Landrum‐Griffin Act (1959).By 1958, nearly a decade of well‐publicized hearings by congressional committees had saturated the public with stories of corruption in labor unions, especially by the Teamsters' union presidents David Beck and the even more ruthless Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1975). In this climate, legislators formulated federal legislation to curb union power and make unions more democratic, a drive that peaked in the second Dwight D.
Eisenhower administration.
Two senators with presidential ambitions played a role as John F.
Kennedy developed legislation acceptable to the AFL‐CIO while Lyndon B.
Johnson, the democratic majority leader, guided it through the Senate. The Eisenhower administration, however, supported legislation that business interests preferred. Through effective staff work, a public appeal by the popular president, and a canny use of a bipartisan pair of congressmen as sponsors— Phillip Landrum, a Democrat, and Robert Griffin, a Republican—the administration built sufficient support among antiunion congressmen to enact its bill.
The Labor‐Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (Landrum‐Griffin) required the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to referee internal union affairs. It circumscribed boycotts and forms of picketing that teamsters and other unions used to establish their power. It also empowered the NLRB to conduct and supervise union elections, to ensure democratic procedures, to require financial reporting and bonding of union officials, and to outlaw embezzlements and misuse of union funds. Landrum‐Griffin, however, failed to meet its authors' expectations, contained ill‐considered provisions, and ignored certain vital problems in
industrial relations. This law and the
Taft‐Hartley Act did combine to dilute the original promise of the
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 to promote industrial democracy through independent unionism.
See also
Fifties, The;
Labor Movements.
Bibliography
Alan K. Adams , Power and Politics in Labor Legislation, 1964.
R. Alton Lee , Eisenhower and Landrum‐Griffin, 1990.
R. Alton Lee
