Legislatively, rebuilding labor will require at long last the repeal of the most repressive anti-labor law ever to visit the halls of congress: The Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1945. An amendment to the National Labor Relations Act, it extended the concept of “unfair labor practices” to labor itself. It prohibited wildcat, jurisdictional, political and solidarity strikes.
It banned secondary boycotts, closed shops and secondary picketing. It enabled states to pass “right to work” laws [2] effectively prohibiting the right to organize. It enabled the federal government to break strikes by injunction, which Ronald Reagan famously employed to break the air traffic controllers strike in the 1970’s. All of these prohibitions tear at the fundamental rights to organize the workforce and effectively represent their interests. None have a place in a modern democracy.