The Closed Shop Policy
SM.—One may rightly abjure the principle of the closed shop on purely moral grounds, but there is also a practical objection which seems to be commonly overlooked. The worker jealously guards the right to strike as the only means of ensuring that the employer does not forget his obligations. Yet once a union is assured of one hundred per cent. membership, whatever its policy, it soon becomes bureaucratic in its methods and pays scant attention to the wishes of its members. The right to withdraw membership of the union is the only means by which the worker can ensure that the executive heeds his desires. The closed shop principle is a bad thing for the individual union member, and one of these days he will wake up to the fact.—Yours faithfully,
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