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The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (also "LMRDA" or the Landrum–Griffin Act), is a
US labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "orga ...
that regulates labor unions' internal affairs and their officials' relationships with employers.


Background

After enactment of the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947, the number of union victories in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-conducted elections declined. During the 12-year administration of the Wagner Act, which was enacted in 1935, unions won victories in over 80 percent of elections. But in that first year after passage of the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947, unions won only around 70 percent of the representation elections conducted by the agency. During the mid-to-late 1950s, the labor movement was under intense Congressional scrutiny for corruption, racketeering, and other misconduct. Enacted in 1959 after revelations of corruption and undemocratic practices in the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...
,
International Longshoremen's Association The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is a North American labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways. The ILA h ...
,
United Mine Workers The United Mine Workers of America (UMW or UMWA) is a North American Labor history of the United States, labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing worke ...
and other unions received widespread attention, the Act requires unions to hold secret elections for local union offices on a regular basis and provides for review by the United States Department of Labor of union members' claims of improper election activity. Organized labor opposed the act because it strengthened the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947. It was sponsored by Democrat
Phil Landrum Phillip Mitchell Landrum (September 10, 1907 – November 19, 1990) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Georgia. Born in Martin, Georgia, Landrum attended the public schools and Mercer University, in Macon, Georgia. He graduated from Pie ...
and Republican
Robert P. Griffin Robert Paul Griffin (November 6, 1923 – April 16, 2015) was an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Michigan in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate and was a Justice of the ...
. The drafting was assisted by
Clyde Summers Clyde Wilson Summers (November 21, 1918 – October 30, 2010) was an American lawyer and educator who is best known for his work in advocating more democratic procedures in labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosu ...
.


Content

Important provisions of the law were as follows: * Unions had to hold secret elections, reviewable by the
Department of Labor The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...
. * Union members are protected against abuses by a bill of rights including guarantees of freedom of speech and periodic secret elections of officers. * Members of the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
and convicted felons were barred from holding union office. The bar on Communist Party members was ruled unconstitutional in 1965. * Unions had to submit annual financial reports to the DOL. * Every union officer must act as a fiduciary in handling the assets and conducting the affairs of the union. * Unions' power to put subordinate bodies in trusteeship, a temporary suspension of democratic processes within a union, was limited. * Minimum standards were made before a union could expel or take other disciplinary action against a member of the union. The LMRDA covers both workers and unions covered by the National Labor Relations Act ("Wagner Act") and workers and unions in the railroad and airline industries, who are covered by the Railway Labor Act. The LMRDA does not, as a general rule, cover public sector employees, who are not covered by either the NLRA or the RLA. The LMRDA likewise does not displace state laws governing unions' relations with their members except to the extent that those state laws would conflict with federal law. Congress also amended the National Labor Relations Act, as part of the same piece of legislation that created the LMRDA, by tightening the Taft–Hartley Act's prohibitions against
secondary boycott Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding ...
s and prohibiting certain types of "hot cargo" agreements, under which an employer agreed to cease doing business with other employers, and empowered the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board to seek an
injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in ...
against a union that engages in
recognitional picketing Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Labor (economics), work. A strike usually takes place in response to grievance (labour), employee grievance ...
of an employer for more than thirty days without filing a petition for representation with the NLRB. Union members may enforce their LMRDA rights through private lawsuit or, in some cases, throug
the US Department of Labor


Subsequent operation

Twenty years after the passage of the Act, co-sponsor Senator Robert Griffin wrote,
Today, nearly two decades after enactment, it is undeniable that the Landrum–Griffin Act has played a significant role in enabling union members to participate more freely in the affairs of their unions. On the other hand, it cannot be said that union corruption and abuses of union power have disappeared. But such conduct in the union movement is not as common as it was twenty years ago; and, in large measure, that can be credited to the existence of the Landrum–Griffin Act.
Griffin acknowledged the shortcomings, particularly with regard to the Teamsters. However, Griffin argued that the violations were contrary to the Act, placing the blame instead on the
Department of Labor The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...
for failing to pursue action against the Teamsters for its corruption.


Voting

The Act stressed for union members to be guaranteed, as part of a Bill of Rights, the right to a secret ballot on certain issues facing the union at large.29 U.S.C. §411 (1959). However, in naming certain aspects of union function, such as dues, constitution, bylaws, membership, and not others, the Act opened the door for abuses. For instance, a vote on the union constitution would require that each member have the right to see the proposed changes, distribute information in support or opposition thereof, and have their union bound by the result of the election. However, if a ratification vote was not under one of these named clauses, the protections did not apply under the Act, and union officials could act as they saw fit, regardless of the sentiment of general membership.


Collective bargaining

Likewise, the Act addressed the issue of collective bargaining but only in externalities such as reporting thereof. It did not address the question of whether such agreements required any consent from the union members or locals. Furthermore, in allowing for trusteeship in such instances, the Act allowed for union officials to exert greater control over the will of their members. In one court case on the matter, an Oklahoma City local attempted to leave one union body to affiliate with another. The original union put it under trusteeship to block the transfer, and the court upheld the move as legal under the Act. As law professor Alan Hyde put it, "the courts advance democratic bargaining only when assured that such democracy will not disadvantage more fundamental policy interests, such as harmony between employers and 'unions' (read union elites) or control of inflation."


Pensions

With regard to retiree pensions, among other secondary issues, the Act did nothing to close the loophole created by the National Labor Relations Act to allow such 'permissive' or 'not mandatory' items from being dealt with by a union employer unilaterally, a right which was upheld by the Supreme Court as late as 1971 in ''Allied Chemical Workers Local 1 v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company''. Likewise, in 1980, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of union international offices to negotiate a pension plan in conflict with that supported by the members when union bylaws allowed for approval by international.


Persuader Rule

President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
used the Act as authority to issue the "Persuader Rule", which required an employer's attorney to publicly disclose advice provided to persuade against unionization. The
National Federation of Independent Business The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is an association of small businesses in the United States. It is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with offices in Washington, D.C., and all 50 state capitals. The goal of NFIB is to a ...
sued and, on November 16, 2016, U.S. District Judge
Samuel Ray Cummings Samuel Ray Cummings (born 1944) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Education and career Born in Lubbock, Texas, Cummings received a Bachelor of Business Administra ...
issued a permanent nationwide injunction blocking the Persuader Rule, finding it was not authorized by the Act, and that it violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.


See also

*
US labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "orga ...
* National Labor Relations Act of 1935, the "Wagner Act" * Taft–Hartley Act (Labor Management Relations Act of 1947) *
List of United States federal legislation This is a chronological, but still incomplete, list of United States federal legislation. Congress has enacted approximately 200–600 statutes during each of its 115 biennial terms so that more than 30,000 statutes have been enacted since 1789. A ...


Notes


References

*JR Bellace and AD Berkowitz, ''The Landrum–Griffin Act: Twenty Years of Federal Protection of Union Members' Rights'' (1979). 363 pp. *H Benson, 'The Fight for Union Democracy' in
SM Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union ...
, ed. ''Unions in Transition: Entering the Second Century'' (1986), pp 323–370 * A Cox, 'The Role of Law in Preserving Union Democracy' (1959) 72(4) Harvard Law Review 609 * A Cox, 'Internal Affairs of Labor Unions under the Labor Reform Act of 1959' (1960) 58(6) Michigan Law Review 819-854 *AR Lee, ''Eisenhower and Landrum–Griffin: A Study in Labor-Management Politics'' (1990) 202 pp. *
SM Lipset Seymour Martin Lipset ( ; March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist (President of the American Political Science Association). His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union ...
, 'The Law and Trade Union Democracy' (1961) 47(1) Virginia Law Review 1-50 *E McGaughey, 'Democracy or Oligarchy? Models of Union Governance in the UK, Germany and US' (2017
ssrn.com
*
CW Summers Clyde Wilson Summers (November 21, 1918 – October 30, 2010) was an American lawyer and educator who is best known for his work in advocating more democratic procedures in labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosu ...
, 'American Legislation for Union Democracy' (1962) 25 MLR 273


External links


Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959PDFdetails
as amended in the GPObr>Statute Compilations collection

Amended text of LMRDA from the Department of Labor



Website of the Association for Union Democracy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Labor Management Reporting And Disclosure Act 86th United States Congress Labor relations in the United States History of labor relations in the United States United States federal labor legislation 1959 in economics 1959 in labor relations Union democracy