Evening star., 1947-01-12

sion designed to maintain member.
ship during the life of a contract.
Now for some brief definitions o1
forms of union security that Senator
Ball would strike out of all existing
labor contracts and ban from future
ones. There are a number of varia-
tions of each form.
/. The closed shop is that in which
the employer agrees to hire and re-
tain in his employ union members
only. In most instances the unior
has charge of the recruitment o.
new employees.
2. In the union shop, the employer
is free to hire non-union workers
and is the sole Judge of their quail
fications, but new employees must
join the union within a specified
time, When it is coupled with a
provision for preferential hiring oi
union members, it differs little from
the closed shop.
Maintenance Provisions.
3. A maintenance of membership
agreement requires that all en-
ployes who are members when the
agreement is signed, and all who
join the union later, must retain
their membership for the duration
of the contract or lose their jobs
An escape period" usually Is days
is provided at the start of a con-
tract period for those who wish to
withdraw from the union.
Generally speaking, the unions
with closed shop contracts are the
old-line organizations which have
won the provision through years OF
negotiations. Most of the big CIO
unions, organized in the 1930s anc
during the war, have union shop OF
maintenance of membership.
Regardless of the merits of Sen
ator Balls bill, it would force
changes in a huge number of labor
contracts. The Labor Department
says that in 1945 about 10,600, 900
workers or II per cent of those cov-
cred by written agreements, were
working under union security pro-
visions in some form. The number
now is substantially the same.
A breakdown of this total showed
that 100000 had maintenance con-
tracts, the rest either closed or
union shops. While the union main
tenance idea dates back to the 1920s,
it had its greatest growth during
the war, when the War Labor Board
wrote it into disputed contracts as
a compromise for the demands for
the closed and open shop.
In Variety of Industries.
Contracts providing either for a
closed shop or its brother, the union
shop with hiring priority to union
members, prevail in such industries
as the building and metal work,
shipbuilding, printing and publish
ing, baking, brewery, processed food,
hosiery and clothing industries.
The Labor Department states that
union shop clauses without prefer
ential hiring provisions are domi-
nant in the bus and street railway,
coal mining, paper and allied pro-
ducts industries. Union mainten-
ance contracts prevail In aircraft,
aluminium, automobile, chemicals,
textile, electrical, meat packing,
steel and steel products and large
number of other industries.
The closed shop issue is as old as
the labor movement itself and bat
ties over it are written into the
early and times bloody organ
national history of Unions in this
country.
AFL President William Green
states that a number of his unions
have had closed or union shop con-
tracts for more than so years.
Incidentally, union printers here,
the Columbia Typographical Union
claim that their union introduced
the closed shop principle in this
country. In 1842 the printers adopted
resolution prohibiting any member
of their organization from working
in print shop with non-union en-
ployes. CTU also is the Nation S
oldest union in continuous existence
The current drive against the
closed shop was begun several years
ago in the States and since thai
time Florida, Arizona, Nebraska
South Dakota and Arkansas have
"outlawed" 1t. Some. similar drives
(See LABOR, Page C-5.)