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Abstract
The paper aims to schematically illustrate the legal genesis of the concept of secondary boycott in U.S. statutory law and its application in the relevant case law. For this purpose, a brief overview of the historical origin of the right to strike is provided, along with the analysis of the evolutionary process which led to its inclusion in the Constitutional Charts of many European countries. This introduction is followed by a description of the legislative steps towards the enactment of the Wagner Act (1935), as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), and of the Landrum-Griffin Act (1959), especially focusing on the different sanctions which may spring from group ostracism against neutral employers. The distinctiveness of the so-called "ally doctrine" as regards the labour unions' liability for instigating secondary boycotts is further portrayed, as an exception to the guarantee of free speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Introduction
When employers undergo trade unions' collective actions such as strikes or boycotts, they always strive to reduce, as much as possible, the impact that the work stoppage can provoke on the going concern. In fact, one of the most critical issues arising from a strike lies in the fact that work stoppages may permanently affect the firm's productivity (Bock, 2005).
Concerned about the risk that such collective actions could affect national security, legislators throughout the ages have been adopting measures aimed at restricting strikes, ranging from civil sanctions to total ban (Chepaitis , 1997). All the same, the constant tendency for almost all legal systems is by now to grant workers valuable tools in order to counterbalance the inescapable disproportion in bargaining power between the two negotiating parties in employment contracts. This trend has been translated into regulations which have increasingly equipped workers and their representatives, namely trade unions, with appropriate legal protection against employers' retaliatory conducts. This development has been suddenly boosted by the drafting of constitutional principles protecting the right to strike (Pope, 1999). However, it should be noted that almost all subsequent, both legislative and regulatory, interventions have been aimed at limiting the sphere of application of such right.
Deprived of workers, the employer is likely to hunt for other sources in order to replace the striking labour...