Revision of the Taft-Hartley Act

Archive Report

Taft-Hartley Act and the 1948 Election

Democratic Mandate to Repeal Taft-Hartley Act

Election of President Truman and a Democratic Congress on Nov. 2 foreshadowed an early and thorough overhauling of federal labor legislation. Whether the labor vote or the farm vote was primarily responsible for the President's surprise success at the polls,1 the Democrats were heavily concentrated in the rural South and West, and the election results have been widely interpreted as a mandate to repeal the Labor Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act of 1947. During the campaign President Truman and other Democratic candidates called repeatedly for that action, and the labor plank of their party platform led off with the unequivocal statement: “We advocate the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act.”

Democratic campaigners emphasized repeal and no more, ...

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