union. All workers are compelled to join it. Many of these companies belong to employers' associations which carry on an incessant campaign against the trade union closed shop. But the company union closed shop, they will tell you, is quite another matter! They call it "industrial freedom."
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad System is a typical railway line that writes into the constitution of its Association of Maintenance of Way and Miscellaneous Foremen, Mechanics and Helpers a clause which forbids its members joining the trade unions covering this line of work. The Rock Island Lines did likewise in 1923 and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford enforces the "yellow dog" in its shop craft company union.
Still others, such as the Inland Steel Company, have the "worker representatives" solemnly swear to "faithfully support the constitution and laws of the United States and the State of Indiana, and the plan of representation." Patriotism—plus allegiance to an anti-union state of industrial relations.
Another method that has been used to cement the company plan upon the shop is the check-off system whereby the dues to the company union are deducted by the company from the pay envelopes. The Shop Employees' Association of the Union Pacific Railroad, for example, enjoys this advantage, and the Chicago and Alton and other roads attach it to their plans. The dues are taken out of the pay-check in a manner that would make the Wall Street press rave about the "tyranny of the closed shop" were a real labor union benefitting by the practice.
Using the Sub-Committees.
One favorite method of the employer in putting across certain measures in his household union is to create a large ramification of sub-committees.
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