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From International Socialism, No.19, Winter 1964/5, p.29.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Closed Shop in Britain
W.E.J. McCarthy
Blackwell, 35s.
This is essential reading for anyone interested in the Discovery of Britain. It is the first detailed study of the closed shop. It shows how extensive a practice it is, embracing half of organised manual workers, two-fifths of all trade-unionists, one-sixth of all employees; it shows how rank-and-file workers, shop-stewards, trade-union officials and even some employers (some of the time) have varying, often contradictory, interests in bringing it about and in its continuance; and especially how it sustains trade-union officialdom in its mediating function between workers and bosses, by the impartial use against either of job control. The book maps the areas of closed shop and explains its frequency by reference to the type of problems encountered at work, the history of different industrial sectors, the relation of class forces, etc, and is especially good at identifying the different strands of interest which go into the making of industrial relations. The only pity is that the good, fresh meat is drowned in academic ponderousness.
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