2024 October Blog

Disclaimer: This work is the author’s personal views and interpretations, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Labor Guild.
By 1935, workers felt like they could finally take a deep breath as they thought their Labor fights would diminish with the passage of the Wagner Act. Labor law, which set up a playing field with the protection of the Legislative branch and the Executive branch of government that both wrote and signed it into law. However, workers did not anticipate a conservative Supreme Court that would not relent to the will of the government nor the will of the people (sound familiar?). Since the Clayton Act was appealed it was the first time under the new labor law that we see the playing field as just as tilted as it was before. Depending on who is in charge of the Supreme Court, determines who will be successful, which laws will stand, and which will fail. This is not only true with Labor but also Voting and Civil Rights which is still being played out today in the Supreme Court. It was certainly true in 1933 when the Supreme Court nullified much of Roosevelts National Industrial Recovery Act, enacted to bring industry and labor together. So much so that Roosevelt toyed with the idea of increasing the Supreme Court (called packing) with more liberal Justices to get his legislation legitimized. It wasn’t until Justice Willis Van Devanter stepped down in 1937 which broke the deadlock, and the Court packing issue went away. Are we now hearing those same chants today because of the recent Supreme Court decision?

After the Wagner Act was passed, Labor could depend on certain weapons that were protected activity: The Strike, Sit Down Strikes (which was yet to be used), Boycotts, Secondary Boycotts, Job protection and rehire of employees after a strike.

NLRB v. McKay Radio

One Supreme Court case filed just after its passage in 1935 and decided in 1938 has hamstrung labor since. Interestingly, it was not really reported on until 1941 and was not discussed in literature until 1960. Used by President Reagan in 1981 against the Air Traffic Controllers and the again in 1993 in Jay, Maine against striking paper mill workers of International Paper.

McKay Radio & Telegraph was in the business of transmitting and telegraphing messages to and from centers in the U.S. and internationally. In October of 1935, 60 of its workers in San Francisco went out on strike for a collective bargaining agreement which began to formulate nationally. In anticipation of a national strike the employer transferred workers from other areas. Sensing job loss from a possible national strike, some of the workers in San Francisco arranged a settlement to the strike. However, five of those strikers were not reinstated after the strike.

As the case moved forward it was stated that a strike was considered protected as concerted activity under the Act. It was brought out that the term employee included “any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute”, to which the Board and the Court agreed with. If the Court had stopped there, it would have been a clear win. Unfortunately, the Court went beyond the scope of the question showing that the actions against the employees came after the strike. There was evidence that the rejected workers union activity made them undesirable. The Court affirmed the right to strike but with it came the risk of being replaced. The employer had the right to protect and run the business and was not obligated to hold a spot for striking workers nor was he obligated to discharge the replacements.

Although the rejected striker remains an employee, he has a preferential claim to the prior job, if and when it becomes vacant and only if the former striker has been unable to find comparable work.

In spite of that over the next few years, Union membership soared. “Your President wants you to join a Union” was the mantra and we got strong. We began to dominate the major industries with collective bargaining agreements and recognition clauses.

The law which was favorable toward unions changed in 1947 as the muscle and organs of Labor Law began to go against labor with amendments to the Wagner Act and was renamed the Labor Management Relations Act. Also known as Taft-Hartley, passed despite a veto of the bill by President Truman. It established Section 8(b) Unfair labor practices committed by Unions against the employers. It killed secondary boycotts, hot cargo had to be handled, and it created the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service which since 1918 was known as the United States Conciliation Service within the Dept. of Labor.

In a peacetime economy the view the public had about Unions shifted with the help of our old enemies, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Chamber of Commerce and of course the Republicans. By 1947 the Communist machine was once again rolled out specifically to bring fear and mobilize against the big bad Russians and Chinese. While there was an influence of communism in unions Taft-Hartley made it law to be rid of it. Although there was some truth to it, Unions were labeled as cigar smoking thugs with baseball bats, bullying members into voting their way or engaging in unscrupulous activity. An image we still fight today. The argument our opponents put forth was that unions had become so strong that they had a strangle hold over the American economy.

It is not a coincidence that they did not mention how many times big money crippled the American economy with the Panics of the 1800’s or the Great Depression. Rather it was the Unions, and the Communists, that threatened our existence.

The tools we had come to use were becoming illegal; sit down strikes, not shipping or using hot cargo, secondary boycotts, the right to permanently replace strikers and organizing became more difficult. All the tools we used to make us strong were being whittled away.

Throughout history it has been the people that control wealth, are the people who make the rules and not in our favor. I believe I have given you enough evidence to prove that what is happening today is not new and that it is happening continually. Only when we understand as a society we are being manipulated, can we as a society change it. Thus, it matters who you vote for, for those who do get elected appoint people like themselves to run the everyday operations of government. What we have today are people in key positions reflecting the pollical view of the people who appointed them there. Workers need to pay closer attention and get involved in the process.

My studies have brought me to the conclusion that whether it be labor, apartheid, civil rights, gun control or LGBT rights; these issues influenced the courts, government, and its agencies to change the law; but only after the issue comes to the forefront of the societal mind and soul; and only after the opposition’s tactics have become so morally repugnant that a society demands change.

Unfortunately, it has taken the deaths, the beatings, the imprisonment, the character assignation and the blacklisting of the innocent to move a societal soul. And only then, when such repugnant tactics can no longer be defended, does the issue become a movement. When that happens, the movement itself becomes the very catalyst that is used to halt the injustice and change the law.