popular name for the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, whose stated purpose is to protect employers' rights to resist unionization and restrict union activities. It imposes on unions many of the conditions for good faith bargaining that were imposed on management by earlier laws.
federal law (in full, Labor Management Relations Act) enacted in 1947, which restored to management in unionized industries some of the bargaining power it had lost in prounion legislation prior to World War II. Taft-Hartley prohibited a union from
- refusing to bargain in good faith
- coercing employees to join a union
- imposing excessive or discriminatory dues and initiation fees
- forcing employers to hire union workers to perform unneeded or non-existent tasks (a practice known as featherbedding)
- striking to influence a bargaining unit's choice between two contesting unions (called a jurisdictional strike)
- engaging in secondary boycotts against businesses selling or handling nonunion goods
- engaging in sympathy strikes in support of other unions Taft-Hartley also
- imposed disclosure requirements to regulate union business dealings and uncover fraud and racketeering
- prohibited unions from directly making contributions to candidates running for federal offices
- authorized the President of the United States to postpone strikes in industries deemed essential to national economic health or national security by declaring an 80-day "cooling-off period"
- permitted states to enact right-to-work laws, which outlaw compulsory unionization.
provision of federal legislation that prohibits an employer from making contributions (premium payments) directly to a union for the purchase of employee benefits; instead the contributions can be paid into a trust fund established for these purposes.
