International Labour Organization covenants do not address the legality of closed shop provisions, leaving the question up to each individual nation.
[4]: 126 In relation to the pre-entry closed shop, they stated, "Its raison d'être is to exclude people from jobs by denying them union membership".
They were further curtailed under section 137(1)(a) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (c. 52)[5] passed by the Conservative government at the time.
The Labour Party, then in opposition, had supported closed shops until December 1989, when it abandoned the policy in accordance with European legislation.
[8] The famous English tort law case of Rookes v Barnard concerned a closed shop agreement.
[10] States with right-to-work laws go further by not allowing employers to require employees to pay a form of union dues, called an agency fee.
Also, the National Labor Relations Act permits construction employers to enter pre-hire agreements in which they agree to draw their workforces from a pool of employees dispatched by the union.