i=;2 



The Review of Reviews. 



110 limit to its power to use force, even in the extreme 

 form of the rack and the stake, to punish heresy, 

 never went so far as do modern trades unions in the 

 irresponsible exercise of the power of life and death. 

 For the Roman Church in her worst days was always 

 willing to receive the heretic when he repented and 

 submitted to her authority. But in America working 

 men who have been expelled from the union, either 

 from the caprice or i)rejudice of- the local voting 

 majority in their lodge, are denied all place for 

 repentance. They are branded as industrial lepers ; 

 they apply in vain for admission to the close ranks ol 

 the union from which they have been expelled, and 

 if any employer ventures to give them emi)loyment a 

 strike is ordered or his goods are boycotted by all 

 the trades unionists of the United States. This is a 

 hideous and horrible abuse of the power of the associa- 

 tion ; it is utterly destructive of liberty, and will inevit- 

 ably in the end provoke a reaction which may do 

 infinitely more harm to the cause of labour than the 

 utmost that could be obtained by the boycott of the 

 non-Unionist. Those who are incredulous as to 

 the possibility of such a tyranny finding its place 

 in modern society will do well to read Mr. W. J. 

 Merritt's article on the closed shop in the Ncrth 

 American Rcvirici for January : — 



\VH\T IS A "CLOSED SHOP?" 

 The " closed shop " is a system prevailing in factories con- 

 ducted under a fi.\ed rule that none but union men in good 

 standing shall be employed at the trade involved. It is called 

 the "closed shop" because its doors are barred against all 

 employes whom the union does not recognise, and it is con- 

 trasted with the "open shop," where both union and non- 

 union men are employed, without discrimination against 

 either. The non-union man may be denied union member- 

 ship ; he may have been suspended or e.Npelled, or he may not 

 desire membership, but in either of these three contingencies the 

 fact, and not the reason, that he is non-union is the conclusive 

 disqualification against employment in a closed shop. As the 

 employer cannot review the union's adjudication that a man is 

 non-union, and as in most unions, like all secret societies, an 

 applicant for membership must be approved or voted in, and no 

 court or any other authority can review the organisation's 

 action in rejecting the applicant, the result is that no man can 

 secure employment in a closed shop except by consent of the 

 union. 



Mr. Merritt describes in considerable detail the 

 method in which this tyranny, exercised by irrespon- 

 sible local majorities voting in ballot, is brought into 

 operation. 



HOW THE TVKANNV IS ENFORCEO. 



The first step is to strike against any employer who 

 gives work to a non-unionist. Should strikes fail of 

 their purpose, the American Federation of Labour, 

 which has a membership of nearly two millions, repre- 

 senting ten million persons (over a tenth of the entire 

 American poptilation), are all pledged to boycott the 

 goods produced by the open shop. There are one 

 thousand four hundred organisers of the Federation, 

 whose chief duty is to see that the boycott is 

 enforced : — 



With .igents in every trade centre of the country, and local 

 federations of all trades to .let at their commands, with travel- 



ling agents going from city to city, and spies to detect opcn-shoi. 

 shipments and telegraph the information to the unions at the 

 place of consignment, we have a phenomenon hitherto unknown 

 in either democratic or despotic states, with its branches like 

 veins throughout our entire society. 



Another weapon is the insistence upon the employ- 

 ment of the Union label, which is fixed to all goods 

 produced by closed shops. The conditions of labour 

 may be much better in the open shop, but its goods 

 are branded by the absence of the label, whereas a 

 closed shop which may be run under much worse con- 

 ditions has a full right to use the Union label. The 

 Carpenters' Union refuses to handle any goods or to 

 work upon any materials which come from an open 

 shop. The same rule prevails in relation to many 

 other workers. By the aid of the strike and the 

 boycott and the label the chances of a nonUnionist 

 earning his living can be reduced to a minimum. 



ABANDON HOPE ALL VE WHO ! 



Many trades unionists who are professedly the 

 friends of liberty and justice are to be found who 

 would defend this use of power in order to compel 

 men to join the associations by whose actions the\ 

 are supposed to profit. But few, I hope, even in this 

 country, would defend the exercise of this power of 

 life and death, for that is what it comes to, against the 

 man who wishes to join the union but who is for- 

 bidden to do so, and then is punished for not being a 

 Unionist. No man has an enforceable legal right to 

 membership in any trade union. He must apply 

 for membership, and he may be rejected or black- 

 balled in exactly the same way as if he applied for 

 membership of any private club. Sometimes if a 

 man has left the union for a time, possibly because of 

 his inability to pay the levies, his application to rejoin 

 may be rejected, or he may be admitted on condition 

 that he pays dues on the wages he has earned during 

 the years he was outside the union. Sotne men who 

 have once been members, and have withdrawn, have 

 been obliged to pay large fines before they were 

 re-admitted. Sometimes the unionists will refuse to 

 admit any new members at all in a given period of 

 time. Others will refuse to admit any new members 

 above the age of twenty-one, and others systematically 

 exclude foreigners. 



If a local union by a majority vote refuses any 

 application, none of the other unions throughout the 

 country can accept the unfortunate man who has 

 been rejected, except by a two-thirds vote of the 

 union to which he has made a second application, 

 and even then his application is invalid unless 

 he can obtain the consent of the union which first 

 rejected him. Thus, if a man is blackballed for per- 

 sonal reasons by a union in ("alifoinia, he cannot 

 be admitted to a union in New York exceptitig by 

 a two-thirds vote, and then the decision nuist be 

 ratified by the union of California. 



IS rHERE NO REMEDY ? 



Mr. Merritt considers the tyranny has reached such 

 a pitch in .\merica that employers will be obliged to 



