This, then, was the first public presentation of the idea of the preferential shop.  Mr. Brandeis, as a result of close study of labor disputes and a rich experience in settling strikes, had reached the conclusion that the position of the adherents of the closed as well as those of the open shop was economically and socially untenable.  The inherent objection to the closed shop, he contends, is that it creates an uncontrolled and irresponsible monopoly of labor.

On the other hand, the so-called open shop, even if conducted with fairness and honesty on the part of the employer, is apt to result in a disintegration of the Union.  It has been a frequent experience of organized labor that, even after a strike has been won, men drop out of the Union and leave the burden of Union obligation to the loyal minority, who, weakened in numbers, face not only a loss of what the strike has gained, but a retrogression of those Union standards that have been the result of past struggles and sacrifices.

By the preferential Union plan, when an employer obliges himself to prefer Union to non-union men, a Union man in good standing, that is, a Union man who has paid his dues and met his Union obligations, is insured employment to a limited extent, and the dues represent a premium paid by him for such employment.

It was not an easy task to secure assent to this idea from the manufacturers, for Mr. Brandeis made it clear that, while the plan did not oblige the manufacturers to coerce men into joining the Union, it clearly placed them on record in favor of a trade-union, and obliged them to do nothing, directly or indirectly, to injure the Union, and positively to do everything in their power, outside of coercion, to strengthen the Union.

In Mr. Brandeis’ appeal to the Union representatives he referred to the history of the Cloak Makers’ Union as a telling illustration of the futility of their past policy.  He pointed out that the membership of the Union during a strike was no test of its strength—­a Union’s solidity rested upon its membership in time of peace.  Were they not justified in assuming that what had occurred in the past of the Cloak Makers’ Union would occur in the future, and that its membership would dwindle to a small number of the faithful?  How could their organization be permanently strengthened?

Cloak making, as a seasonal trade, offered a fair field for proving the efficiency of the preferential plan, for in the slack season the manufacturers must, by its terms, prefer Union men.  The industrial situation provided a test of this good faith.  The Union leaders could then effectively show the non-union worker the advantage of the union membership.

The final formation of the preferential union shop as presented to both sides by Mr. Brandeis, Mr. London, and Mr. Cohen, in the Brandeis conference, was this:  “The manufacturers can and will declare in appropriate terms their sympathy with the Union, their desire to aid and strengthen the Union, and their agreement that, as between Union and non-union men of equal ability to do the job, the Union men shall be given the preference.”