294 
TRADE UNIONISM 
The open shop would obviously aggravate these adverse 
conditions. Degradation of skilled workers, increased 
competition among the workers in the group, and greater 
uncertainty and discontinuity of employment inevitably 
result from unregulated changes in industrial conditions. 
The bargaining strength of the group against the em 
ployer cannot be increased or even maintained if they 
are allowed. In the attempt to increase this bargaining 
strength the union recognizes the advantage of a monop 
olistic control of the labor supply. Hence another rea 
son for apprenticeship demands and the closed shop. 
Moreover, the bargaining strength of the group is 
almost always bound to be weak compared with that of 
the employer. Inimical changes cannot be prevented, the 
closed shop cannot be maintained, advantage cannot be 
taken of favorable opportunities for advances, and losses 
in wages and conditions cannot be staved off under unfa 
vorable conditions, granting the union assumptions, if 
the group is not recognized as the bargaining entity, and 
if it is not at least as acute a bargainer as the employer. 
This requires that the bargaining for the unions be car 
ried on by skilled specialists—men who know all the 
conditions of the trade and the market. But the men in 
actual employ cannot have this knowledge and skill. 
Hence the union demand that the employer bargain with 
the group through representatives of the workers not in 
his employ. Thus we have representative bargaining. 
But the union still is not so strong a bargaining entity as 
the employer if it cannot enforce the terms of the bar 
gain on the employer and its own members. Hence the 
necessity of a strong union with strong disciplinary pow 
ers, and hence, again, the necessity for group solidarity 
and the closed shop and apprenticeship.