Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1903-01-12
THE PARKER DECISION.
Right of Union Men to Strike Against
Employment of Nonunion Men.

MEN,
Following is the substance of the de-
cision of Chief Judge Alton B. Parker
of the New York court of appeals,
which has been widely commented
upon:
"If an organization strikes to help its
members, the strike Is lawful. If its
purpose be merely to injure nonmem-
bers, it is unlawful. If the organiza-
tion notifies the employer that its men,
bers will not work with nonmembers
and its real object Is to benefit the or
ganization and secure employment for
its members, it is lawful. If its sole
purpose be to prevent nonmembers
from working, then it Is unlawful 1
do not assent to this proposition, al
though there is authority for 1t. 1t
seems to me illogical and little short of
absurd to say that the everyday acts
of the business world, apparently with
In the domain of competition, may be
either lawful or unlawful, according to
the motive Of the actor.
"Within all the authorities upholding
the principle of competition, If the mo-
tive be to destroy another's business in
order to secure business for yourself,
the motive is good; but, according to a
few recent authorities, If you do not
need the business or do not use It, then
the motive is bad, and some court may
say to a jury, who are generally the
triers of fact, that a given act Of COM
petition which destroyed AS business
was legal If the act was prompted by
a desire on the part of the defendant
to secure for himself the benefit of it,
but illegal if its purpose was to de-
stroy AS business in revenge for an
insult given.
THE defendant associations, as ap-
pears from the findings quoted, wanted
to put their men in the place of certain
men at work, who were nonmembers,
working for smaller pay, and they set
about doing 1t in perfectly lawful
way. They determined that If it were
necessary they would bear the burden
and expense of a strike to accomplish
the result, and In SO determining they
were clearly within their rights, as all
agree. They could have gone upon
strike without offering any explanation
until the contractors should have come
in distress to the officers of the associa-
ton, asking the reason for the strike.
Then, after explanation, the nonmem-
bers would have been discharged and
the men of the defendant association
sent back to work. Instead of taking
that course they chose to inform the
contractors of their determination and
the reason for it. Having the
right to insist that plaintiffs men be
discharged and defendants men put in
their places If the services of the other
members of the organization were to
be retained, they also had the right to
threaten that none of their men would
stay unless their members could have
all the work there was to do.
"a man has a right under the law to
start a store and to sell at such reduced
prices that he is able in short time to
drive the other storekeepers in his vi
cinity out of business when, having
possession of the trade, he finds him
self soon able to recover the loss sus-
tained while running the others. Such
has been the law for centuries. The
reason. of course, is that the doctrine
has generally been accepted that free
competition is worth more than it costs
and that ON this ground the infiiction
of damages is privileged.
Nor could this storekeeper be pre-
vented from carrying out his scheme
because, instead of hiding his purpose,
he openly declared to those storekeep-
ers that he intended to drive them out
of business in order that he might later
profit thereby. Nor would 1t avail such
storekeepers, in the event of their bring
ing an action to restrain him from ac-
compishing their ruin by underselling
them, to persuade the trial court to
characterize the notification as a
threat for on review the answer would
be: A man may threaten to do that
which the law says he may do provided
that within the rules laid down in those
cases his motive is to help himself. A
labor organization is endowed with pre-
csely the same legal right as is an in
dividual to threaten to do that which it
may lawfully do"