Open shop

In the United States, the introduction of 'right to work' laws has been linked with lower overall benefits but higher economic growth by some proponents.[2][3][4] Such conclusions are debatable, however, as employment, investment, and income in traditionally unionized sectors of the economy cannot be correlated to passage of such laws.[5][6]

Open shop means a factory, office, or other business establishment in which a union, chosen by a majority of the employees, acts as representative of all the employees in making agreements with the employer, but in which union membership is not a condition of being hired.

Unions have argued against the open shop adopted by United States employers in the first decade of the twentieth century, seeing it as an attempt to drive unions out of industries. For example, construction craft unions have always relied on controlling the supply of labor in particular trades and geographical areas as a means of maintaining union standards and establishing collective bargaining relations with the employers in that field.

In order to do that, unions argued, construction unions—and to a lesser extent unions representing musicians, longshore workers, restaurant employees, and others who work on a transitory and relatively brief basis—must require that employers hire only their members.

The open shop was also a key component of the American Plan introduced in the 1920s. In that era the open shop was directed not only at construction unions but also unions in mass production industries. Unions again felt that these proposed policies would give employers the opportunity to discriminate against union members in employment and would also lead to a steadfast opposition to collective bargaining of any sort

The term open shop is also used similarly in Canada, mostly in reference to construction contractors that have at least a partially non-union workforce. Canadians enjoy the freedom to associate, guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, inherently including the right not to associate.[8]

In various Canadian provinces, certain 'open shop' organizations have formed. Many of these organizations claim that small contractors are not adequately protected by current labour legislation.

As labour law is a provincial jurisdiction in Canada, the laws vary from province to province. However, there is some common ground. Despite opposition from open shop contractors, in Ontario, the Liberal government recently reinstituted the card-based certification system that was in place for most of the post-World War II period. Card-based certification was reinstated only for the construction industry. It allows workers to certify an exclusive bargaining agent on the basis of membership, sometimes known as "majority sign-up". Some observers claim that this system creates a risk of employees being misled by business agents. Others assert that it overcomes the natural advantage that employers in opposition to unionization have over their employees.[9]

Some of these associations permit construction contractors that are unionized to join. Several companies whose employees are represented by the Christian Labour Association of Canada or CLAC, a union with non-traditional rules of membership, are members of the association. CLAC's roots trace to the Christian labour movement in the Netherlands.