> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of JKSCHW at aol.com
> As I said. I largely agree
> with his appraisal of federal labor law since Taft-Hartley, which Nathan's
> beloved Democrats never got around to repealing when they had both houses of
> Congress and even the Presidency, and the crumby caselaw around which was
> made in no small part by the Warren Court.
To abandon the issue of lawyers and move to a labor law discussion, the fact is that Democratic-led majorities in the House have repeatedly voted to reform the labor law, only to be defeated by Republican-led filibusters in the Senate.
In 1965, elimination of "right-to-work" provisions - section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act - was passed in legislation by a vote of 221-203 only to be defeated by a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate, despite a bare majority of Senators voting for cloture.
To give labor leadership some credit for vision, they refused GOP leader Everett Dirksen's offer to allow the legislation to pass if labor would drop opposition to a constitutional amendment to reverse the recent Supreme Court decision requiring "one man, one vote" reapportionment of state legislatures.
In 1978, the Democratic-led House passed the Labor Law Reform Bill that would have strengthened the NLRB, sped up union recognition elections, stiffened fines against illegal firings, given union organizers access on site to workers during election campaigns, deny federal contracts to any company violating labor laws, and create economic penalties for failure of companies to negotiate contracts in good faith. The legislation passed by a vote of 257 to 163.
Yet the bill could get only 58 votes in the Senate, two short of those needed to defeat the GOP-led filibuster in the Senate.
In 1993, the Democratic-led House passed the Workplace Fairness Act to ban the use of permanent replacement in strikes. The vote was 239- 190 for passage. But again, it could get only 53 votes in the Senate, too few to overcome the GOP-led filibuster.
There are plenty of criticisms of the Democrats, but failing to support labor reform is not a valid one. Under Johnson, Carter and Clinton you have had a President and majorities in both Congress supporting labor law reform, only to be defeated by GOP-led filibusters in the Senate.
-- Nathan Newman