The union shop de-authorization poll.

Of several provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act designed to promote more democracy within labor unions, that providing for union shop deauthorization polls has perhaps been the least used. In the first ten years of the act's operation a total of only eighty-nine polls, involving fewer than ten thousand employees, were conducted. This article presents and analyzes the results of these polls, together with the leading NLRB decisions concerning them. The author also suggests an explanation for the infrequent use of this device and ways in which it might be improved. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)