[Quote=Frylock]
Before unions came to be protected, what prevented someone, legally, from saying “I defer to whatever X says concerning negotiations of the terms of my employment–and if you (the employer) don’t like that, then me and a bunch of other people who also defer to X will stop coming to work.”
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There was no legal prohibition against that. What prevented it was company policy and behavior.
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Well, yes, there was. In addition to the criminal offences mentioned by davidm, the courts held that union activities could be actions in restraint of trade, and thus subject to civil actions, such as injunctions. For example, the courts originally held that union activities could be contrary to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. That Act was intended to be used against large corporations which were trying to control the markets; it was first used instead against unions, such as the litigation over the Pullman Strike, on the basis that the unions were acting in restraint of trade.
It wasn’t until the Clayton Act that union activities were excepted from the Sherman Act:
While membership in unions were not forbidden, their activities could be subject to criminal and civil sanctions, as set out by davidm in post # 13, and in my previous post.
Calvin Coolidge was named Warren G. Harding’s running mate in 1920 largely because of his firm stance as Governor of Mass. during the Boston police strike the year before: Boston police strike - Wikipedia
Yes, I agree with that. My objection was to an implication of the OP’s wording. Namely, that which is not specifically allowed by law is forbidden. The actual case in US law is that unless a law specifically forbids an action, it is allowed. “Unions” per se, were never forbidden. Laws that did forbid certain actions had to be changed for certain union activities to be legal, but unions themselves were never forbidden, so to say that at some point they were specifically “allowed” is incorrect.
