A Fair Deal: The progressive America

[Blackadder mk 2]

So how is the Conservative Coalition going to be dealt with ITTL?

[Mr Progressive]

1946: The year of the union strike and righteously so. In April of 1946, Republican senator and conservative firebrand Robert Taft introduce a bill with New Jersey representative Fred A. Harley Jr that will forever be known as Taft-Hartley. The purpose of the bill was to limit the power labor unions had in post war America. This bill will cause many conservatives and business to be pleased while liberals and labor unions are going to be dissatisfied with business having more power to bust labor unions. Harry Truman stated that regardless of whatever the majority votes for the bill, he'll plan to veto the bill, citing the pro business agenda that will harm millions of working class Americans, who make up the majority of unions.

In selection 1, the bill states:


"To promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce".

[historybuff]

Let the battle begin.

[Kidblast]

Don't forget about the Supreme Court!

[Blackadder mk 2]

So how will Truman get around having his veto overridden by majorities of both parties, seeing as you're going for a "Fair Deal Succeeds" TL?

[Mr Progressive]

How the Senate voted on Public Broadcasting Act sponsored by representative Helen Douglas and senator Robert Wagner


Republicans

Yea-52

Nay-6

Democrats:

Yea-42

Nay-1






On April 16, 1946, President Truman signs the bill into law and the bill will be effective by early next year.

[tiggerfan]

Originally Posted by Blackadder mk 2

So how is the Conservative Coalition going to be dealt with ITTL?

Simple... make their views illegal <SMIRK>

[Nofix]

I like were this is going, two questions though:

-How will this effect the 1948, and 1952 elections, as in will he run/be more popular?

-How will civil rights be forwarded? You can't have a Truman timeline without some civil rights in the mix.

[CaliBoy1990]

Originally Posted by Van555

I like where this is going.

Yep. And hopefully marijuana will be legal again in another 20 years or so....maybe be 1969 or so?

[Mr Progressive]

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a nation today where the political climate is the kind of political climate that the Founding Fathers were trying to move us away from. This is a culture where collectivism is trumping over individualism, where more radical proposals such as universal health care is going to turn the country that Jefferson built, that would make such despicable creatures such as Joseph Stalin proud. We have this Washington culture where my party is pretty much mini statism to the mega statism party that occupies our White House right now. It's time to kick out the elitists out of Washington and time to bring back liberty to the greatest country on Earth. I'm telling you average folks to get your ass up and vote out the Demorats on November 5. Together, we will bring back the prosperity times of the 1920's, when Calvin Coolidge led a nation of America that finally experience the free market goals that help shape our country and defeated the statist views of Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats".


-Robert Taft, interview with CBS, on May 1, 1946.

[TxCoatl1970]

All you gotta say to Taft is it's taken twenty years to clean up the mess left by Coolidge's free market policies! Let's not forget 1929 and Hoover's contribution to the Great Depression.
Statism isn't the only solution, but its the one that nationally meets capable individuals halfway to deal with a national problem.

I'm of several minds about Taft-Hartley.
Even as a fervently pro-union blue collar type, I'm really against closed shops.

I've seen both sides of it- unions can be really helpful in getting sane work rules passed, making pensions available to folks whose companies might not have funded directly and so forth.
I've also seen the incestuous, feather-bedding nonsense that makes me embarrassed to be associated with such shenanigans.

It's easy for me to say this in 2012. In 1950- unions had barely emerged from getting the crap kicked out of them during the 1930's and viewed as traitors during work stoppages during wartime.

There needed to be a grand bargain between unions being allowed to organize
and businesses to have a set of ground rules re: strikes and what were allowable concessions by unions for the health of the business.

IIRC unions had made a lot of devil's bargains to stay fully employed at the expense of job safety from the 1940's on that OSHA had to address twenty years later.

The reason I bring this up is that unions were viewed as adversaries by business owners and unions found themselves arguing for ever-better work conditions at the expense of profitability.

Finding a way out of that trap, and for unions to find a way to integrate the white-collar workers and minorities into their ranks as well makes it less about class and more about finding and keeping what works best for most that would ensure a healthy union movement into the next century.

With that rant over, I love the ideas of NHS, BBC-US, and so forth. Truman would have been able to make the tough calls and pushed the bills through.
Lots of tasty POD's in this!

[Mr Progressive]

-Harry Truman response to Robert Taft




"Mr Taft, I've known you and your dirty thug of scoundrels all too well. I understand that most of your beliefs collide with my personal views on how government should be run. However, I'm not going down with losing the battle. The dirty tackles of attacking my administration, such as those that involve me being a Communist sympathizer and that I'm imposing a totalitarian government that will ruin the lives of the American people, that I detest the Founding Fathers and want my country to read the work of "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto". What these imbeciles don't understand is just because a ideology is authoritarian doesn't mean it's the same as another authoritarian ideology. My ideals are in the vein of big government, except my ideals benefit the people of this great world power instead of dragging us back into another depression. I believe in a good, efficent government, not a government thar triumphs civil liberties nor a government that let's the weak left on it's own.There is a reason why the Democratic party has hold control of the White House for over thirteen years now, it's all because of the laissez fire "free market can do no wrong" policies that your party pushed that plauges us into the Great Depression, Mr Taft. I suggest you go into a time machine and fast forwarded to 2000, ask current day people of that time who they currently view more favorable, FDR or Calvin Coolidge, I'm guarentee you that 65% of the people will say the man that brought happy days again to America.

[historybuff]

Nice shot Harry.
Hope taft's brought down a few pegs, same goes for McCarthy.

[Mr Progressive]

Originally Posted by historybuff

Nice shot Harry.
Hope taft's brought down a few pegs, same goes for McCarthy.

McCarthy is going to have the worst nightmare of his life, his adventure of lies about suspects being communists are not going have the influence that it did on 1950's America.

[historybuff]

Wonder what's gonna go wrong with his adventure.

[TheMann]

Originally Posted by Mr Progressive

McCarthy is going to have the worst nightmare of his life, his adventure of lies about suspects being communists are not going have the influence that it did on 1950's America.

You can't say this and not tell us what ya have in mind!

[metastasis_d]

Interested. Subscribed.

[Mr Progressive]

-Harry Truman speaking to large audience of union members at Chicago Stadium, on June 13, 1946

[starwarsfan]

Nice TL, I cant wait for some more updates

[phx1138]

Originally Posted by TxCoatl1970

All you gotta say to Taft is it's taken twenty years to clean up the mess left by Coolidge's free market policies! Let's not forget 1929 and Hoover's contribution to the Great Depression.
Statism isn't the only solution, but its the one that nationally meets capable individuals halfway to deal with a national problem.

I'm of several minds about Taft-Hartley.
Even as a fervently pro-union blue collar type, I'm really against closed shops.

I've seen both sides of it- unions can be really helpful in getting sane work rules passed, making pensions available to folks whose companies might not have funded directly and so forth.
I've also seen the incestuous, feather-bedding nonsense that makes me embarrassed to be associated with such shenanigans.

It's easy for me to say this in 2012. In 1950- unions had barely emerged from getting the crap kicked out of them during the 1930's and viewed as traitors during work stoppages during wartime.

There needed to be a grand bargain between unions being allowed to organize
and businesses to have a set of ground rules re: strikes and what were allowable concessions by unions for the health of the business.

IIRC unions had made a lot of devil's bargains to stay fully employed at the expense of job safety from the 1940's on that OSHA had to address twenty years later.

The reason I bring this up is that unions were viewed as adversaries by business owners and unions found themselves arguing for ever-better work conditions at the expense of profitability.

Finding a way out of that trap, and for unions to find a way to integrate the white-collar workers and minorities into their ranks as well makes it less about class and more about finding and keeping what works best for most that would ensure a healthy union movement into the next century.

I agree with most of this. Unions need to get business leaders to realize they're in a partnership: without labor, there's no product; without business, there's no jobs.

Is the psychology in place in the late '40s to propose improving working conditions as a way to improve productivity? Like more natural light, less noise, so forth. My thinking is, generally, workers that feel like partners will put in a little extra to make the product better. Even things as simple as suggestion boxes--which management actually pays attention to.

I think time-motion studies had been done already (or soon would be), which also make the job easier, & also improve productivity...

On *PBS/*ABBC: wouldn't the very private enterprise-oriented U.S. simply mandate a "public interest" component to broadcasters, much as the OTL documentary rule? (Since TV networks were using public airways, after all...)

While you're at it, can you change the tax code to eliminate (or drastically change) the credit for new equipment that ended up being abused in the '80s to do LBOs, instead? And the deduction for past losses...?

Any chance of rewriting the 1872 Homestead Act, to wipe out the giveaways to mining companies?

Also, if it's not too late for it, can you amend the G.I. Bill to encourage purchase of older homes, rather than only new ones, to help slow sprawl? (The Interstate system gets the blame for this a lot, but the G.I. Bill actually did more harm.)

BTW: subscribed. This is looking like it could get really interesting.