A lockout is a work stoppage or denial of employment initiated by the management of a company during a labor dispute.
[1] In contrast to a strike, in which employees refuse to work, a lockout is initiated by employers or industry owners.
A lockout is generally an attempt to enforce specific terms of employment upon a group of employees during a dispute.
[citation needed] For the above reasons, many American employers have historically been reluctant to impose lockouts and instead try to provoke a strike.
However, as American unions have increasingly begun to resort to slowdowns rather than strikes, lockouts have become a more common tactic of many employers.
Lockouts have also occurred in professional sports, usually due to disputes between team owners and players concerning their respective league's collective bargaining agreement.
[7] On 29 October 2011, Qantas declared a lockout of all domestic employees in the face of ongoing union industrial action.
While services continued during the lock-out, programming consisted mainly of repeats, with news coverage being provided by the BBC on TV and wire-service feeds on radio.
[10] After 24 days of being locked out, the teachers lost the labour dispute on 25 April 2013, with a government intervention to end the lockout.
The government chose to apply all of KL's main demands, and the teachers received a small wage increase as compensation.