The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1916-11-17
LABOR is NOT PROPERTY
Impossible to Consider It Such Unless
the Worker Is a Slave

tf rom Tue NdllSdS OltN LABOR NOTlu.
Acting under the authority of the
executive council, officers of the
American Federation of Labor are
! couferring with attorneys on the best
methods OF contesting a recent de
cision by the Massachusetts state SUI
3 preme court which holds that Labor
is property" and invalidates law
passed by the Massachusetts, legisla
ture in June, 1914, that the right tc
labor is a personal right and not a
property right" The statute limited
the issuance Of injunctions along lines
similar to the CLAYTON amendments to
the federal antitrust law,
The Massachusetts decision was
made in the case Of all appeal by a
union OF The Industrial Workers Of
the World which allesed that Hold
Carriers, Building and Common La
borers' Union No. 2o9. affiliated 10 the
A. F. of L., conspired to deprive them
of the right 10 work
The court sustained the J. w. w.
claim and set aside the law on the
ground that: 1t Qaborl is as much
property as the more obvious forms of
goods and merchandise. stocks and
bonds" The court defends its position
/ by referring to the fourteenth amend
ment othe federal constitution, which
declares no state shall deprive any
person of life, liberty or property,
without due porcess of law"
Writing in the American Fedora
zionist, current issue, President Furu-
seth of the International Seamen's
Union, cites numerous authorities in
opposition to the supreme courts
position.
These authorities include the Cen
fury dictionary, which defines property
as the exclusive right of possession,
enjoying and disposing of thing"
Blackstone's definition is: The sole
and despotc dominion which one
claims and exercises over the external
things of the world in total exclusion
of the right of any other individual in
the world"
ut will be seen from these defini-
Itions,' says President Furuseth, that
nothing can be property unless it can
be transmitted to others or disposed
of, and when the fourteenth amend
ment was adopted nobody held that
labor was property"
The term business" as defined by
several authorities, is also given. The
American and English Encyclopedia
of Law defines it as: THAT which oc-
cupies the time, attention and labor of
man for the purpose of livelihood or
profit that which occupies the time,
attention and labor of men for the
purpose of profit and improvement"
according to Websters dictionary,
business" means: That which busies
or that occupies the time, attention or
labor of one, as his principal concern
whether for longer or a shorter
time"
II wan W oNNll llOll tllC cpONC
definitions" continues President Furu-
seth, that while there is a funda-
mental difference between property
and business, there is none at all be-
tween business and labor; to do bust
ness is to labor.
THE word labor is a carless, in
definite term, but as used, it signifies
labor power in activity, producing
some commodity. Labor power cannot
be transmitted; it cannot be divorced
from the physical body of which it is
an inherent and indissoluble part 1t
grows with the persons growth; de-
ponds upon the PERSONS health; de-
Gays in sickness and vanishes with
, death. 1t is personal and can only be
: active in obedience to the personal
= will of the individual 1t is an attri-
butte of life and may be properly said
to be life itself
Labor, therefore, cannot be proper
: ty unless the person be property; that
! is to say unless the person be slave.
: The only value of the slave to his
: owner was the labor power inherent
: in him or her; all else was expense
/ The labor power had to be nourshed
2 to be preserved. This was expensive
t and no one would have kept the slaves
+ except for the labor power inherent in
r the slaves, and the fact that the prod
r uct of that labor power in operation
+ was the property of the owner of the
4 slave. Hence the statement that the
!. courts ruling is in fundamental op
v position to the American polity.
/. "The thirteenth amendment, which
( was the result of the civil war. was
f adopted to put an end to slavery for
Y ever in the United States. But the
a court says that the right to work is
b property cannot be longer regarded as
o ODen to question and labor is nron