BY PETER OLNEY
David Feller has been retired from teaching
at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School for many years. It’s
been longer since he’s argued in Federal District Court,
as general counsel for the United Steelworkers of America, against
the use of the Taft-Hartley law. Suddenly, Feller is an oft-quoted
public personality as the press and electronic media desperately
search out experts who can explain the ramifications of President
Bush’s use of Taft-Hartley to end an employer lockout
of West Coast dockworkers.
There was a time, however, when most Americans
understood what Taft-Hartley meant. Shortly after World War
II, a wave of major strikes resulted in significant wage increases
and benefit improvements for union members who had delayed achieving
their aspirations to further the war effort. Raving that labor
had become too powerful, big-business associations demanded
that the Republican-controlled Congress provide them with legislative
relief.
In 1947, they got their wish when Sen. Robert
Taft (R-Ohio) and Rep. Fred Hartley (R-N.J.) introduced sweeping
legislation, dubbed the Taft-Hartley Act. Its provisions greatly
restricted the rights of unions and enabled the president, after
determining that a strike or lockout endangered “the national
economic health and security,” to mandate an 80-day cooling-off
period, forcing workers back on the job. Congress passed the
Taft-Hartley Act over the veto of Democratic President Harry
Truman. Labor denounced it as union-busting, understanding that
giving the president the power to stop worker strikes —
under threat of financial penalties and imprisonment —
could radically shift the balance of power in favor of employers.
In 1959, when President Eisenhower went to court
to seek a Taft-Hartley injunction against the steelworkers,
Feller argued that the court should rule on whether the “health
of the citizenry” was endangered, not just the narrow
interests of big business. Feller did not prevail, but the argument
is as valid today as it was then. The good wages and benefits
that the dockworkers union has secured for its members are an
important source of economic development for the communities
they live in.
At the heart of the dispute between the Pacific
Maritime Association (PMA) and the union is the question of
the quality of jobs created by new technology. The union is
demanding that all new jobs remain in its jurisdiction; the
PMA is unwilling to make that guarantee. From the union’s
point of view, the PMA is writing a recipe for community extinction.
Deunionization leads to the creation of low-wage jobs providing
few or no benefits, amounting to a wholesale disinvestment in
working-class communities up and down the West Coast.
During the 1997 Teamster strike at United Parcel
Service, President Clinton wisely resisted pressure to invoke
Taft-Hartley powers, and the two sides settled after a three-week
strike. President Bush’s actions, on the other hand, may
only aggravate the situation.
The docks are humming now, but the dispute is
far from over and there is no resort to a second cooling-off
period. In 1971, President Nixon imposed the 80-day cooling-off
period on the dockworkers, but at the end of that period, the
union struck for 134 days. Cooling off or heating up? Stay tuned
for Dec. 28th.
Olney is associate director of the UC
Institute for Labor and Employment.
