[...] In the postwar furor, business leaders characterized unions as fat, greedy, corrupt, and decidedly un-American. They demanded that Congress amend the Wagner Act, complaining that the law gave unions an insurmountable advantage over management. Executives charged that by protecting unions, but not management, from improper practices during organizing drives and elections, the Wagner Act allowed unions to be coercive, to threaten, and to intimidate workers at will. They just wanted to level the playing field. In 1947 Congress bowed to management's wishes. After a prolonged and stormy debate, conservative Congressmen won passage of a sweeping labor reform law, overriding the veto by President Harry S Truman, who condemned the law as designed primarily to weaken unions. Commonly referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act, the 1947 law attacks unions on almost every front. To this day union leaders consider the Taft-Hartley Act a primary cause of labor's failure to organize the majority of American workers. Among the law's most significant provisions are the establishment of unfair labor practices that can be charged against unions; a listing of specific "employer rights" available to management during union-organizing efforts, including a broad freedom of expression; an outright ban on the closed shop, in which union membership is a precondition of employment; and an open invitation to states to pass even more restrictive legislation. One provision, since removed from the law, required union officers to file affidavits proclaiming that they had no affiliation to the Communist party. Taft-Hartley was devastating to labor. It led to a proliferation of state legislation disingenuously called "right to work" laws, which prohibit mandatory union dues; perpetuated the red baiting that already haunted the labor movement; and loaded management's union-busting arsenal with complicated restrictions on fundamental union activities. Executives and their consultants knew that with the Taft-Hartley amendments in place, employers would enjoy freedom in combating worker organizations. Management always had the upper hand, of course; they had never lost it. But thanks to Taft-Hartley, the bosses could once again wage their war with near impunity.