248 a short history of the united states
A housing boom resulted in which new communities, such as Levit-
town in New York, sprang up.
Labor demanded increased wages. Unions boasted nearly 15 million
members, and their leaders were determined to seek higher wages suffi -
cient to maintain the level necessary to meet the rising cost of living. The
railroad union began a strike that threatened to paralyze the country,
whereupon Truman seized the railroads on May 17 , 1946 , and offered a
compromise settlement that eighteen unions accepted. But the engineers
and trainmen did not accept it, so the President asked Congress to grant
him the power to declare a state of national emergency whenever a strike
in a vital industry under federal control threatened national security.
Strikers would be drafted into the army, they would lose their seniority,
and the leaders would be fined and jailed. The House of Representatives
passed the measure, but the Senate did not follow suit, because by that
time the striking workers had returned to their jobs.
To further complicate the labor situation, John L. Lewis led his
United Mine Workers out on strike for higher wages and improved
working conditions. When negotiations failed, the mines were seized.
A new contract was signed granting most of Lewis’s demands, but in
October 1946 he made new ones. The government refused to budge,
supported by a federal judge’s injunction. Lewis defied the injunction
and called another strike, which resulted in a fine of $ 10 , 000 against
himself and $ 3. 5 million against the union. Another contract was
agreed upon that conceded most of Lewis’s demands, and the problem
was finally resolved in June 1947.
But the anger toward unions boiled over in Congress after the Re-
publicans won control in the midterm election of 1946. In June 1947 , the
Taft-Hartley Act, considered by some members as “the most vicious,
restrictive and destructive anti-labor bill ever brought before the House,”
was enacted. Truman vetoed it, but Congress overrode his objection.
This legislation outlawed the closed shop, in which only union mem-
bers could be hired by employers; forbade “unfair” union practices such
as secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes; permitted employers
to sue unions for damages caused by strikes; required cooling- off peri-
ods and temporary injunctions to be issued by the President when na-
tional health and safety were concerned; and forbade unions from
contributing to political parties. The act had a tremendous impact on