Evening star., 1941-11-30

Of years that they do not need the
added protection of the closed shop.
The National Defense Mediation Board
has stood neither for nor against the
principle of the closed shop. but has
sought to Zeal with each case or its
merits. In only one case. that of the
shipbullGing workers Of the Bethlehem
Steel Co. on the Pacific coast, has the
board granted request for the closed
shop II acted as it did in this case in
order to bring the company within the
terms of a master shipbuilding agree
ment which the Government had pro-
NOTED and which the other employers in
the West Coast shipbuilding industry
had signed.
In the captive mine case. the board
held that the Bethlehem recommended
ton was the result of special circum-
stances" and rejected the mine workers
contention that it formed a precedent
for the closed or union shop.
Six Compromise Decisions.
Chairman William H. Davis of the
Mediation Board has said that "a closed
shop is an appropriate arrangement in
some circumstances" but that this does
not mean that it is universally appropri-
ate or that it is a proper substitute for
self organization by normal growth"
In six cases, the board has compromised
the closed-shop issue by recommending
the maintenance membership clause.
This arrangement is the next to the top
most rung in the ladder of union security.
1t does not bar non-union worker from
employment tas does the closed shop
or require the worker after given Pc
Rod to join the union tas does the union
shop. but it protects the union by re-
curing that all members shall remain in
good standing as condition OF their
continued employment. The mainte-
nance-of membership clause armorS the
union against the attacks either of an
unfriendly employer or of subversive
| labor elements.
Some employers are said by the board
to have invited it, either openly or pri-
vately, as means of stabilizing their
labor relations; others, because of their
opposition to anything savoring OF the
closed shop, have accepted the clause
with reluctance. In the Kearny IN. j.
case, the employer-the Federal Ship
building g. Drydock Co-refused to &C
! cept the boards recommendation of the
maintenance of membership clause. A
! strike followed for II days, at the end of
which time the President took over the
| plant late in August for operation by
the Navy.
Boards Action Protective.
The boards protective action in the
Kearny and similar cases is based on
the premise, as expressed by Chairman
Davis, that the labor policy fixed by
Congress in the Wagner Act requires the
encouragement of collective bargaining,
and that collective bargaining neces-
sarily includes organized labor
The board took the position in the
captive mines case, where it rejected the
demand for the union shop by 9-to-2
vote, that the United Mine Workers had
demonstrated their complete ability to
take care of themselves As the board
pointed out, 95 per cent of the workers
in the captive mines are already men,
bers of the union.
The argument most frequently ad-
vanced against the closed shop is that
it is fundamentally wrong because it
deprives the worker of the free choice
of a job. This point of view was ex-
pressed in a recent statement by Albert
w. Hawkes., president of the United
States Chamber of Commerce, that the
closed shop is "monopolistic in every
sense of the word" and "transgresses
the rights of our individual citizens as
guaranteed by the Constitution"
The late President Charles w. Eliot of
Harvard wrote that "the surrender of
personal freedom to an association is
almost as great an obstacle to happiness
as its loss to despot or to ruling
class, especially if membership in the
association is compelled and the associ-
alton touches livelihood" Stated in
another way, the argument runs that
the closed shop tells the worker he must
Join the union or starve; that in the
case of unions controlled by racketeers,
it puts on the worker the additional
burden of extortionate initiation fees
and assessments.
Employers. generally speaking, object
to the closed shop because 1t restricts