home and around the world.