Anti-discrimination law
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the first major development in anti-discrimination law in the US, though prior civil rights legislation (such as the Civil Rights Act of 1957) addressed some forms of discrimination, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was much broader, providing protections for race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in the areas of voting, education, employment, and public accommodations. This landmark legislation led the way for other federal legislation, which expanded upon the protected classes and forms of discrimination prohibited under federal legislation, such as the Fair Housing Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act. These protections have also been expanded through the courts interpretation of these pieces of legislation. For example, the 7th and 2nd circuit courts have both ruled that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In addition to federal legislation, there are numerous state and local laws that address discrimination that is not covered by these laws.
United States labor law
Freedom of association in labor unions has always been fundamental to the development of democratic society, and is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. In early colonial history, labor unions were routinely suppressed by the government. Recorded instances include cart drivers being fined for striking in 1677 in New York City, and carpenters prosecuted as criminals for striking in Savannah, Georgia in 1746. After the American Revolution, however, courts departed from repressive elements of English common law. The first reported case, "Commonwealth v Pullis" in 1806 did find shoemakers in Philadelphia guilty of "a combination to raise their wages". Nevertheless, unions continued, and the first federation of trade unions was formed in 1834, the National Trades' Union, with the primary aim of a 10-hour working day. In 1842 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts held in "Commonwealth v Hunt" that a strike by the Boston Journeymen Bootmakers' Society for higher wages was lawful. Chief Justice Shaw held that people "are free to work for whom the please, or not to work, if they so prefer" and "to agree together to exercise their own acknowledged rights". The abolition of slavery by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War was necessary to create genuine rights to organize, but was not sufficient to ensure freedom of association. Using the Sherman Act of 1890, which was intended to break up business cartels, the Supreme Court imposed an injunction on striking workers of the Pullman Company, and imprisoned the leader, and future presidential candidate, Eugene Debs. The Court also enabled unions to be sued for triple damages in "Loewe v Lawlor", a case involving a hat maker union in Danbury, Connecticut. The President and United States Congress responded by passing the Clayton Act of 1914 to take labor out of antitrust law. Then, after the Great Depression passed the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 to positively protect the right to organize and take collective action. After that, the law increasingly turned to regulate unions' internal affairs. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 regulated how members can join a union, and the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 created a "bill of rights" for union members.
While union governance is founded upon freedom of association, the law requires basic standards of democracy and accountability to ensure members are truly free in shaping their associations. Fundamentally, all unions are democratic organizations, but they divide between those where members elect delegates, who in turn choose the executive, and those where members directly elect the executive. In 1957, after the McClellan Committee of the US Senate found evidence of two rival Teamsters Union executives, Jimmy Hoffa and Dave Beck, falsifying delegate vote counts and stealing union funds, Congress passed the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. Under §411, every member has the right to vote, attend meetings, speak freely and organize, not have fees raised without a vote, not be deprived of the right to sue, or be suspended unjustly. Under §431, unions should file their constitutions and bylaws with the Secretary of Labor and be accessible by members: today union constitutions are online. Under §481 elections must occur at least every 5 years, and local officers every 3 years, by secret ballot. Additionally, state law may bar union officials who have prior convictions for felonies from holding office. As a response to the Hoffa and Beck scandals, there is also an express fiduciary duty on union officers for members' money, limits on loans to executives, requirements for bonds for handling money, and up to a $10,000 fine or up to 5 years prison for embezzlement. These rules, however, restated most of what was already the law, and codified principles of governance that unions already undertook. On the other hand, under §501(b) to bring a lawsuit, a union member must first make a demand on the executive to correct wrongdoing before any claim can be made to a court, even for misapplication of funds, and potentially wait four months' time. The Supreme Court has held that union members can intervene in enforcement proceedings brought by the US Department of Labor. Federal courts may review decisions by the Department to proceed with any prosecutions. The range of rights, and the level of enforcement has meant that labor unions display significantly higher standards of accountability, with fewer scandals, than corporations or financial institutions.
Beyond members rights within a labor union, the most controversial issue has been how people become members in unions. This affects union membership numbers, and whether labor rights are promoted or suppressed in democratic politics. Historically, unions made collective agreements with employers that all new workers would have to join the union. This was to prevent employers trying to dilute and divide union support, and ultimately refuse to improve wages and conditions in collective bargaining. However, after the Taft-Hartley Act 1947, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 §158(a)(3) was amended to ban employers from refusing to hire a non-union employee. An employee can be required to join the union (if such a collective agreement is in place) after 30 days. But §164(b) was added to codify a right of states to pass so called "right to work laws" that prohibit unions making collective agreements to register all workers as union members, or collect fees for the service of collective bargaining. Over time, as more states with Republican governments passed laws restricting union membership agreements, there has been a significant decline of union density. Unions have not, however, yet experimented with agreements to automatically enroll employees in unions with a right to opt out. In "Machinists v Street", a majority of the US Supreme Court, against three dissenting justices, held that the First Amendment precluded making an employee become a union member against their will, but it would be lawful to collect fees to reflect the benefits from collective bargaining: fees could not be used for spending on political activities without the member's consent. Unions have always been entitled to publicly campaign for members of Congress or presidential candidates that support labor rights. But the urgency of political spending was raised when in 1976 "Buckley v Valeo" decided, over powerful dissents of White J and Marshall J, that candidates could spend unlimited money on their own political campaign, and then in "First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti", that corporations could engage in election spending. In 2010, over four dissenting justices, "Citizens United v FEC" held there could be essentially no limits to corporate spending. By contrast, every other democratic country caps spending (usually as well as regulating donations) as the original Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 had intended to do. A unanimous court held in "Abood v Detroit School Board" that union security agreements to collect fees from non-members were also allowed in the public sector. However, in "Harris v Quinn" five US Supreme Court judges reversed this ruling apparently banning public sector union security agreements, and were about to do the same for all unions in "Friedrichs v California Teachers Association" until Scalia J died, halting an anti-labor majority on the Supreme Court. In 2018, "Janus v AFSCME" the Supreme Court held by 5 to 4 that collecting union fees in public sector employees violated the First Amendment. The dissenting judges repeated that union fees merely paid for benefits of collective bargaining that non-members otherwise received for free. These factors led campaign finance reform to be one of the most important issues in the 2016 US Presidential election, for the future of the labor movement, and democratic life.