Closed shop is a workshop or an industry in which only members of a labor union may be hired. In some closed shops, the union supplies all of the employees. When new employees must be hired, the employer obtains them through a union.
Closed shops differ from union shops. In a union shop, an employer may hire nonunion employees, but the new workers must join the union within a short period of time after they have been hired. The closed shop was declared illegal by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. However, the union shop is not illegal. See also Taft-Hartley Act ; Open shop ; Union shop ; National Labor Relations Act .
