The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1914-09-04
NOT A COMMODITY
Labor Cannot Be CIassed as a
Piece of Property.
A LONG ABANDONED THEORY.
That One Man Can Have a Property
Right In Another Is an Idea No
Longer Tolerated Among Civilized
People-SIavery Days Have Passed.


Magazine says in part:
The whole question whether labor
unions should come under the opera
ton of the antitrust law rests upon
the question whether labor Is mer-
chandise or not From the point of the
STAKEHOLDER, of course, labor is mer-
chandise. The slave is as truly val
liable piece of property as a horse.
From the point of view of some econo-
mists labor is regarded as commodity
which, like potatoes or steel or water
power. is offered by the owner in the
highest market and sought by the buy
er in the lowest market. This is the
only ground on which the application
of the antitrust law to labor unions
can be defended
This view of labor as commodity is
rightly becoming obsolete. Slavery is
no longer countenanced among civilized
people. The idea that one man can
have propeYty right in another man
is no longer defended by reasonable
people. With the abandonment of that
idea must be abandoned the idea of la
of human beings.
The man who wishes to buy potatoes
or steel or water power buys thing.
A man who hires labor for q wage en-
ploys human being. The man who
sells potatoes or steel or water power
gives that which Is separate from him
self, but a man who offers his labor
off ho
chaser of a commodity does not inquire
whether the seller is thrifty or has
good habits; all that he wants to know
is whether his goods are all that the
seller represents them to be. The man
who hires labor, on the other hand.
is very much concerned with the hab.
its, the character of the person he
hires. Such a difference as this the
law ought to recognize If it does not
recognize it the law ought to be
changed. The United States courts
have declared in substance that the
antitrust law does not recognize this
difference between the rights that a
man has in things that he happens to
own and the right hat he has over
himself.
The avowed object of the amendment
which the house of representatives
unanimously passed recently was to
recognize this difference and to make
it impossible hereafter for laboring
men who are organized for the COM
mon protection of themselves to be
treated by the courts as men who have
fS, tb.N <@fy In
ing a commodity.
This provision applies also to farm
ers' organizations. 1t is sufficient to
say that the farmer is the most in
dividualistic of individuals, and no
other danger is quite so remote as
that of a farmers monopolistic organ
ization. Anything which can legiti-
mately be done to encourage co-opera-
ton among farmers should be wei
coined as a public benefit.
The other provision in the antitrust
measures which affects labor unions is
that which prohibits the issuance of
injunctions in labor disputes except
when necessary for preventing irrepa-
rable injury, and then only in response
to written application. prohibits the
issuance of injunctions against peace
full primary boycotts and peaceful pick
citing; in addition. declares that such
peaceful boycotts and peaceful pick
citing shall not be construed to be lille
gak
This provision seems to us to be eau
tiousy planned and to provide by
statute nothing but what has been
| judged permissible by at least some of
the higher courts of the land. There
is no reason why the courts should at
tempt to enjoin men from refusing to
deal or for persuading others to refuse
| to deal with an employer with whom
they have controversy Nothing in
this provision legalizes the attempt to
enforce such boycott by coercive or
violent methods or by attempting a
secondary boycott-that is, the refusal
to deal with Those who decline to join
the boycott There is no reason why
the court should attempt to enjoin men
from peacefully attempting to persuade
others not to work for an employer
with whom they have controversy.
This is peaceful picketing. and it ought
to be distinctly understood to be we'll
within the law. There is nothing in
this provision which legalizes the at
tempt to enforce the desires of strikers
by coercive measures of any kind. In
this provision. with regard to injunc-
tons, there is and ought to be nothing
that is not as applicable to the en-
ployer as to the employee.
There Is no question here whether
labor unions should be regulated OF
not. Labor unions equally with any
other large bodies of men should be
kept subject to the sovereignty of the
whole people. The question Is whether
labor shall be treated as a commodity
and whether men shall be allowed to
do jointly what every one is and ought