United Federal Workers of America
Encyclopedia
The United Federal Workers of America (UFWA) was an American
labor union
representing federal government employees which existed from 1937 to 1946. It was the first union with this jurisdiction established by the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(a national labor federation
), and one of the unions which merged in 1946 to form the influential United Public Workers of America
. The union challenged the constitutionality
of the Hatch Act of 1939
, which led to the Supreme Court
decision in United Public Workers v. Mitchell
, 330 U.S. 75 (1947).
The union is sometimes confused with the United Public Workers of America
, its successor union.
(CIO) formed a new union for U.S. government employees, the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA), from local unions which had disaffiliated from the American Federation of Labor
-affiliated American Federation of Government Employees
(AFGE). The UFWA's membership, however, remained static (as did the membership of nearly all federal government unions in the 1930s). Much of the UFWA leadership was leftist
. The leadership was militant in its advocacy of the rights of its members and most of the national and local union leadership advocated leftist ideals; associated with left-wing intellectuals, activists, and political people; and supported left-wing organizations. This led many politicians and others to believe the organization was Communist-controlled.
The political leanings of the UWFA led to passage of two pieces of legislation intended to restrict its political activities. In June 1938, Congress passed a rider
to appropriations legislation with prevented the federal government from making payments (such as salaries) to any person or organization which advocated the overthrow of the federal government (as many communist organizations at the time proposed). In 1939, Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939
, which restricted political campaign activities by federal employees. A provision of the Hatch Act made it illegal for the federal government to employ anyone who advocated the overthrow of the federal government. The UFWA hired lawyer Lee Pressman
to challenge the constitutionality of the Hatch Act.
On April 25, 1946, the State, County, and Municipal Workers of America
(SCMWA) merged with the UFWA to form the United Public Workers of America
. The impetus for the merger was the relative failure of the UFWA to attract new members, and SCMWA essentially absorbed the smaller federal union.
The union's long-standing lawsuit against the Hatch Act of 1939 finally reached the Supreme Court in 1947. In United Public Workers v. Mitchell
, 330 U.S. 75 (1947), the Supreme Court of the United States
upheld the Act. Writing for the majority, Associate Justice
Stanley Forman Reed
argued that the Hatch Act did not infringe on the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free association
but rather on rights guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment
(guaranteeing non-enumerated rights to the people) and Tenth Amendment
(guaranteeing non-enumerated rights to the states). These rights were not absolute, and could be subordinated to the "elemental need for order" without which all rights ceased to function. Additionally, the non-enumerated rights of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were subordinate to the enumerated rights granted to the federal government by the Constitution. Reed upheld the Hatch Act as a legitimate exercise of the enumerated rights of the federal government. The decision in United Public Workers v. Mitchell relied heavily on the "doctrine of privilege," a legal doctrine that held that public employment was a privilege (not a right) and subsequently significant restrictions could be placed on public employees that could not be constitutionally tolerated in the private sector. United Public Workers v. Mitchell proved to be the last gasp of the doctrine of privilege. The Supreme Court openly rejected the doctrine in Wieman v. Updegraff
, 344 U.S. 183 (1952), and a wide number of high court decisions in areas such as nonpartisan
speech, due process
, search and seizure
, the right to marry
, the right to bear children, equal protection
, education, and receipt of public benefits over the next two decades continued to undermine the doctrine. Although the Supreme Court later reaffirmed Mitchell in 1973 in Civil Service Comm'n v. Letter Carriers
, 413 U.S. 548 (1973), it did so on the grounds that permitting public employees to engage in political activity was dangerous.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
labor union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
representing federal government employees which existed from 1937 to 1946. It was the first union with this jurisdiction established by the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(a national labor federation
National trade union center
A national trade union center is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some...
), and one of the unions which merged in 1946 to form the influential United Public Workers of America
United Public Workers of America
The United Public Workers of America was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees which existed from 1946 to 1952. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from...
. The union challenged the constitutionality
Constitutionality
Constitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution. Acts that are not in accordance with the rules laid down in the constitution are deemed to be ultra vires.-See also:*ultra vires*Company law*Constitutional law...
of the Hatch Act of 1939
Hatch Act of 1939
The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the President and the Vice President, from engaging in partisan political activity...
, which led to the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision in United Public Workers v. Mitchell
United Public Workers v. Mitchell
United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 , is a 4-to-3 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Hatch Act of 1939, as amended in 1940, does not violate the First, Fifth, Ninth, or Tenth amendments to U.S...
, 330 U.S. 75 (1947).
The union is sometimes confused with the United Public Workers of America
United Public Workers of America
The United Public Workers of America was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees which existed from 1946 to 1952. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from...
, its successor union.
History
In 1937, the Congress of Industrial OrganizationsCongress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) formed a new union for U.S. government employees, the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA), from local unions which had disaffiliated from the American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
-affiliated American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of Government Employees
The American Federation of Government Employees is an American labor union representing over 625,000 employees of the federal government, about 5,000 employees of the District of Columbia, and a few hundred private sector employees, mostly in and around federal facilities...
(AFGE). The UFWA's membership, however, remained static (as did the membership of nearly all federal government unions in the 1930s). Much of the UFWA leadership was leftist
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
. The leadership was militant in its advocacy of the rights of its members and most of the national and local union leadership advocated leftist ideals; associated with left-wing intellectuals, activists, and political people; and supported left-wing organizations. This led many politicians and others to believe the organization was Communist-controlled.
The political leanings of the UWFA led to passage of two pieces of legislation intended to restrict its political activities. In June 1938, Congress passed a rider
Rider (legislation)
In legislative procedure, a rider is an additional provision added to a bill or other measure under the consideration by a legislature, having little connection with the subject matter of the bill. Riders are usually created as a tactic to pass a controversial provision that would not pass as its...
to appropriations legislation with prevented the federal government from making payments (such as salaries) to any person or organization which advocated the overthrow of the federal government (as many communist organizations at the time proposed). In 1939, Congress passed the Hatch Act of 1939
Hatch Act of 1939
The Hatch Act of 1939 is a United States federal law whose main provision is to prohibit federal employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the President and the Vice President, from engaging in partisan political activity...
, which restricted political campaign activities by federal employees. A provision of the Hatch Act made it illegal for the federal government to employ anyone who advocated the overthrow of the federal government. The UFWA hired lawyer Lee Pressman
Lee Pressman
Lee Pressman was a labor attorney and a US government functionary publicly exposed in 1948 for having been a spy for the Soviet foreign intelligence network during the middle 1930s...
to challenge the constitutionality of the Hatch Act.
On April 25, 1946, the State, County, and Municipal Workers of America
State, County, and Municipal Workers of America
The State, County, and Municipal Workers of America was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees which existed from 1946 to 1952...
(SCMWA) merged with the UFWA to form the United Public Workers of America
United Public Workers of America
The United Public Workers of America was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees which existed from 1946 to 1952. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from...
. The impetus for the merger was the relative failure of the UFWA to attract new members, and SCMWA essentially absorbed the smaller federal union.
The union's long-standing lawsuit against the Hatch Act of 1939 finally reached the Supreme Court in 1947. In United Public Workers v. Mitchell
United Public Workers v. Mitchell
United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75 , is a 4-to-3 ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Hatch Act of 1939, as amended in 1940, does not violate the First, Fifth, Ninth, or Tenth amendments to U.S...
, 330 U.S. 75 (1947), the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
upheld the Act. Writing for the majority, Associate Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...
Stanley Forman Reed
Stanley Forman Reed
Stanley Forman Reed was a noted American attorney who served as United States Solicitor General from 1935 to 1938 and as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. He was the last Supreme Court Justice who did not graduate from law school Stanley Forman Reed (December 31,...
argued that the Hatch Act did not infringe on the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and free association
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
but rather on rights guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment
Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, addresses rights of the people that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.-Text:-Adoption:When the U.S...
(guaranteeing non-enumerated rights to the people) and Tenth Amendment
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791...
(guaranteeing non-enumerated rights to the states). These rights were not absolute, and could be subordinated to the "elemental need for order" without which all rights ceased to function. Additionally, the non-enumerated rights of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were subordinate to the enumerated rights granted to the federal government by the Constitution. Reed upheld the Hatch Act as a legitimate exercise of the enumerated rights of the federal government. The decision in United Public Workers v. Mitchell relied heavily on the "doctrine of privilege," a legal doctrine that held that public employment was a privilege (not a right) and subsequently significant restrictions could be placed on public employees that could not be constitutionally tolerated in the private sector. United Public Workers v. Mitchell proved to be the last gasp of the doctrine of privilege. The Supreme Court openly rejected the doctrine in Wieman v. Updegraff
Wieman v. Updegraff
Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 , is a unanimous ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that Oklahoma loyalty oath legislation violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it did not give individuals the opportunity to abjure...
, 344 U.S. 183 (1952), and a wide number of high court decisions in areas such as nonpartisan
Nonpartisan
In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....
speech, due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
, search and seizure
Search and seizure
Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.Some countries have...
, the right to marry
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, the right to bear children, equal protection
Equal Protection Clause
The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...
, education, and receipt of public benefits over the next two decades continued to undermine the doctrine. Although the Supreme Court later reaffirmed Mitchell in 1973 in Civil Service Comm'n v. Letter Carriers
United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers
United States Civil Service Commission v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548 , is a ruling by the United States Supreme Court which held that the Hatch Act of 1939 does not violate the First Amendment, and its implementing regulations are not unconstitutionally vague and...
, 413 U.S. 548 (1973), it did so on the grounds that permitting public employees to engage in political activity was dangerous.