“Public Responsibilities . . . Public Wrongs”"In the late 1940s, large labor unions and major corporations worked out an accord that would guide labor-management relations for the next quarter century. During this period, unions benefited from high wages and relative stability, while relegating company decision-making to management. Many workers in certain geographic areas and sectors of employment, however, were not affected by the accord. In “union-free” Gainesville, Georgia, union representatives had started to organize a predominately female workforce in a large poultry plant. In the following statement to a House subcommittee on labor-management relations, Roy F. Scheurich, vice-president of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America related a violent mob attack led by company officials. Joseph M. Jacobs, the union’s general counsel, then argued that language in the Taft-Hartley Act, which regulated labor-management relations, allowed employers “apparent immunity” from legal responsibility for mob violence against labor representatives unless direct involvement could be proven. The Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947 by a Republican-led Congress over President Harry S. Truman’s veto, amended provisions of the 1935 Wagner Act. Jacobs argued for restoration of the Wagner Act’s language. In September 1951, one month after this hearing, a trial examiner for the National Labor Relations Board held the Jewell Company liable for instigating the riot described in the statement." GMU History Matters