Word: taft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Opposing them, in a classic confrontation that marked his first major domestic crisis, stood President Jimmy Carter and the forces of authority at his command. "My responsibility," Carter declared on national television as he invoked the Taft-Hartley Act, "is to protect the health and safety of the American public ... The law will be enforced...
...Taft-Hartley Act, last used in 1971 against the International Longshoremen's Association, requires the United Mine Workers to return to work by this Monday for an 80-day cooling-off period. To enforce the law, Carter has an array of weapons, ranging from White House oratory to U.S. marshals and federal troops. But though the President said that the miners were "patriotic citizens [who] will comply with the law," hardly a miner in the hills of Appalachia or the flatlands of the Midwest would admit a willingness to bow to Taft-Hartley, which the union has defied twice...
Once Carter got word that the miners had solidly voted down the contract, which he himself had endorsed just six days before, confrontation was inevitable. On Monday, Carter met with 14 congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House and told them that he wanted to invoke Taft-Hartley for a "reasonable period of time." After that, he would be willing to "look at the alternatives...
...York's Republican Senator, Jacob Javits, said he thought the President was making a mistake in not calling for both Taft-Hartley and a Government seizure of the mines. The miners had said they would return to work immediately if the Government took over, but Carter apparently regarded such a move as a capitulation, encouraging other unions to seek White House intervention...
...Aubrey Robinson convened his court at 3:30 p.m., U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell argued the case for the Government. The only significant opposition came from Harrison Combs, the U.M.W.'s veteran general counsel. Reminding the court that this was his third defense of the union in a Taft-Hartley proceeding, Combs pointed out that coal is still being exported, that substantial stockpiles exist and that negotiations between union and management had resumed. (Later he admitted that the talks were only preliminary. "We were just cussing each other as usual.") Combs said the union leadership would do whatever...