Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Yellow Dog Contract

An employment agreement whereby a worker promises not to join a LABOR UNION or promises to resign from a union if he or she is already a member.

Until the 1930s, employers were able to use a variety of measures to prevent employees from joining labor unions. One of the most effective was the yellow dog contract, which frequently forced employees to either sign an agreement not to join a union or be fired. Courts upheld the legality of yellow dog contracts and frequently struck down state laws that sought to outlaw them. The enactment of the WAGNER ACT in 1935 (29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.) finally put an end to these types of agreements.

The U.S. Supreme Court's hostility to efforts by government to outlaw the yellow dog contract was rooted in the concept of "liberty of...