Yellow-dog contract

A yellow-dog contract (or a "yellow dog contract" or a yellow-dog clause [ [http://www.jargondatabase.com/Jargon.aspx?id=795 JargonDatabase.com definition] ] of a contract) is an agreement between an employer and an employee in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to be a member of a labor union. In the United States, such contracts were, until the 1930s, widely used by employers to prevent the formation of unions, most often by permitting employers to take legal action against union organizers. In 1932, yellow-dog contracts were outlawed in the United States under the Norris-LaGuardia Act. [cite web | title = "Coercion, Contract and the Limits of the Market" (CAE Working Paper #06-01) | author = Kaushik Basu | month = January | year = 2006 | url = http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/CAE/06-01.pdf] [Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933", (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1957), pp. 238-239]

The term yellow-dog clause can also have a different meaning: non-compete clauses within or appended to a non-disclosure agreement to prevent an employee from working for other employers in the same industry. [ [http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/BIGGS.HTM James Hague, compiler & editor, Stephen Biggs: "Halcyon Days: Interviews with Classic Computer and Video Game Programmers", June 2002] ]

Origin of term and brief history

In the 1870s, a written agreement containing a pledge not to join a union was commonly referred to as the "Infamous Document". This strengthens the belief that American employers in their resortto individual contracts were consciously following English precedents. This anti-union pledge was also called an "iron­ clad document", and from this time until the close of the 19th century "iron-clad" was the customary name for the non­-union promise. Beginning with New York in 1887, sixteen states wrote on their statute books declarations making it a criminal act to force employees to agree not to join unions. The Congress of the United States incorporated in the Erdman Act of 1898 a provision relating to carriers engaged in interstate commerce.

During the last decade of the 19th century and the opening years of the 20th, the individual, anti-union promise declined in importance as an instrument in labor warfare. Its novelty had worn off, workmen no longer felt themselves morally bound to live up to it, and union organ­izers, of course, wholly disregarded it. In the early 1900s, the individual, anti-union promise was resorted to frequently in coal mining and in the metal trades. And it was not membership in a union that was usually prohibited, but participation in those essential activities with­ out which membership is valueless.

In 1910, the International United Brotherhood of Leather Workers on Horse Goods, following an unsuccessful conference with the National Saddlery Manufacturers' Association, called a national strike in the saddlery industry for the 8-hour day. The strike proved a failure, and a large number of employers required verbal or written promises to abandon and remain out of the organization as a condition of re-employment.

In the case "Adair v. United States", the United States Supreme Court's majority held that the provision of the Erdman Act relating to discharge, because it would compel an employer to accept or retain the personal services of another person against the employer's will, was a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that no person shall be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law. The court was careful, however, to restrict the decision to the provision relating to discharge, and to express no opinion as to the remainder of the law. The section of the Erdman Act making it criminal to force employees to sign anti-union agreements therefore remained unadjudicated.

The term yellow dog started appearing in the spring of 1921, in leading articles and editorials devoted to the subject which appeared in the labor press. Typical was the comment of the editor of the United Mine Workers' Journal:

:This agreement has been well named. It is yellow dog for sure. It reduces to the level of a :yellow dog any man that signs it, for he signs away every right he possesses under :the Constitution and laws of the land and makes himself the truckling, helpless slave :of the employer. [Joel I. Seidman, "The Yellow Dog Contract", The Johns Hopkins Press, 1932, Ch. 1, pp.11-38]

Yellow-dog union

A yellow-dog union, sometimes also known as a company union refers to an employee association calling itself a trade union but which, in fact, is affiliated covertly or which is operated openly by an employer.

ee also

*Labour rights
*Labour and employment law
*Christian Labour Association of Canada

References

6. Ross Thomas,"Yellow Dog Contract" (William Morrow, NY, 1976), a novel.