June 23, 1947: The Taft-Hartley Act

June 23, 1947: The Taft-Hartley Act becomes law, perhaps the most famous example of a law passing over the veto of the President of the United States.

On November 5, 1946, the 1st Congressional elections since the end of World War II were held. After 14 years of Democratic Party control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the Democrats could no longer use the Great Depression and the war's enemies, both of which they'd defeated, as an excuse for continuing some of their policies.

Many of those policies had been pro-labor. Organized labor had largely refrained from striking during The War, but with the end of the war, labor leaders were eager to share in the gains from a postwar economic resurgence.

These strikes unnerved many, including even some within the labor movement, such as the President of the Screen Actors Guild, 35-year-old second-tier movie star Ronald Reagan. Strikes within the film industry turned violent, and it began his turn from liberal to conservative. Indeed, many people weren't smart enough to understand the difference between being pro-labor and being Communist, and turned against the pro-labor Democratic Party.

And the Republican Party, which had been continually punished for having caused the Depression, had a simple slogan for the voters: "Had Enough?" They gained 55 seats in the House, making Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts the new Speaker of the House; and 12 seats in the Senate, making Wallace H. White Jr. of Maine the Senate Majority Leader, and giving serious committee chairmanships to men like Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan at Foreign Relations. The man considered the real Republican leader, though, was Robert A. Taft of Ohio, son of former President William Howard Taft, and a man so conservative, he was known as "Mr. Republican."

Among the newly-elected Congressmen were 2 future Presidents: John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts; and Richard M. Nixon, Republican of California.

Many of the newly-elected Congressmen were strongly conservative, and sought to overturn or roll back New Deal legislation such as the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which had established the right of workers to join unions, bargain collectively, and engage in strikes.

Taft and Fred Hartley, a Congressman from New Jersey, each introduced measures to curtail the power of unions and prevent strikes. Taft's bill passed the Senate by a 68-to-24 majority, but some of its original provisions were removed by moderates, like Republican Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who would later switch to the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the stronger Hartley bill garnered a 308-to-107 majority in the House of Representatives. The Taft–Hartley Bill that emerged from a conference committee incorporated aspects from both the House and Senate bills. The bill was promoted by large business lobbies, including the National Association of Manufacturers, wanting labor to be cheap again. In response, the major unions called it a "slave labor bill."

The Taft–Hartley Bill prohibited jurisdictional strikes, in which a union strikes in order to assign particular work to the employees it represents; wildcat strikes, in which unionized workers strike without union leadership's authorization, support, or approval; "solidarity" or "general" strikes, in which a union with no apparent grievance with its workers' current employer goes on strike anyway, in sympathy with another strike; and "closed shops," in which all employees must be union members.

The bill also allowed States to pass "right-to-work" laws, introducing what has been a tendency of Republican action ever since: Giving a law or agency a name that suggests the exact opposite of what it actually does. "Right-to-work" laws prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions. This proved particularly popular in the conservative South, a region where "the Party of Lincoln" had previously had very success.

The Conference Committee reported the new Taft-Hartley Bill back to Congress on June, 4, 1947. The same day, the House passed it, 320-79, meaning it had overwhelming support in both Parties. The Senate passed it 2 days later, 54-17 -- meaning that 25 Senators were not even present, not that it would have made a difference.

President Harry S Truman vetoed the bill on June 20, calling it "a dangerous intrusion on free speech." In order to override a President's veto, 2/3rds of each House of Congress must pass it. At the time, that would have meant 290 out of 435 members of the House (which is still the case), and 64 out of 96 Senators (it would now be 67 out of 100). Later in the day on June 20, the House overrode the veto, 331-83, including 106-71 among Democrats. On June 23, the Senate overrode, 68-25, including 20-22 among Democrats. In other words, in each House, the bill actually gained votes. The Taft-Hartley Act was now law, and Truman's grand popularity from right after the war was gone, and then some.

In 1948, running for a full term, Truman made repealing the Taft-Hartley Act part of his standard stump speech. The CIO's unions were fully behind him, and he won, bringing new Democratic majorities to each House of Congress with him.

But he never had full support for repealing the Act. Worse still, there were 12 times over his 1949-53 term that he actually used the Act's provisions. Organized labor felt let down, and abandoned the Democrats in the 1952 election.

Taft died in office, of cancer, in 1953. Hartley, first elected to Congress in 1928, did not run for re-election in 1948. His seat was won by Assemblyman Peter Rodino, a Democrat, and he held it for the next 40 years. Hartley lived until 1969.

The Taft-Hartley Act is still on the books. No subsequent Democratic President has mounted any effort to get it repealed: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden.

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June 23, 1947 was a Monday. Australian actor Bryan Brown was born. And these 5 baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-5 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th, to make a winning pitcher of Joe Page in relief of Bill Bevens. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4. Rookie Yogi Berra hit a home run.

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Walker Cooper hit a home run for the Giants.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ted Williams went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Washington Senators, 10-6 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 6-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Stan Musial went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.