June 23rd marks 75 years since Congress overrode President Truman’s veto and passed the Taft-Hartley Act, ushering in the modern era of union regulation. Since then, union leaders have fought to escape its confinements, their latest attempt being the “Protecting the Right to Organize” (PRO) Act. But over the last four generations, we’ve lost sight of the fact that Taft-Hartley was more about labor monopolies than anti-union sentiment.
Labor advocates are understandably worried about the future of unions, which have experienced a steady decline in relevance. In 1954, union membership peaked at 28.3 percent of workers. Today, that number is just 10.3 percent. Roughly half of those are government employees, meaning only 1-in-16 private sector workers is a union member.
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