DBWI: No Taylor-Marcantonio Labor Relations Act of 1947

[David T]

Nowadays we think of the great left-wing sweep in the US midterms of 1946 as an aberration, caused by the unpopularity of President Dewey (who had won in 1944 because of the last-minute revelations about FDR's health) over postwar reconversion, inflation, etc. After all, "give 'em hell Tom" Dewey did win a surprise re-election in 1948 when things had improved.

All that is true, but we sometimes forget that the chief legislative work of the 80th Congress--the [Glen] Taylor-[Vito] Marcantonio Labor Relations Act--is still basically the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_H._Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Marcantonio Sure, the Supreme Court did decades later rule the requirement that employers sign an "anti-fascist affidavit" to be unconstitutional. But the other major provisions--the ban on permanent replacements, the legalization of secondary boycotts and mass picketing, the explicit inclusion of foremen as among those entitled to unionize, the use of card check as an alternative to elections, and the controversial section 14 (b) allowing states to mandate the union shop in all contracts--are all still in effect. Any thoughts on how America's labor relations would have been different if President Dewey's veto had been sustained?

 

[David T]

Nowadays we think of the great left-wing sweep in the US midterms of 1946 as an aberration, caused by the unpopularity of President Dewey (who had won in 1944 because of the last-minute revelations about FDR's health) over postwar reconversion, inflation, etc. After all, "give 'em hell Tom" Dewey did win a surprise re-election in 1948 when things had improved.

All that is true, but we sometimes forget that the chief legislative work of the 80th Congress--the [Glen] Taylor-[Vito] Marcantonio Labor Relations Act--is still basically the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_H._Taylor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Marcantonio Sure, the Supreme Court did decades later rule the requirement that employers sign an "anti-fascist affidavit" to be unconstitutional. But the other major provisions--the ban on permanent replacements, the legalization of secondary boycotts and mass picketing, the explicit inclusion of foremen as among those entitled to unionize, the use of card check as an alternative to elections, and the controversial section 14 (b) allowing states to mandate the union shop in all contracts--are all still in effect. Any thoughts on how America's labor relations would have been different if President Dewey's veto had been sustained?

OOC: the idea that if Dewey had won, the 1946 elections would show a swing to the left instead of to the right as in OTL does not seem to me absurd--the party in control of the White House almost always loses seats in midterms and this would be especially true in a year like 1946 when the enormous adjustments to the economy posed by the end of World War II would pose problems for any administration--and a Republican one would be especially vulnerable to charges that it had allowed inflation by ending price controls and letting "profiteers" run amok.

Even so, I have perhaps gone to the limits of realism--though I don't think I have quite arrived in ASB territory--on how left-wing the new labor law would be by having it sponsored by two of the most left-wing members of Congress and by making it a sort of Taft-Hartley in reverse. Taft-Hartley required labor leaders to sign affidavits that they were not Communists, so here I have the new law requiring businessmen to swear they are not fascists. Taft-Hartley was based on the assumption that the Wagner Act as interpreted by the NLRB was too pro-labor; this law is based on the assumption that the law especially as interpreted by the Dewey NLRB was seen as too anti-labor. I have made it take the exact opposite position as Taft-Hartley on such issues as whether supervisors could be considered "employees" subject to the benefits of the Act. Instead of it allowing states to ban the union shop, I have it allowing them to require it, etc. I do not think the ban on permanent replacements is inconceivable: as I note at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...placements-for-strikers.521962/#post-22646947 some Canadian provinces have banned even *temporary* replacements...

 

[Sam R.]

You're positing some kind of anarcho-capitalist hell like that sexual predator did. I mean this could go one of two ways:

a) Either the US is not the beneficiary of the labour / social democratic state in its fight with the Soviet Union, leading to an absence of labour intensification and labour quality via rights, wages and healthcare. Such a USA would have a workforce full of rotten teeth, long hours, gymcrack housing, cities designed for material not social capital, a low standard of general education; OR,
b) The US faces a labour movement even harder than historically. No Labour Party => IWW, CIO, Taylor-Marcantonio. No Taylor-Marcantonio => Mass Strikes, Labour Militance, A New Seattle Soviet. Possibly they might try to buy white blue collar workers off, but I doubt it.

In either case the USA is decades behind the transformation towards informational capitalism and social production: it lacks the general social skilled labour that Japan forced; or, it undergoes a hot decade or bloody revolution.

Every post-war state benefited from bringing the labour-movement inside capitalism, breaking its leg like the historical-mythical blacksmith, and then keeping it crippled and well-fed. Why would the USA go for individualised market chaos?

Today Hephaestus is even more crippled, even better fed, and bangs the hammer even harder. Imagine the US not being at the mass forefront of the latest productive technologies, and instead, only leading the world in a narrow sector of production like Czechoslovakia, West Germany or Soviet Asia.

yours,
Sam R.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

No American disease? You might usually be able to find stuff you are trying to buy in stores? Delivery orders that are filled in less than a month?