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A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.
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A lockout may happen for several reasons. One reason is so that employers can lower its costs by using a lockout to force unionized workers to accept lower wages. If the union is asking for higher wages, or better benefits, an employer may use the threat of a lockout or an actual lockout to convince the union to back down.
The Dublin Lockout (Irish: Frithdhúnadh Mór Bhaile-Átha-Cliath) was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers which took place in Ireland's capital city of 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 Irish history. Central to the dispute was the workers' right to unionize.
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 (ULP) strike, an employer may legally hire permanent replacements. Also, in many U.S. states, employees who are locked out are eligible to receive unemployment benefits, but are not eligible for such benefits during a strike.
For the above reasons, many American employers have historically been reluctant to impose lockouts, instead attempting to provoke a strike. However, as American unions have increasingly begun to resort to slowdowns rather than strikes, lockouts have come "back in fashion" for many employers. Even as incidents of strikes are on the decline, incidents of lockouts are on the rise in the U.S.
Recent notable lockout incidents have been reported in professional sports, notably involving the National Basketball Association in the 1995 offseason and the 1998–99 and 2011–12 seasons, the National Hockey League in the 1994–95 and 2004–05 seasons, and the National Football League in the 2011 offseason. In 2005, the NHL became the first major professional sports league in North America to cancel an entire season due to a lockout.
On 8 April 1998, major 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.[1]
On 29 October 2011, Qantas Airways declared a lockout of all domestic employees in the face of ongoing union industrial action. This cancelled all flights, grounding the entire fleet effective immediately.[2]
The term lock-in refers to the practice of physically preventing workers from leaving a workplace. In most jurisdictions this is illegal but is occasionally reported, especially in some developing countries.
More recently, lock-ins have been carried out by employees against management, which have been labelled '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.[3][4][5] The following month, union employees of a call centre managed by Synovate in Auckland locked the front doors of the office, in response to management locking them out.[6] Such practices bear some resemblance to the gherao in India. It is also caused by disagreement between employer and employees in a certain department.