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92 Monthly Lab. Rev. 14 (1969)
Public Employee Unions and the Right to Strike

handle is hein.journals/month92 and id is 286 raw text is: Public employee unions and the right to strike AN INCREASINO number of unions and employee associations in public service are reexamining the use of strikes to resolve contract disputes. For many years, government employee unions volun- tarily included no-strike pledges in their constitu- tions or operated under longstanding resolutions condemning strikes. However, at their 1968 con- ventions, two postal unions, the Fire Fighters, and the National Association of Government Em- ployees deleted their no-strike clauses and directed further studies on the strike issue. These changes in attitude toward the strike occur at the end of a decade during which the number of strikes by public employees has risen steadily. In 1966-67 alone, strikes in the public sector, at the State and local levels, caused more idle man-days and involved more workers than strikes in all the preceding 8 years (1958-65).' Antistrike legislation Federal antistrike laws date from a 1912 pro- hibition directed at postal employees, who were granted the right to organize but were not allowed to join unions asserting the right to strike. Over the years this bar was extended to cover other Fed- eral employees. In 1947, the Taft-Hartley law re- affirmed this traditional rio-strike policy: It shall be unlawful for any individual employee of the United .States or any agency thereof including wholly owned government corporations to participate in any strike. Any Individual employed by the United States or any agency, who strikes, shall be discharged immediately from his employment and shall forfeit his civil service status, if any, and shall not be eligible for reemployment for 3 years by the United States in any such agency.' Executive Order 10988, issued in January 1962, formalized the Federal Government's policy to- Anne M. Ross is an economist in the Division of Indus- trial Relations, Bureau of Labor Statistics. . 14 More government workers challenge no-strike bans and attempt to extend their rights ANNE M. ROSS ward employee organizations, stating that no em- ployee organization which asserted the right to strike could be recognized. In addition, under the Code of Fair Labor Practices, employee organiza- tions are prohibited from calling or engaging in a strike or any related actionA Under Public Law 330 (1955), as amended, individuals are subject to a $1,000 fine and a year and a day in jail for strik- ing, asserting the right to strike, or knowingly belonging to an organization which asserts the right to strike. As a condition of employment, Federal employees must sign an affidavit pledging not to violate the antistrike ban. Since 1946, appro- priation bills have included provisions forbidding the payment of salaries to any member of an orga- nization asserting the right to strike against the United States.' Although 29 States grant -the right to organize and 16 States order or permit collective bargain- ing in some form for State or local employees, 35 States, by law and court decisions, prohibit strikes., The Condon-Wadlin Act (1947) in New York State, a model for antistrike legislation dur- I James T. Hall, Jr.. Work Stoppages In Government. Monthly Labor Review, July 1968, p. 53. 'Public Law 101 (61 Star. 136) ; Penalties amended by Public Law 330 (69 Stat. 624). 3 In losing recognltlon, dues checkoff, granted In January 1964, Is also lost. See Federal Personnel Manual, October 10, 1963, Attachment 2. Sec. F, Ch. 550-55. It is estimated that dues pay- ments for Federal employees amounts to ;23,250,000 per year; see Vernoa Gill, speech to National Conference of the Society for Personnel Administration, Washington, D.C., June 6, 1968. 4 See Herbert R. Northrup and Gordon F. Bloom, Government and Labor: The Role of Government in Union-Management Rela- tions (Homewood, Ill., Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1963), p. 459. 'As of December 31, 1967. Laws refer only to State and local public employees. See Joseph Goldberg, Labor-Management Re- lations Laws in the Public Service, Monthly Labor Review, June 1968, pp. 48-55; Report of the Task Force on State and Local Government Labor Relations, 1967, National Governors Conference, p. 28 If and Appendices; Richard S. Rubin, A Sum- mary of Stats Collective Bargaining Laws in Public Employment (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, 1968), Public Employee Rela- lons Reports. Information on States granting the right to organize was obtained from the Bureau of Labor Standards.

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