Single-Employer and Multi-Employer Lockouts under the Taft-Hartley Act

Abstract

HT HE growth of multi-employer bargainingl has been accompanied by increased litigation regarding the legality of the so-called multi-employer lockout, i.e., a lockout by the unstruck members of a multi-employer bargaining unit, who are subject to an express or implied strike threat, in response to a strike called against one or more members of their group after an impasse in negotiations for a master contract. Although such a lockout may raise anti-trust questions,2 as well as questions under the TaftHartley Act, recent litigation has arisen exclusively under the Taft-Hartley Act. This litigation has made only one thing clear: The NLRB, according to the reviewing courts, is always wrong. Thus the initial position taken by a majority of the Board (pre-Eisenhower), that defensive lockouts are illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act, was rejected by the courts of appeals in three circuits.3 A new