Opinion ID: 402462
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Closed Shop

Text: 62 The Wagner Act, with its emphasis on collective bargaining, treated minority rights almost as an afterthought. Section 9(a) provided: 63 Representatives designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment, Provided, That any individual employee or group of employees shall have the right at any time to present grievances to their employer. 64 Ch. 372, § 9(a), 49 Stat. 453 (1935) (codified at 29 U.S.C. § 159(a)). Section 8(3) outlawed attempts by employers to force workers into company unions or discourage them from forming their own, but distinguished these practices from union bargaining with employers over means to control the problem of free riders: 65 It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization, Provided, That nothing in this act ... shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a (qualifying) labor organization ... to require as a condition of employment membership therein.... 66 Ch. 372, § 8(3), 49 Stat. 452 (1935) (codified at 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)). 67 Several Senators criticized the Act for ignoring the rights of employee minorities. See, e.g., 79 Cong.Rec. 7671 (1935) (Senator Tydings) (As I see this particular section (§ 9(a) ), it looks to me like an effort to force every man in America to join a certain kind of union, whether or not he wishes to join that union); id. (Senator Hastings) (Is it not true that the individual worker should be free to decline association with his fellows? Can that be true under this bill?). Senator Wagner responded: 68 The Senator is concerned with what happens to the minority. Under this proposed legislation ... there will be no advantage which a majority can have under an agreement to which the minority is not also entitled, and in order to have that advantage the minority need not join any organization. It can join or not join, either way. It cannot be discriminated against under any other provision of the law. 69 Id. at 7673. But Senator Hastings was unconvinced. He turned from section 9(a) to section 8(3), and reiterated the charge that the bill would require all workers to join a union regardless of their wishes. Senator Wagner again responded: 70 No, Mr. President; the Senator apparently does not understand that provision. It does no more than to legalize a closed-shop agreement, which is a matter of agreement between employer and employee where it is now sustained by the public opinion of the State.... The provision will not change the status quo. That is the law today; and wherever it is the law today that a closed-shop agreement can be made, it will continue to be the law. By this bill we do not change that situation. Closed-shop agreements are made all over the country, and they are matters of agreement. The question of compulsion is not involved in them. 71 Id. at 7673-74. 72 But Senator Wagner turned out to be wrong. Closed-shop agreements, which prohibited hiring any employee who was not already a union member, did involve compulsion. Between 1935 and 1947, the closed shop became notorious. Union leaders, with unreviewable authority to admit new union members and expel old ones, acted in a corrupt and undemocratic fashion to perpetuate their power. Articles in the popular press and legal journals condemned closed shops and the control they gave unions over the careers of workers. See, e.g., Newman, The Closed Union and the Right to Work, 43 Colum.L.Rev. 42 (1943) (arguing that unions operating under closed shops used restrictive admissions requirements to create labor monopoly, perpetuate union management, and protect social prejudices). The Senate Report accompanying the Taft-Hartley Act found: 73 Until the beginning of the war only a relatively small minority of employees (less than 20 percent) were affected by contracts containing any compulsory features. According to the Secretary of Labor, however, within the last 5 years over 75 percent now contain some form of compulsion. But with this trend, abuses of compulsory membership have become so numerous there has been great public feeling against such arrangements. It continued with specific examples: 74 In the maritime industry and to a large extent in the construction industry union hiring halls now provide the only method of securing employment.... Extension of this principle to licensed deck and engine officers has created the greatest problems in connection with the safety of American vessels at sea. 75 Numerous examples were presented to the committee of the way union leaders have used closed-shop devices as a method of depriving employees of their jobs, and in some cases a means of securing a livelihood in their trade or calling, for purely capricious reasons. In one instance a union member was subpenaed to appear in court, having witnessed an assault upon his foreman by a fellow employee. Because he told the truth upon the witness stand, the union leadership brought about his expulsion with a consequent loss of his job since his employer was subject to a closed-shop contract. 76 Numerous examples of equally glaring disregard for the rights of minority members of unions are contained in the exhibits received in evidence by the committee. 77 S.Rep.No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 6-7 (1947), I Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act 412-13 (1948) (hereinafter Leg. Hist.). 78 Animosity toward the closed shop was widespread in Congress. See, e.g., 93 Cong.Rec. 3453 (1947) (remarks of Representative Holifield); id. at A1223 (extension of remarks by Representative Landis). Representative Jonkman observed that the principle criticism of unions today is not directed at unionism itself but to the irresponsible and corrupt management and leadership into which many unions have drifted. It requires but little reading of the hearings on this bill to cause one to shudder at the tyranny and depredation committed by such union officers and leaders. Id. at 3560. Accordingly, Congress added section 8(a)(3) in the Taft-Hartley Act banning the closed shop. Ch. 120, tit. 1, § 8(a)(3), 61 Stat. 140 (1947) (codified at 29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(3)). That section continued: 79 no employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for nonmembership in a labor organization (A) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members, or (B) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership. 80 Id., 61 Stat. at 141.