Closed shop

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With Closed Shop (dt. Closed operation ) is the 'closure' of an operation ( store meant) compared to non-unionized workers. In a closed shop, all employees are obliged to be a member of a trade union or to become one after they have started working. The purpose of the closed shop is to prevent non-trade unionists from participating in wage increases and improved working conditions that the unions have enforced as a collective good for all employees without having made their own contribution ( free rider problem ). On the other hand, the practice of the closed shop meant that the unions actually controlled the labor market and were able to regulate access to certain professions through the apprenticeship training they also administered, so that the labor supply was artificially reduced and wages were thus kept high.

Conceptually, the closed shop is differentiated from the similar Union Shop , in which non-unionists are also employed, but who either become union members within a certain period of time or have to pay a mandatory membership fee. In common parlance, however, Union Shops are often summarized under the term Closed Shops .

Legal situation in the EU

Organizational or blocking clauses of this kind are not permitted in the Federal Republic of Germany; they violate the negative freedom of association .

Also in the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights , a closed shop regulation is inadmissible as a violation of the freedom of association (Ref .: 52562/99 and 52620/99 "Sorensen and Rasmussen versus Denmark", in particular section 58 of the judgment).

Closed shop in British social history

The closed shop has a long tradition in Great Britain. The early historians of the English trade union movement, Sidney and Beatrice Webb , already point to the form of "obligatory trade unionism" that is common in some trades and that results from the character of the collective agreement. In addition, there would be motives of the entrepreneurs to keep their competitors from undercutting. For example, trade unions and united entrepreneurs in the boot and shoe trade forced the non-organized minorities to accept the agreed common wage and labor standards. In the South Wales coal region, employers withheld from the wages of all workers, union members or not, a contribution that was paid to the relevant union.

The Industrial Relations Researchers McCarthy distinguishes between "pre-entry closed shop" (employees must be a union member to be set) and "post-entry closed shop" (by setting workers must be a union member). The first, less widespread form was to be found in newspaper printing and docks in particular until the mid-1980s.

According to a survey in 1978, at least a quarter of British workers were working under a closed shop agreement.

Legislation by the Thatcher government gradually banned the closed shop in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Closed shop in German social history

The extent to which forms of the closed shop - for example in an informal and latent form: membership forced through social pressure - played a role in German social history has not been researched. A formal closed shop ("lock-out clause") is known in the printing industry . In this trade, the employers 'association and the book printers' union agreed on a "collective bargaining association" early on. In 1906 they signed an "organization agreement " with the mutual recognition of the parties to the collective bargaining agreement as "regulatory factors" and the obligation that the companies affiliated in the employers' association only employ union members and, conversely, that union members are only allowed to work in the collective bargaining companies of the employer association. This bilateral closed shop was used by companies in the graphic arts industry to combat so-called "dirt competition" from undercutting companies.

Closed shops in other countries

United States

In the United States, the Taft Hartley Labor Act of 1947 federally banned the practice of closed shops. However, there is the possibility for the individual states to expressly allow this in their respective jurisdiction, but only after a certain employee has been hired (comparable to a Union Shop), not as a prerequisite for employment.

Canada

According to the so-called Rand formula , regulations can be made by law or collective agreements since 1946 under which all employees of a company have to pay union fees, even if they are not members. The Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that this did not restrict freedom of association . Since 2006, closed shops have also been allowed in all provinces.

literature

  • Peter Breschendorf: Dividing the workforce into two parts - opportunities and risks of differentiation according to union membership . Duncker & Humblot, Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-428-13009-2
  • Stephen Dunn, John Gennard: The Closed Shop in British Industry . Macmillan, London 1984. ISBN 0-333-26202-6
  • Charles Hanson, Sheila Jackson, Douglas Miller: The Closed Shop. A Comparative Study in Public Policy and Trade Union Security in Britain, the USA and West Germany . Gower, Aldershot 1982. ISBN 0-566-00414-3
  • WEJ McCarthy: The Closed Shop in Britain . Blackwell. Oxford 1964.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Lösche: Associations, trade unions and the system of industrial relations. in: Peter Lösche (Ed.): Country Report USA. History, politics, economy, society, culture. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 2004. ISBN 978-3-5933-7753-7 , pp. 353-409, here p. 388.
  2. ^ Original English version of the judgment on the Court's website
  3. ↑ Court judgments 52562/99 and 52620/99 in German  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.menschenrechte.ac.at  
  4. ^ Sidney and Beatrice Webb: Theory and Practice of the English Trade Unions (Industrial Democracy) . Dietz Nachf., Stuttgart 1898, Volume 1, p. 188.
  5. ^ Sidney and Beatrice Webb: Theory and Practice of the English Trade Unions (Industrial Democracy) . Dietz Nachf., Stuttgart 1898, Volume 1, p. 187.
  6. ↑ Stephen Dunn / John Gennard: The Closed Shop in British Industry . Macmillan, London 1984, p. 16.
  7. ↑ Linda Dickens / Mark Hall: The State: Labor Law and Industrial Relations . In: Paul Edwards (Ed.): Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in Britain . Blackwell, Isford 1995, pp. 262ff.
  8. ↑ Rainer Erd / Walther Müller-Jentsch : End of the Labor Aristocracy? In: Prokla, issue 35/1979, p. 18.
  9. ↑ Melvyn Dubofsky (Ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History. Oxford 2013. ISBN 978-0-19-999304-8 , pp. 125f.
  10. ^ Kaufman, Bruce E. Government Regulation of the Employment Relationship. Madison, Wisc .: Industrial Relations Research Association, 1997.
  11. ↑ Lavigne v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, (1991) 2 SCR 211
  12. ↑ Morely, Michael J .; Gunnigle, Patrick; and Collings, David G. Global Industrial Relations. Florence, Ky .: Routledge, 2006.