Labor Law: Stopping Public-Employee Strikes

"There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, at any time," declared Massachusetts' Governor Calvin Coolidge when he broke the Boston police strike in 1919. "A strike of public employees is unthinkable and intolerable," added President Roosevelt in 1937. On pain of one year's imprisonment, federal employees are forbidden even to belong to a union that advocates strikes; other bans against public-employee strikes are on the books in eleven states, ranging from New York to Hawaii. And even without specific laws, the country's courts have almost universally upheld Government authority and enjoined public-employees' strikes...

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