Bargaining Lockout: An Impatient Warrior

Notre Dame Law Review Volume 40 | Issue 2 2-1-1965 Bargaining Lockout: An Impatient Warrior Robert P. Duvin Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert P. Duvin, Bargaining Lockout: An Impatient Warrior, 40 Notre Dame L. Rev. 137 (1965). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol40/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Law Review by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact . Article 1 NOTRE DAME VOL. XL FEBRUARY, RWVEP 1965 No. 2 THE BARGAINING LOCKOUT: AN IMPATIENT WARRIOR Robert P. Duvin* A lockout is a temporary refusal by an employer to furnish work to his employees. Although the word itself carries no invidious connotation, most students of collective bargaining and labor law have for many years rejected its acceptability as a negotiating pressure tactic. In the last fifteen years there have been very few cases in which the lockout was employed solely for the purpose of achieving bargaining objectives. When used in this manner, the lockout is the counterpart of the strike and, quite clearly, a potentially powerful economic weapon. Therefore, one can only assume that the infrequent appearance of such a potent tactic - in an arena not yet free from the stench of yesteryear's hostilities - results from a widely held belief that it is illegal. Recently, however, the bargaining lockout has been cloaked with respectability. Scholars have started to proclaim its virtues, and some have suggested that its legal status is popularly misunderstood.' They stress that the National Labor Relations Board has been responsible for the amputation of management's strong right arm and now the arsenal is nearly bare. Needless to say, the Board has performed this operation with tools usurped from Congress and contradictory to the teachings of the Supreme Court - and the scale of economic power, delicately balanced in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley Act, has now, supposedly, again been weighted in favor of organized labor. These scholarly efforts have not fallen on deaf ears, and their intellectual thrust, in its own fashion, has had significant impact on recent decisions by some * J. D. 1961, Indiana University School of Law; LL.M. 1963, Columbia University School of Law. 1 See 76 HARv. L. Rav. 1494 (1963); Denbo, Is the Lockout the Corollary of the Strike?, 14 LAB. L.J. 400, 406-08 (1963); Meltzer, Lockouts Under the LMRA: New Shadows on an Old Terrain, 28 U. Crr. L. Rnv. 614 (1961); Meltzer, Single-Employer and MultiEmployer Lockouts Under the Taft-Hartley Act, 24 U. CH. L. R v. 70 (1956); Petro, The NLRB on Lockouts-l1, 3 LAB. L.J. 739 (1952). See also Fleming, The Obligation to Bargain in Good Faith, 47 VA. L. Rv. 988, 1009-10 (1961); Wollett, The Weapons of Conflict: Picketing and Boycotts, in PUBLIC POLICY AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 121, 140-43 (1962). NOTRE DAME LAWYER federal courts of appeal. The lockout, embellished by judicial and scholarly approval, has recently been an occasional participant in the labor-management drama. It is not unreasonable to speculate that if the stigma of illegality is eradicated altogether, the lockout will, like the strike, become an integral part of the collective bargaining system. The answers to the difficult legal problems raised by the aggressive use of the bargaining lockout can be expected during this term of the Supreme Court, as two lockout cases2 are on the Court's docket, already scheduled for oral argument. Unfortunately, this critical condition has developed at a time when the industrial sea is already stormy as collective bargaining itself is currently at a crossroads, unable to surmount the great social problems of unemployment, automation, and inflation, oftentimes blindly groping for solutions where none is to be found, hemmed in by the ever-lurking specter of government intervention.' Quite obviously, it is of great importance that the fundamental issues now before the Court be resolved in a manner which is absolutely consistent with basic federal labor policy - and its major component, collective bargaining. The great social institution of collective bargaining, at this crucial stage in its development, deserves the time and attention of those persons who are interested in its progress and want to contribute in whatever way possible to its preservation as a primary force in our economy. The bargaining lockout, not long ago a stranger to collective bargaining, now stands at the threshold, impatiently waiting to assume its rightful role, alongside the strike, as head of the house of labor. Accordingly, I shall analyze the important legal problems raised by the bargaining lockout, review the arguments proffered by its proponents and opponents, and offer a rational solution consistent with law and policy. First, however, it is essential to discuss briefly the relevant provisions and underlying policies of the National Labor Relations Act. I. THE NLRA - ITS PRIMARY OBJECTIVE AND IMPLEMENTAL FRAMEWORK The most fundamental policy of the National Labor Relations Act is reflected by the Congressional selection of collective bargaining as the corrective for many of the economic maladies of our society.4 Problems such as recurrent business recessions, depressed wage rates, depleted consumer purchasing power, and substantial obstructions of the free flow of commerce are 2 See Brown Food Store, Inc., 137 N.L.R.B. 73 (1962), enforcement denied, 319 F.2d 7 (10th Cir. 1963); cert. granted, 32 U.S.L. Week 3243 (Jan. 7, 1964) [hereinafter referred to as the Brown Food Store case]; American Ship Building Co., 142 N.L.R.B. 1362 (1963), enforced sub nom. Local 374, Boiler Makers Union v. N.L.R.B., 331 F.2d 839 (D.C. Cir. 1964), cert. granted, 33 U.S.L. Week 3115 (Oct. 13, 1964) [hereinafter referred to as the American Ship Building Co. case]. 3 The railroad industry recently experienced the ultimate breakdown in collective bargaining when Congress, in response to an imminent national rail strike, intervened. On August 28, 1963, a bill establishing compulsory arbitration machinery for disposition of the railroad work rules dispute was enacted and signed by President Kennedy just hours before the strike deadline. See 53 L.R.R.M. 25 (1963). 4 See generally Duvin, The Duty to Bargain: Law in Search of Policy, 64 COL. L. Rlv. 248 (1964). THE BARGAINING LOCKOUT listed in the text of the statute.5 Moreover, it states that "protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively safeguards commerce from . . . industrial strife and unrest, by encouraging practices fundamental to the friendly adjustment of industrial disputes. . ."' Thus, Congress has decided, as a matter of national labor policy, that labor disputes are to be settled, whenever possible, through the process of negotiation without recours (...truncated)