November 7 Taft-Hartley’s Effect on Labor

On this day in Labor History the year was 1959. 

That was the day that the US Supreme Court handed down a decision that would be a blow to the cause of labor. 

Striving for the kind of major gains they had won in 1956.

The half a million members of United Steelworkers of America once again went out on strike. 

The steel industry was extremely profitable and the workers demanded to share in the fruits of their labor. 

Management wanted the ability to introduce new technology and policies to cut hours and employees. 

The strike wore on for more than 100 days. 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the steelworkers back to the plants. 

He argued that the Taft-Hartley act gave him the legal means to issue the order. 

A decade earlier Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto as a way to curtail union rights. 

The Steelworkers protested the constitutionality of the law, all the way to the Supreme Court. 

The union lost. 

In making its decision, the court referenced President Eisenhower’s explanation of the impact of the strike.  “The strike has closed 85 percent of the nation's steel mills, shutting off practically all new supplies of steel. Over 500,000 steel workers and about 200,000 workers in related industries, together with their families, have been deprived of their usual means of support. Present steel supplies are low, and the resumption of full-scale production will require some weeks. If production is not quickly resumed, severe effects upon the economy will endanger the economic health of the nation."

The next January, the union and management signed a new contract. 

The workers received a 7 cents an hour raise, a new automatic cost-of-living adjustment, improvements to their pension and health care benefits, job protections against proposed automation.