Lockout (labor)

“ The Board's position is premised on the view that the lockout interferes with two of the rights guaranteed by § 7: the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike. In the Board's view, the use of the lockout 'punishes' employees for the presentation of and adherence to demands made by their bargaining representatives and so coerces them in the exercise of their right to bargain collectively. It is important to note that there is here no allegation that the employer used the lockout in the service of designs inimical to the process of collective bargaining. ”

“ IT says, "Labor is entitled to all it produces," and to get it or any partial increase, Industrial Unionism is needed. "All workers in an industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof; thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Every worker in any section of an industry is organized in a Branch of an Industrial Union of all the workers in that industry. ”

“ In New York, too, 14.8 per cent, of all the workers whose shops are inspected by the factory inspectors are in the clothing trades, while in Illinois only 7.3 percent, are so engaged.
One of the most interesting conflicts between capital and labor in current history was the strike of the journeymen tailors and the lockout on February 15, 1900. There were 700 men in the union, and thirty-five or forty merchant tailors for whom they worked. ”

“ There is a very real prospect of staggering punitive damages accumulated through successive actions by parties injured by members who have succumbed to the emotion that frequently accompanies concerted activities during labor unrest. This threat could render even those activities protected by the Federal Act too risky to undertake. Must we assume that the employer who resorts to a lockout is also subject to a succession of punitive recoveries at the hands of his employees? ”

“ In analyzing the status of the bargaining lockout under §§ 8 (a) (1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, it is important that the practice with which we are here concerned be distinguished from other forms of temporary separation from employment. No one would deny that an employer is free to shut down his enterprise temporarily for reasons of renovation or lack of profitable work unrelated to his collective bargaining situation. ”

“ The very facts recited by the Court in its opinion show that this employer locked out its employees in the face of a threatened strike under circumstances where, had the choice of timing been left solely to the unions, the employer and its customers would have been subject to economic injury over and beyond the loss of business normally incident to a strike upon the termination of the collective bargaining agreement. A lockout under these circumstances has been recognized by the Board itself to be justifiable and not a violation of the labor statutes. ”

“ Given the finding that the closing was due to lack of work at the Chicago yard, it is no answer to say, as the Board does, that there was no reasonable basis to anticipate a strike and hence the closing was an offensive bargaining lockout. Whether there was a reasonable basis to fear a strike or not, the fact remains that the employer, and its customers, did fear a strike, and consequently there was no work for the employees. ”

“ This gives rise to disputes between rival unions and causes annoyance and loss to the workers themselves, to the employers, and to the general public.
§ 8. #Strikes in labor disputes.# A strike is a concerted stopping of work by a group of employees to enforce a demand upon the employer. A lockout is an employer's closing of his shop because of a disagreement with his employees. The strike is, in its direct and indirect, immediate and ultimate, effects the most important weapon of the organized wage-earners in their relations with their employers. ”

“ Since the examples of different lockout situations could be multiplied, the logic of the Court's limitation of its holding should lead it to recognize that the problem of lockouts requires 'an evolutionary process,' not 'a quick, definitive formula,' for its answer. ”

“ LABOR ORGANIZATION: A. D. 1908. "A Notable Labor Treaty." The Shipbuilding Agreement between Employers and Trade Unions to avert Strikes and Lockouts. In the early part of 1908 the woodworkers in the shipbuilding yards of the north of England went on strike against a reduction in wages, which was equivalent to one that the ironworkers in all the British shipyards and the woodworkers in the Scotch yards had accepted. The Federation of Shipbuilding Employers then notified a national lockout unless the strikers resumed work pending the adjustment of the dispute by conference. ”

“ Moreover, the course of action to which the Board would limit the respondents would force them into the position of aiding and abetting the success of the whipsaw strike and consequently would render 'largely illusory,' 137 N.L.R.B., at 78-79, the right of lockout recognized by Buffalo Linen; the right would be meaningless if barred to nonstruck stores that find it necessary to operate because the struck store does so. ”

“ Employers almost always have the right to the lay-off and lockout. We can aid in the discovery of better methods for all workers if we work with them and not against them.... What have we ever done to educate boys and girls in preparation for better solutions for labor difficulties than strikes? Laborers do not enjoy striking ”

“ These employers' associations offer every possible obstacle to the progress of the working class through labor organizations. Naumann has exaggerated their strength in the extracts quoted above. But the victorious progress of the unions is more restricted during recent years. They are everywhere being placed on the defensive. Ever more frequently and more effectively is the strike met with the lockout. The favorable periods in which successful battles may still be fought are more infrequent. ”

“ Clearly respondents' continued operations with the use of temporary replacements following the lockout were wholly consistent with a legitimate business purpose.
Nor are we persuaded by the Board's argument that justification for the inference of hostile motivation appears in the respondents' use of temporary employees rather than some of the regular employees. It is not commonsense, we think, to say that the regular employees were 'willing to work at the employers' terms.' 137 N.L.R.B., at 76. ”

“ The lockout.—Lockout is a name given to a method employed by managers to prevent the continuance of a strike by aid of the sympathy of employés not directly interested. It often happens that a comparatively small body of workmen in a great factory strike for higher wages, and are sustained in their strike by the sympathy and support of other workmen in the same factory. Under these conditions the employer is tempted to stop all work by a sudden closing of all shops, that the pressure of suffering among a large body of wage-earners may force the smaller body to accept the old conditions. ”

“ The lockout is the employer’s strike. Unwilling to grant the worker’s demand, the employer shuts down his plant, thus terminating employment of both strikers and non-strikers. The same conditions and restrictions that apply to the strike are applicable to lockouts. That the lockout itself is not unjust, but at least morally indifferent, appears to be evident in this, that as workers are not bound to submit to injustice, neither is the employer. He cannot be expected to pay wages when essential employers have quit or stalled production. ”

“ If it does not do that, it immediately and irrevocably undermines the basis of its own existence.
There is nothing left for the capitalists to do then but to resort to the lockout, that is, to close the factories. It is quite clear that the employers can stand the closing down of production much longer than the workers, and therefore there is only one reply that a workers’ government can give to a general lockout: the expropriation of the factories and the introduction in at least the largest of them of State or communal production. ”

“ When one or more employers suddenly dismiss their workpeople altogether, in order to oblige them to take lower wages, or agree to some alteration of work, it is called a lockout, and a lockout is nearly the same as a strike of the employers. Strikes sometimes last for many months, the workmen living on what savings they have, and on contributions sent to them by workmen or unions in the same or other trades. The employers at the same time lose much money by their factories standing still, and they sometimes receive aid from other employers. ”

“ The International Typographical Union, the oldest in America, has a membership of over 40,000, and there are many others of great strength.
The weapon of offense with which the labor organization seeks to gain its ends is the strike, in which the artisans quit work for the purpose of forcing employers to grant their demands, and endeavor to prevent others from taking their place. The reverse of this is the lock-out, an expedient adopted by capitalists for the purpose of obliging workmen to yield to their demands. ”

“ Lockouts are not now as common as they used to be. Another weapon of the employer is the blacklist, which contains the names of workmen who have been prominent in fomenting labor troubles and who are, accordingly, regarded by the employers as undesirable. This list is circulated by the employers from one to another and no workman whose name is on it will be given employment. When a worker’s name goes in the blacklist it means that he has the greatest difficulty in finding employment in his own trade anywhere. ”

“ An employer or worker bound by an award or an industrial agreement who takes part in a strike or lockout in the industry affected is subject to heavy fine. Unless fourteen days’ notice has been given, a strike or lockout in a public utility or an industry dealing in the necessities of life is considered a statutory offence, even when the party in fault is not bound by an award. A strike in the milk business or on a railroad or street-car line would fall under this provision. ”

“ The lockout seldom gains a popular sympathy, for the reason that employers appear to be using this method of warfare from a superior position of power. And yet no one can dispute the general right of employers to control of their business. Such a sudden stopping of business without an attack by a strike or some similar provocation would be considered inhuman, and popular sympathy would be wholly with the laborers and consumers interested. ”

“ On Tuesday, June 28, the company ordered the armor-plate mill and the open-hearth department shut down, throwing 800 men out of employment.
This was the beginning of the lock-out, for a lock-out it was, and not a strike, as has been very generally represented.
A strike occurs when dissatisfied workingmen cease work of their own accord and refuse to return until the cause of dissatisfaction is removed.
A lock-out originates with the employing individual or corporation, and consists in the refusal to let the employees work until they come to terms with the employer. ”

“ In the narrower view the relation of the corporation to its employe's is merely a question of wages, of strikes, and lock-outs, and of relative losses from these disturbances to employers and employed. The statistics of strikes and lock-outs collected by our National Bureau of Labor show that almost the only industry in which the losses inflicted by strikes are heavier on the employers than on the men is that of transportation. ”

“ It is becoming the general practice of organized labor to buy no goods which do not bear the “union label”, which is a sticker or tag certifying that the merchandise was made by members of a union.
How the employer strikes back. Lockouts and Blacklists.—But if the worker has his weapons, so has the employer. When the employer believes the demands of his workmen to be excessive he can shut down the establishment and lock the workers out. Then, if he can find men and women to work for him on more favorable terms, he takes them into his employ and starts up again. ”

“ It cannot be maintained that a capitalist who tries by a lock-out to force his workmen to break with their union, in order that he may escape the danger of a decrease in his profits through a strike, and who in this way condemns them and their families to hunger, is less egoistic than the slave-owner driving his slaves to harder labor. ”

“ He must, then, to finish the work, employ one more man and two more women, or else lengthen the working day. After a week or two the amount of work falls off and he receives but 500 vests. He may keep the sixteen workers with- out keeping them busy the usual number of hours, but he is more likely to dismiss one of the men and three or four of the girls. In a factory supplied with power there cannot be these sudden and frequent changes in the labor force without too great a loss to the employer. ”

“ A dispute in the paper, woolen, and cotton industries of Sweden led, first, to a lockout of about 13,000 workmen in those factories, the employers acting in a compact association, which seems to have embraced all important fields of production. On the 26th of July the lockout was extended to certain other allied trades, affecting about 40,000 employees in all; and it was then announced that on the 2d of August, if the men did not come to terms, the closing of works would be carried into the iron trades, and further still. ”

“ Where an application has been made under these regulations for the certification of bargaining representatives, the employer or the employees affected shall not declare or cause a lockout of the employees until an attempt has been made to effect an agreement under sections eleven and twelve, and fourteen days have elapsed since the Conciliation Board reported to the Minister.
(3) No employer who is a party to a collective agreement shall declare or cause a lockout and no employee bound thereby shall go on strike during the term of the collective agreement. ”