LOCKOUT

tactic used by employers in labour disputes in which the employer withholds employment, usually by locking employees out of work facilities. In modern times the lockout is seldom used, usually being resorted to when a labour union strikes a single employer who is a member of an employers' association whose members have agreed to close their work facilities when one member is struck. In the 1880s and '90s, when unions of silver and lead miners in Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah were fighting for an eight-hour day and higher pay, employers often used the lockout. During this period it was also often used against the Knights of Labor in industries that included meatpacking, cigar making, knitting, and laundering. The lockout was central to the demise of that labour organization.