Closed Shop Issue in Labor Relations

Report Outline
The Closed Shop in Current Labor Disputes
Partisan Definitions of Open and Closed Shops
Past Struggles to Maintain the Open Shop
The Closed Shop Under the Labor Relations Act

The Closed Shop in Current Labor Disputes

The closed shop issue in labor relations has become a center of vehement controversy in recent weeks as a result of the Kearny shipyard case and the threatened strike in “captive” coal mines.

In the Kearny case, the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company refused to accept a “maintenance of membership” clause in a union contract, as recommended by the National Defense Mediation Board, and as a result the plant was taken over by the federal government for operation by the Navy Department. Labor relations in the plant are now being handled on the basis of the N. D. M. B. recommendations. The plant is not closed against non-union workers, but all employees who have joined the union must remain in good standing in order to retain their jobs.

The United Mine Workers have asked for an absolutely closed shop in the coal mines owned by steel companies, such as they have already in virtually all independently owned mines. Some observers believe this demand presages a C. I. O. drive for the closed shop throughout the steel industry. A 30-day truce, under which the miners agreed to continue at work while negotiations proceeded under the guidance of the N. D. M. B., expired on October 19, but was afterward continued on a day-to-day basis. John L. Lewis, president of the miners' union, has now given formal notice, however, that “the temporary agreement … expires in toto at midnight, Saturday, October 25,1941.”