Landrum-Griffin Act

Landrum-Griffin Act 1959, passed by the U.S. Congress, officially known as the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. It resulted from hearings of the Senate committee on improper activities in the fields of labor and management, which uncovered evidence of collusion between dishonest employers and union officials, the use of violence by certain segments of labor leadership, and the diversion and misuse of labor union funds by high-ranking officials. The act provided for the regulation of internal union affairs, including the regulation and control of union funds. Former members of the Communist party and former convicts are prevented from holding a union office for a period of five years after resigning their Communist party membership or being released from prison. Union members are protected against abuses by a bill of rights that includes guarantees of freedom of speech and periodic secret elections. Secondary boycotting and organizational and recognition picketing (i.e., picketing of companies where a rival union is already recognized) are severely restricted by the act. In the field of arbitration, an amendment to the Taft-Hartley Labor Act (1947) written into this 1959 act authorized states to process cases that fall outside the province of the National Labor Relations Board. Organized labor has, in general, opposed the act for strengthening what they consider the antilabor provisions of the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.

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