Collective Bargaining the Taft-Harley Act

Collective Bargaining

The Taft-Harley Act of 1946 was a reformation of the original Wagner Act of 1935, passed during the New Deal. The Wagner Act gave workers the "right to organize and join labor unions, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to strike. It also set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency with three members appointed by the president, to administer the [Wagner] Act and gave it the power to certify that a union represented a particular group of employees" (Wagner 2002).

The Wagner Act prohibited employers from interfering with or restraining employees from collective organizing and bargaining, from "attempting to dominate or influence a labor union" or refusing to bargain collectively with the union in "good faith" and encouraging or discouraging union membership through any special conditions of employment or through discrimination against union or non-union members in hiring" (Wagner 2002). This last provision gave organized labor one of its greatest powers, namely to have open and closed 'shops,' in which an employer "agrees to hire only union members" and "requires anyone hired to join the union" (Wagner 2002). This was a way to keep salaries higher, as non-union members could not agree to work for lower wages. Closed shops facilitate collective bargaining for unions, as there are no non-union workers to cross the union picket line working in the same establishment.

The Taft-Hartley Act retained the features of the earlier Wagner Act but gave employers added provisions to strengthen their position against labor unions. It "allowed the president, when he believed that a strike would endanger national health or safety, to appoint a board of inquiry to investigate the dispute," and to prevent the continuation of the strike if it posed a danger to the nation's health and safety, according to a federal court of law (Wagner 2002). The parties would then have an eighty-day "cooling off" period during which the law would prohibit a "national emergency strike" (Wagner 2002). The Taft-Hartley Act also prohibited secondary or supportive boycotts and sympathy strikes or boycotts as well as jurisdictional strikes and boycotts. The latter are attempts "to force an employer to give work to members of one particular union instead of another" union (Wagner 2002). Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Taft-Hartley Act was that it outlawed discrimination against non-union members and allowed states to pass 'right to work' laws, although union shops could exist if states did not expressly forbid them (Wagner 2002). This gave human resource departments more flexibility in hiring practices, and negotiations regarding wages, hours, and working conditions than existed before, when only the Wagner Act was in force in its original form.

Part II

Major industries that engage in collective bargaining in the United States include the auto industry, which has one of the most powerful unions in the nation, the United Auto Workers (UAW). When the automotive industry was first founded in America by Henry Ford, workers were highly monitored and although well-paid, Ford was strongly opposed to unionization, believing that the employer should control wages and benefits to secure a competitive advantage. Organized labor has traditionally embraced the causes of highly skilled 'blue collar workers,' and the automotive industry has lead the way, introducing such features to collective bargaining as "multi-year contracts with cost-of-living adjustments escalators and built-in annual real wage increases, supplementary unemployment benefits, 30 and out pensions, quality of working life programs, and pattern bargaining" (Katz 2002, p.1). It should be noted that this model does not hold true internationally in the auto industry -- in Japan, for example, workers receive relatively high wages but loyalty to the company, not a union is sacrosanct, and production methods are "linked to team working and related innovative human resource practices" that emphasize putting company interests over worker's individual interests (Katz 2002, p.1).

The steel industry, lead by the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) has also had a substantial force in the promotion of collective bargaining agreements. As well as being a skilled, blue-collar industry, the steel industry shares with automotive industry the common feature that it is deemed integral to the success of the U.S. economy as a whole, thus increasing worker's bargaining power. "Access to steel supply has been deemed an essential feature of every developing economy," (Mangum 1997, p.4).

This is one reason why in the current economic stimulus bill, protection for the steel industry were included, even though officially the U.S. does not support protectionism. Also, the American automobile industry's rehabilitation is seen as key in the redevelopment of the American economy as a whole: 'As GM goes, so goes the nation,' is the often-repeated common wisdom. Although unions are less powerful today, unions in these industries came to power and retail their power because of the importance of these industries in America's infrastructure. The Teamsters, another historically powerful union, represented workers who performed a vital service in transportation and freight-related industries, thus increasing its relative power in the American labor force.

In contrast to these powerful blue-collar workers, workers that have had little success in generating effective union membership roles and collective bargaining agreements include retail workers at establishments such as Wal-Mart. True, Wal-Mart has discouraged unionization, but so did the automotive, steel, and transportation unions at the beginning of the century. Wal-Mart employees do not possess unique skills, and are viewed as replaceable, even 'disposable' as employees. Retail workers are often employed part-time, as two part-time workers can do the same labor as one full-time worker, and be paid fewer benefits. Retail workers may be young, recent immigrants, and are more likely to be members of historically discriminated groups such as women. They thus lack the cohesive group solidarity of the United Auto Workers (UAW), the United Steel Workers of America (USWA), and the Teamsters.