The Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 to amend the National Labor Relations Act. Known also as the Labor-Management Relations Act, the Taft-Hartley Act's main purpose was the imposition of certain restrictions on the activities of labor unions. The LMRA also imposed upon employers and labor unions a "mutual obligation . . . to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement or any question arising thereunder." This obligation is known as the "duty to bargain."

Once a union has been selected as the bargaining unit by a group of employees, has been voluntarily recognized by the employer, or has been certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the union has the right to bargain with the employer for one year. If no agreement is reached within one year, the employer must continue to bargain with the union unless it withdraws its recognition of the labor union in good faith or until the union is decertified. An employer must bargain with a union that it voluntarily recognizes as its employees' representative for a reasonable amount of time.

In existing labor-management relationships under which a collective bargaining agreement has been reached, a union continues to represent the employees when the existing agreement expires and a new one must be negotiated unless the union loses its right to represent the employees through loss of certification. An employer may not withdraw its recognition of the labor union as the bargaining representative of its employees without some objective proof that the majority of its employees no longer wish to have union representation, whether by the current union or another. An employer may not base such proof on the fact that it has hired replacements for striking workers that outnumber the striking workers because there is no presumption that replacement workers either desire or reject union representation.

Despite a certified union's exclusive right to bargain during the life of a collective bargaining agreement, another union may circulate a representation petition during the final 90 days of the agreement. The current union continues to have the right to bargain with the employer. If an agreement is reached and the current union loses a representation election, the agreement reached by the current union may be adopted by the incoming union or may be voided.

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