CLOSED SHOP

in union-management relations, an arrangement whereby the management of a company employsand retains in employmentonly persons who are members in good standing of a specified labour (trade) union. It is the most extreme variant of a series of arrangements for the protection of labour organizations, collectively known as union security. Less extreme than the closed shop is the union shop (q.v.), in which the employer may hire a nonmember of a union provided that the new employee joins the union within a specified time. Another form of union security is known as preferential hiring. Under this arrangement the employer agrees to hire union members if they are available, but, if qualified union members cannot be found, he may hire nonunion workers. Agreements for maintenance of membership provide that all persons in the employ of a company on a specified date who are then members of a union and who do not resign their membership within an escape period must remain members of the union for the duration of the agreement, under pain of dismissal from their jobs. These are the basic forms of union security, but in practice there are many detailed variations. In the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, in all other industrial nations, a closed-shop provision is seldom found in a written contract, but it is understood in some industries that union members will walk off the job before they will work with nonunionists. This is so commonly assumed among printers, dockers, and miners in Britain that employers rarely attempt to employ nonunion workers. Throughout the nations of northern Europe, labour-management agreements are usually between large industrial segments and a number of unions. In Britain the closed shop has not been an issue for controversy to the same extent as in the United States because union membership of workers is taken for granted. This is assumed even by government boards and commissions, which traditionally have expected unions to represent all employees in an industry. Although closed shops were declared illegal in the United States under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, they continued to exist in practice even though forbidden by law to exist in a signed agreement. They are particularly prevalent where employers depend on unions for hiring workers and where workers are employed by a particular employer for only a short period of time (e.g., dock workers and construction workers).