The Impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on Union Strength and Collective Bargaining

Although labor leaders today seldom characterize the Taft-Hartley as the "Slave Labor Act," they remain convinced that the Act was designed primarily to cripple union strength and to impair the workings of free collective bargaining. In this article, the author emphasizes that the experience of the past decade has shown that the Act has had differing effects on the two major aspects of union strength: unions have been somewhat impeded in their efforts to organize the unorganized, but their bargaining power in organized situations has been little affected. Similarly, he shows that, while the bargaining tactics and procedures of the parties have been altered in some respects, the essential power relationships have been little disturbed. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)