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Here’s an opinion on this recent issue, certain to come up soon
again. I’ve learned that the T-H
Act can only be invoked once. So
this winter, despite further lockouts, slow work stoppages or outright strikes,
the same economic standstill is possible.
Not good prospects for Q4 or 2003 Q1 but gets past the November midterm
elections. I could make a snide comment about the Bush administration’s alleged
disdain for the legal profession while heavily using it whenever it gets in a
crunch, but you’d expect that from me anyway. Also note that a House committee voted without dissent to
override the Bush executive order on White House papers and top DEMs have asked
for the SEC chairman’s resignation.
Politics are ratcheting up.
. - KWC Better Laws to Settle
the Port Labor Dispute
By WILLIAM B. GOULD IV, NYT 10.10.02 PORTLAND, Ore. — The last time a president tried to invoke the
Taft-Hartley Act, which provides for federal intervention if a strike or
lockout threatens "national health or safety," he failed. In 1978, a federal judge rejected
President Jimmy Carter's effort to use the act to halt a coal miners' strike. President Bush's invocation of the act this week to end the
management lockout of the longshore workers' union on the West Coast is likely
to be more successful, particularly if the evidence shows that national
security is imperiled. The growth
of globalization should make the court even more receptive to the president's
argument, and courts have been willing to grant injunctions in past port
disputes. But while invoking Taft-Hartley may be a smart legal strategy, it is fundamentally
flawed as a labor policy. The Taft-Hartley procedures tend to inflame
labor-management passions rather than promote the dialogue and compromise that
are the necessary elements of collective bargaining. Management's willingness to compromise is dissipated by the
knowledge that the federal government can intervene. The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, allows the president to seek an injunction against a work
stoppage. If the courts grant it,
there is an 80-day cooling-off period, during which the two sides may negotiate
under the supervision of a federal mediator. If they are still unable to reach an agreement after 80
days, the workers can go on strike or management can lock them out; in effect,
the dispute is no further toward resolution. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents
10,500 workers on the West Coast, has been working without a contract since
Sept. 1. On Sept. 29, shippers and
port operators shut down 29 West Coast ports, saying the union was engaging in
a work slowdown. But the lockout
was also meant to produce White House intervention. An injunction would allow companies to begin shipping again
and, in the process, diminish their willingness to bargain through January. Posted east of Portland, Oregon and west of
Mt Hood. Outgoing mail scanned by
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