Lockout (industry)

Work stoppage by management of a company

This article is about worker lockout in industry. For power lockout in industry, see lockout–tagout.

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A lockout is a work stoppage or denial of employment initiated by the management of a company during a labor dispute.[1] In contrast to a strike, in which employees refuse to work, a lockout is initiated by employers or industry owners.

Lockouts are usually implemented by simply refusing to admit employees onto company premises, and may include changing locks or hiring security guards for the premises. Other implementations include a fine for showing up, or a simple refusal of clocking in on the time clock. For these reasons, lockouts are referred to as the antithesis of strikes.

Lockouts are common in major league sports. In the United States and Canada, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League have all experienced lockouts.

## Causes

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A lockout is generally an attempt to enforce specific terms of employment upon a group of employees during a dispute. It is often used to force unionized workers to accept new conditions, such as lower wages. If the union is asking for higher wages, better benefits, or maintaining benefits, a manager may use the threat of a lockout – or an actual lockout – to convince the union to relent.

## Examples

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Far from all labour disputes involve lockouts (or strikes), but lockouts have been used on a large scale around the world during and after industrialization. Some of the lockout incidents are historically significant.

### Ireland

[edit]

The Dublin Lockout was a major industrial dispute between 20,000 workers and 300 employers in Dublin. The dispute lasted from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, and is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in the history of Ireland. Central to the dispute was the right to unionize.

### United States

[edit]

In the United States, under federal labor law, an employer may hire only temporary replacements during a lockout. In a strike, unless it is an unfair labor practice strike, an employer may legally hire permanent replacements. Also, in many US states, employees who are locked out are eligible to receive unemployment benefits,[2] but they are not eligible for such benefits during a strike.[3][4]

For the above reasons, many American employers have historically been reluctant to impose lockouts and instead try to provoke a strike. However, as American unions have increasingly begun to resort to slowdowns rather than strikes, lockouts have become a more common tactic of many employers.

In 1892, after several wage cuts and disputes with the employers at the Homestead Steel Mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania, the union called for a strike after the company stopped discussing its decisions with the union. Henry Clay Frick shut down the plant and locked out all workers, preventing them from entering the mill.

Lockouts have also occurred in professional sports, usually due to disputes between team owners and players concerning their respective league's collective bargaining agreement. Major League Baseball saw four lockouts in modern history, including during the 1990 and 2021–22 offseasons.[5] The National Basketball Association had four in the 1995 offseason, the 1996 offseason, and the 1998–99 and 2011–12 seasons. The National Hockey League endured lockouts in 1994–95, 2004–05 and 2012–13, with the 2004–05 lockout ultimately resulting in the entire season being canceled.[6] Besides a player lockout in 2011, the National Football League had two involving referees in 2001 and 2012.[7]

In September 2016, Long Island University became the first institution of higher education to use a lockout against its faculty members.[8][9]

### Australia

[edit]

On 8 April, 1998, stevedoring company Patrick Corporation sought to restructure its operations for productivity reasons. In an industrial watershed event, it sacked all its workers and imposed a lockout on wharves around Australia.[10]

On 29 October 2011, Qantas declared a lockout of all domestic employees in the face of ongoing union industrial action. That cancelled all flights, grounding the entire fleet for several days.[11]

### Canada

[edit]

On August 15, 2005, 5,500 employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a Canadian public broadcaster were locked out by CEO Robert Rabinovitch in a dispute over future hiring practices. While services continued during the lock-out, programming consisted mainly of repeats, with news coverage being provided by the BBC on TV and wire-service feeds on radio.[12] The lock-out ended on October 11, 2005.

### Denmark

[edit]

On 2 April 2013, the Danish Union of Teachers (Danish: Danmarks Lærerforening) and the National Union of Municipalities (Danish: Kommunernes Landsforening) declared a lockout for more than 60,000 primary school teachers across the country. Over 600,000 students were also affected by the lockout and could not go to school.

The dispute was about whether teachers should have extra working time, as the Local Government Association (KL) wanted. The Danish Union of Teachers (DFL) was against it and could not find a solution.[13] After 24 days of being locked out, the teachers lost the labour dispute on 25 April 2013, with a government intervention to end the lockout. The government chose to apply all of KL's main demands, and the teachers received a small wage increase as compensation.

## Lock-in

[edit]

The term lock-in refers to the practice of physically preventing workers from leaving a workplace. In most jurisdictions, it is illegal, but it is occasionally reported, especially in some developing countries.[citation needed]

Lock-ins should not be confused with a sitdown strike, like the Flint sit-down strike between the United Automobile Workers and General Motors Corporation.

More recently, lock-ins have been carried out by employees against management, which have been labeled 'bossnapping' by the mainstream media. In France during March 2009, 3M's national manager was locked in his office for 24 hours by employees in a dispute over redundancies.[14][15][16] The following month, union employees of a call center managed by Synovate in Auckland locked the front doors of the office, in response to management locking them out.[17] Such practices bear some resemblance to the gherao in India. It is also caused by disagreement between employer and employees in a certain department.

## See also

[edit]

* Organized labour portal

* Capital strike
* Dublin Lockout
* FaSinPat, an Argentine recovered factory following a lockout
* Government shutdown
* Lockout (sports)
* National Hockey League
* Strikebreaker
* Walkout

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Work Stoppages Frequently Asked Questions". U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2. ^ Comparison of State Unemployment Insurance Laws (PDF) (Report). Employment and Training Administration, United States Department of Labor. 2023. p. 5-24–25. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
3. ^ Comparison of State Unemployment Insurance Laws (PDF) (Report). Employment and Training Administration, United States Department of Labor. 2023. p. 5-21–23. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
4. ^ Nova, Annie (August 9, 2023). "These 2 states offer unemployment benefits to workers on strike". CNBC. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
5. ^ Perry, Dayn (December 5, 2021). "MLB lockout: A brief history of strikes and lockouts as baseball comes to a halt for first time in 26 years". CBSSports.com. CBS Sports. Retrieved January 8, 2025.
6. ^ "The 2004 NHL lockout: A light look back at a dark day (9/16/04)". Sports Illustrated. September 15, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2025.
7. ^ "Refs due back Thursday night". ESPN. September 27, 2012. Retrieved May 1, 2025.
8. ^ Jaschik, Scott (6 September 2016). "Labour Day Lockout". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
9. ^ Semuels, Alana (7 September 2016). "An Unprecedented Faculty Lockout". The Atlantic.
10. ^ Steve O'Neill, "Outline of the Waterfront Dispute", Current Issues Brief, (Parliamentary Library), n15, 1998. Archived 2011-06-04 at the Wayback Machine
11. ^ Qantas grounds entire fleet Archived 2011-10-30 at the Wayback Machine \- ABC/Yahoo News, 29 Oct 2011
12. ^ "With lockout, depleted CBC struggling to stay timely". The Globe and Mail. 2005-08-17. Retrieved 2023-04-24.
13. ^ Lockout to take effect April 2 \- The Copenhagen Post, 25 Mar 2013
14. ^ "Striking French workers free boss". BBC News. 2009-03-26. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
15. ^ Sage, Adam (2009-04-04). "Angry French workers turn to 'Bossnapping' to solve their problems". The Times. London. Archived from the original on April 1, 2011. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
16. ^ Matlack, Carol. "BusinessWeek Europe - Sarkozy's "Bossnapping" Dilemma". Businessweek.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
17. ^ "Locked out call-centre staff lock managers in". The New Zealand Herald. 2009-04-14. Retrieved 2009-09-19.

## External links

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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Strikes and Lock-outs".

* Account of the great farm lockout of 1872 on EASF

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