LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS AND DEMOCRACY: THE WAGNER AND TAFT-HARTLEY ACTS

Recent events suggest that labor-management relations in the United States are in a state of flux and transition. The purpose of this dissertation is to consider the history and implications of the Taft-Hartley Act, perhaps the most significant piece of labor legislation since the end of World War II. Data utilized include Congressional hearings and debate, various government studies, a wide range of secondary works in the fields of economics, politics and history, and contemporary journals and newspapers.;It was found that opposition to the Wagner Act, which was aimed at guaranteeing the right of workers to organize, was linked with broader movements aimed at reversing the social reforms of the New Deal era and weakening Roosevelt's opposition to the Axis offensive. Opposition to the Wagner Act was led by some of the nation's leading industrialists, operating through organizations, such as the National Association of Manufacturers and others, some of which were openly racist and anti-democratic in nature. The Taft-Hartley Act, which revised the Wagner Act, was in large part the product of a coalition of Northern and Southern conservative interests committed to states' rights, racial segregation and weak labor unions. It also weakened majority rule and democratic procedure and contributed to a larger effort that shifted the nation's political center to the right.;The study hypothesized that political conflict in the United States, at least since the time of the Great Depression, must be understood in light of what is called the paradox of productivity. This refers to the co-existence of relative surplus wealth and productive power, in the form of overproduction of goods and unutilized productive capacity, and widespread poverty and social inequality. It was further hypothesized that this contradiction has given rise to conflicting, democratic and anti-democratic modes of political solution.