Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-05
Ruling on Closed Shop
Called Great Step in
Civil Rights Battle
Labor Union Heads Seen
shortsighted in Fight
To Keep Monopoly
By David Laurence

Human rights in a free country
won q great victory when the Su-
preme Court of the United States
ruled this week that the right to
work is guaranteed by the Con-
stitution and that no man can be
compelled. by either an employer
or anybody else, to join a union as
the price of getting or keeping a
job.
To most people, unfamiliar with
the monopolistic privileges sought
by reactionary labor leaders, it
Will come as big surprise that
labor unions actually demand from
employers contracts agreeing not
to hire nonunion men or to fire
union workers who may wish to ex-
ercise their fundamental right to
withdraw from a union at their will.
But so widespread has become
the abuse of union monopoly prac-
tices that in some industries, like
printing and shipping. the unions
have maintained CLOSED shops"
which not only have required
workers to belong to the unions but
have not permitted employers to
hire any one unless the unions
furnish the employees to him for
hiring.
First Explicit Ruling.
Naturally the union bosses want
to retain this monopoly, just as some
reactionary management men want
to retain a monopoly on production
and fix prices If they can get away
with 1t.
For decades past there have been
strikes and economic pressures ap-
piled so as to compel employers to
sign contracts agreeing to the
CLOSED shop" or its counterpart, the
union shop" In both instances
the workers must join the union in
order to retain their jobs.
But never until this week has the
Supreme Court of the United States
ruled explicitly on the principle of
compulsory unionization of workers.
What the court said this time
was that the several States which
had passed statutes or amendments
to their respective constitutions
guaranteeing the right to work were
we'll within their rights in enacting
such provisions. Justice Black,
speaking for the court, said that
precisely what these State laws do
is to forbid employers acting alone
or in concert with labor organiza-
lions deliberately to restrict en-
ployment to none but union men,
bers."
What the court really decided was
that the regulation of compulsory
unionization was we'll within the
right Of State and that it could
ban closed shops or any other form
of compulsory unionization or 1t
could omit to legislate on such q
subject.
Has Established Code.
But it is clear now that the
Supreme Court has established as
an important and vital section of
the civil-rights code of America
that citizen cannot be denied
his job by action of an employer
or a union If the reason is solely
related to membership or nonmem-
bership in a labor organiza ton.
The same issues arise with respect
to Federal law. For certainly the
States would not be vested with
power to regulate such matters
while the Federal Government was
denied such power.
Congress dealt with the subject
indirectly under the Wagner law
when 1t said that contracts vol
unfairly" entered into between
management and labor would not
be held to violate the law which
had stipulated that membership
In labor union could not be held
as O just cause for discrimination
by management.
The constitutionality of this par
ticular phrase of the law was never
tested, though everybody knew that
it was a transparent falsehood to
say any closed-shop or union-s shop
contract entered into as result
of strike or threat of strike
represented an act of complete voli-
ton on the part of management.
The Taft-Hartley Act specifically
banned the closed shop, but its
sponsors pussyfooted on the union
shop issue and contradicted them
selves by giving legal sanction to
situations in which a majority of
the employees of a shop insisted that
the rest must be unionized or fired
Taft Act Infested.
The constitutionality of the Taft
Hartley provisions on the closed
shop issue have never been tested
But If Congress drops the section
and restores the old Wagner Act
without amending 1t and without
guaranteeing the worker the right
to join or not join a labor union
right guaranteed him under the
Taft-Hartley law-then it seems
certain some day some worker will
go all the way to the Supreme
Court to ask that such a law be
declared invalid as an interference
with the right to work.
Labor-union leaders have been
shortsighted in their fight for the
closed shop and union shop. John
L. Lewis, admittedly one of the
ablest union strategists in labor
history, declares he never needed
any provision of law to protect the
membership of his union and that
he never demanded the closed shop
or union shop until the Congress so
worded the matter of allocating
jurisdiction among bargaining units
as, in effect, to make such a stipu-
lation in a labor management con-
tract highly desirable as safe
guard against raids by rival unions.
Nor can labor leaders assail the
Supreme Court. whose liberal mem
bership was virtually unanimous in
upho1ding the right of the States
to ban closed shops, and compulsory
unionization.
Justice Black, with a significant
comment, pointed out that to be
consistent If the Government re-
fuses to allow an employer to dis
eliminate against union member
either in hiring or in firing, so can
tina y,ouer of Government ne eyerte