PENN MCKEE HOTEL / KENNEDY-NIXON DEBATE (1947)

John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon are two of the most important political figures of 20th century America. Their 1960 presidential debate as a landmark political and media event. Virtually unknown is the fact that on April 22, 194 7, the two freshmen Congressmen debated one of the most important pieces oflabor legislation in U.S. history at McKeesport’s Penn McKee Hotel. Nixon supported it, but Kennedy warned: “This bill … destroys with high sounding words the power of labor unions to bargain equally with the employers … Have no illusions that you are voting for labor peace and for the protection of the workingman. You will be voting for industrial warfare … for a bill that seeks to strangle by legal restraints the American labor movement.”

The controversial Taft-Hartley Labor Management Relations Act severely restricted industrial unions: outlawing sympathy and sit-down strikes; allowing states to adopt “right to work” laws barring the union shop; weakening enforcement for employer unfair labor practices; allowing unions to be charged with unfair labor practices and sued for breach of contract. A very disruptive provision was its requirement for union officers to sign non-Communist loyalty oaths. This provision split the nation’s third largest union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), and led to bitter divisiveness elsewhere. For construction unions, however, the law’s regulation of joint labor-management pension and health care funds tied union contractors and craft unions together in mutual interest to improve the quantity and quality of union labor.

Penn McKee Hotel – 122 Fifth Ave. McKeesport,  51