OUR LARGEST CLOSED SHOP
Levin, Ruben
Our Largest Closed Shop By Ruben Levin CAN YOU IMAGINE • robed judge aolemnly Issuing an order compelling all workers to join the union of their craft? Or forbidding "outside...
...All in all, lawyers and doctors alike have "closed shops" much more stringent than anything workers ever thought of—and all at a tune when the Taft-Hartley Act outlaws "closed ansae" nationally for labor and many state laws forbid any type of "unionsecurity.'' (RUBEN LEVIN U one of the edUecs of Labor...
...Will they be barred from practicing in hospitals...
...We still have our difficulties, however...
...no referendum was ever held...
...The physicians have their "national union," the American Medical Association, their state branches, and "local lodges"— that is, county medical societies...
...Several attorneys from the City of Brotherly Love started suit to break this "monopoly...
...Sounds fantastic, doesn't it...
...A physician who isn't able to get into this "charmed circle'' can't treat his own patients if he must send them into such hospitals...
...Doctors and dentists all over the nation have equally ironclad "closed shops...
...This stirred quite a row recently in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania...
...However, in view of the County Bar's rules, he couldn't practice there, the three judges decreed...
...This article was adapted Crem the Intematienal Assoclallou of Ms> ehuiisii magasine...
...Our deficit has become less staggering...
...George F. Lull, general manager of the A.M.A., in speeches to local medical societies here and there,' tried to dodge the question of penalty by saying each state medical society could "take what disciplinary action it saw fit"—-which could mean expulsion As among the lawyers, there are gradations of "closed shops" within "closed shops" among the medicos...
...As for the weird situations described above, they weren't dreamed up...
...Help us over our goal...
...And officials of Bar Associations —most of them corporation lawyers— are trying to gat the same kind of laws through the legislatures of every other state, so .4»»»«r emit make ftte entire B. a. a. a "closed shop" for their craft...
...The County Bar, it ruled, was within its rights in putting up the barriers...
...Only the doctors on tho "closed staffs" have "jurisdiction" over patients who came through the doers...
...We must still raise the balance...
...Since courts are the "shops" in which lawyers work, such penalty would drive theb out of their profession...
...Well, it does exist—not for workers, however, but for lawyers...
...It is a subsistence budget, and just as any cut in a starvation diet is the margin between life and death, so any cut in our budget is the margin between life and death...
...IT'S PRETTY NEARLY the same with the medical profession...
...WHAT IF the members refuse to pay...
...But under the rules of the County Bar Association, they couldn't practice there, unless they hired a local lawyer as a "front...
...Outside attorneys, even if they belong to the same "union," but to another "lodge," can't practice in the jurisdiction of such county associations...
...They represented the barest minimum...
...Our budget cannot be cut any further...
...Lawyers aren't alone in building up their own "Chinese walls...
...Outside attorneys got some of them as their clients...
...Those failing to pay their dues faced loss of their "job rights"—that is, they may be expelled from the association and barred from the courts...
...Not only that, but the court ordered 126 delinquent attorneys to pay up their annual dues in the Bar Association and it instructed county sheriffs to serve warning notices on those lawyers...
...All that con be done under the A.MjA...
...A recent tabulation showed that 27 states have such "closed shops"—which go by the fancy names of "integrated bars...
...Members were never consulted...
...Your donations have cut deficit considerably, pyesi have proven to us that you conifer the work of The New Leader Igportant, that you like the job we are jSMtg, and that you recognize that that Spb must continue to be done...
...Big Philadelphia law firms, which have business all over the state, fretted over this stone wall...
...What a howl would be raised if such a situation existed for labor...
...The assessment, which is slated to yield a $3,500,000 "slush fund" to fight enactment of health insurance legislation, was put over by the A.M.A.'s "house of delegates," a governing group composed of a representative of each state society...
...The county has a lot of wealthy citizens and they provide a lush field for lawyers...
...Because of the publicity over the case, some state legislators have indicated they'll try to get a law through the legislature forbidding such local "monopolies," but that's being opposed by a lot of lawyers who are benefitting from the local blockades...
...The amount Which we still lack is urgently needed to pay creditors, back wages, current bills (and the increased costs which they reflect...
...We, in return, pledge to re-double fur 'efforts, to strive to continue to Improve your paper and to^make The New Leaaer an even better and even more important journal than it is...
...In many a state, the legal practitioners not only enjoy an airtight "closed shop," but they have it enforced by the power and majesty of the courts...
...Your responses, coming as they did from all Over the country, demonstrate powerful ges we have developed with so many real liberals who are working for increased social legislation, extension of our democratic way of life and defeat of the Communist and reactionary forces wherever they exist...
...Or forbidding "outside unionists" from working in your towtf...
...But now this lesser sum becomes the margin for existence...
...Dear Reader: ^¦jjllt you for your responses to mtv MP'to-hclp, .Your letters of praise ¦tyeur contributions have been meet HyuMgiBf...
...Can you conjure a sheriff knocking at your door, showing his badge, and gruffly demanding—in the name of the law—that you pay up your dues in the union, or else...
...In short, will therr-.prof ession be closed to them...
...by the organization's bigwigs at a recent closed-door meeting in St...
...The lawyer whe krsejght ibe suit, Roland J. Christy, iwW'i1gfMI1Mr a three-man court to *teset*Il resjeerements so far as Ms legal sttMsJHWsits and good moral character .are efneerned...
...Send in your contribution today...
...KENTUCKY ISN'T ALONE with such a setup...
...The rigidity of that "closed shop" on a national basis will soon face.a test, as a result of the $25 per head assessment imposed on the 140,000 members of the A.M.A...
...All three, incidentally, are members of .the "Lawyers' Union...
...THE IRONY OF IT ALL is that in most of those very states, laws have been enacted prohibiting the "closed shop" for workers—and lawyers had a major hand in putting them over...
...Louis...
...For example, in many hospitals, elder doctors have established what are called "closed staffs...
...Many other counties in Pennsylvania —and elsewhere—have similar "mo- , nopolies...
...IN ANOTHER CASE, a lower court at Norristown in Montgomery County canto down with tha sstme ttfflbV.of verdict...
...By such arrangements, the older doctors protect their profitable monopoly and squelch competition from younger doctors trying to advance in tha world...
...It was simply — bingo!—you're socked $25 apiece...
...Our original figures were trimmed to the bone...
...closed shop" setup...
...However, at this writing a "grass roots" tevott against -thft jtfsessment was spreading over the country...
...IN MANY A COUNTY, they have laid down rules keeping the territory to themselves...
...Some of them require as much as Ave years' local residence before a lawyer can practice his profession there...
...In Kentucky not so long ago, the state Court of Appeals sustained the "closed shop" established by the "Lawyers' Union"—that is, the State Bar Association...
...And Dr...
...Will they be tossed out of their medical societies...
...Some of the local "lodges" of the "Lawyers' Union"—that is, County Bar Associations—carry the "closed shop" idea to" an even greater extreme...
...Pretty nearly everywhere they've got to belong to that "union," or they're barred from practicing in any hospiptal...
...One carried his case up to the State Supreme Court, but the high tribunal gave him no relief...
Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 14
