Communist Control Act Bans Party Members from Union Leadership, Weaponizing Anti-Communism Against Labor

Congress passes the Communist Control Act of 1954, preventing members of the Communist Party from holding office in labor unions and other labor organizations. The legislation represents the culmination of systematic efforts to weaponize anti-communism against labor organizing, following the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which required union leaders to sign non-communist affidavits or lose National Labor Relations Board protections. The 1954 act provides legal authority to exclude entire categories of political activists from union leadership, effectively criminalizing left-wing political beliefs in the labor context. The law builds on the CIO’s 1949-1950 expulsion of eleven communist-led unions representing one million members, now giving federal sanction to purging radical elements from the labor movement.

The Red Scare’s targeting of unions reflects corporate and conservative fears that organized labor during the 1940s and 1950s, when membership surges to approximately 35 percent of the workforce, might pursue transformative political goals beyond narrow wage negotiations. By the mid-1960s, after the Red Scare subsides, union membership declines drastically to 28 percent of the workforce, demonstrating the purges’ lasting impact on labor’s organizing capacity and political ambitions. The National Association of Manufacturers and Chamber of Commerce actively promote anti-communist campaigns that portray unions as communist infiltration vectors, creating political climate supporting legal restrictions. Corporate interests fund anti-communist networks including J.B. Matthews, who supplies the Hearst Corporation and corporate clients with names from his collection of party literature and front group letterheads.

The Communist Control Act institutionalizes political litmus tests for labor leadership that persist in AFL-CIO constitutions until the late 1990s, decades after the Cold War threat dissipates. The legislation exemplifies how national security rhetoric justifies suppressing domestic political movements that threaten corporate interests. By banning communists from union office while maintaining no comparable restrictions on corporate executives’ political affiliations, the law codifies asymmetric political freedoms favoring capital over labor. The act’s passage demonstrates bipartisan consensus supporting labor suppression during the Cold War, as anti-communist fervor provides political cover for weakening unions’ most radical and effective organizers. The long-term consequence is a domesticated labor movement focused on business unionism rather than challenging fundamental power structures, contributing to organized labor’s decline over subsequent decades.