ANALYSIS: Union Employers Have No Lockout Card to Play … For Now

Not a single lockout of union workers has been initiated by employers so far in 2020, according to Bloomberg Law’s continually updated database of work stoppages. But that doesn’t mean lockouts have suddenly become an obsolete labor relations strategy for management-side negotiators.

The lone lockout in the first three quarters involved 8,000 striking nurses at six hospitals in Washington state. But that stoppage in January was not started by management: In a fairly commonplace tit-for-tat practice in the health care industry, the hospital owner temporarily locked out nurses who staged a three-day walkout so that their replacements could complete their ...