Collection: The Journal of Policy History

View: “Compulsory Unionism” and Its Critics: The National Right to Work Committee, Teacher Unions, and the Defeat of Labor Law Reform in 1978

“Compulsory Unionism” and Its Critics: The National Right to Work Committee, Teacher Unions, and the Defeat of Labor Law Reform in 1978

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In 1977, a bill to better enforce the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) sailed quickly through the House of Representatives. Facing a Senate filibuster, its proponents weakened the proposal—making it, according to historian Jefferson Cowie, “lean, moderate, and basically unchallenging to the corporate order.”