“labor management”

law—enacted over the veto of President Harry S. Truman—amending much of the pro-union National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935. While preserving the rights of labor to organize and to bargain collectively, the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 additionally guaranteed employees the right not to join unions (outlawing the closed shop); permitted union shops only where state law allowed and where a majority of workers voted for them; required unions to give 60 days' advance notification of a strike; authorized 80-day federal injunctions when a strike threatened to imperil national health or safety; narrowed the definition of unfair labor practices; specified unfair union practices; restricted union political contributions; and required union officers to deny under oath any Communist affiliations. The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure (Landrum-Griffin) Act of 1959 set further union restrictions, barring secondary boycotts and limiting the right to picket.

instituted federal penalties for labor officials who misused union funds, who had been found guilty of specific crimes, or who had violently prevented union members from exercising their legal rights. The Act contained other provisions that strengthened parts of the Labor Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act, which was detested by nearly all elements of organized labor. These provisions included a strict ban on secondary boycotts (union efforts to stop one employer from dealing with another employer who is being struck or boycotted) and greater freedom for individual states to set the terms of labor relations within their borders. The latter provision hampered labor organizing in the South, the least unionized region in the United States.