Political necktie. Labor activists could wear their politics around their necks during the campaign to repeal the 1947 Taft-Hartley law, which outlawed the closed shop (which hired only union members), sought to prevent solidarity support of strikes (there had been seven successful general strikes the preceding year), and sanctioned the passage by states of the misnamed “right to work” laws (forbidding union-shop provisions in contracts). More than half a century later it is still the labor law of the land.

The necktie makes good use of both color and of images, including industrial smokestacks and grain fields, with a powerful worker literally in chains, symbolizing the Taft-Hartley “slave labor” law.

See other political clothing such as this American Indian Ironworkers jacket and the Operating Engineers jacket in the missing exhibit, and the Women in Trades t-shirts in our On Equal Terms exhibit.