The Connecticut labor news., 1922-10-27
HOW COURTS HAVE
 EXTENDED POWERS
 TO DESTROY RIGHTS

TO DESTROY RIGHTS l The principles and ruels of equity
 which we inherit from Great Britain did not contemplate any such author ity as is exercised by our American
 courts today Had they done so King
 necessary to hire Hessians to come to America to war upon the colonists. | His lord chancellor would have is
 sued an injunction restraining peace | full assemblage, free speech, and free press. Deputy sheriffs in the colonies
 would have served copies of the in l junction upon the prominent patriots,
 and if they violated the injunction they would have been found guilty without a trial by jury, and would
 have been imprisoned for contempt of court What a misfortune that King George did not know to what use the
 writ of injunction could be put!
 l If the courts applied a universal
 principle in the issuing of injunctions, instead of our country supporting an Hess honest and dishonest, whose duty
 is to stop bootlegging, federal and state courts of equity would issue
 blanket injunctions of the same type of those issued in connection with
 labor disputes, post these in public places, and then without the necessity
 of trial by jury, the bootlegger would be summoned for contempt of court and promptly sentenced to jail. | The unfortunate, as well as the sin
 ister fact is, that the injunction as 1t is
 applied to strikers by invading their
 constitutional rights, is not applied to
 any other citizen.
 | In this country our constitutional
 rights are stripped from us by equity
 courts when we go on strike, and not only this but many of our courts of
 equity have enjoined us from doing
 anything to protect our organization ] from destruction when the organized
 open shoppers and American plan
 ners set about de-unionizing our or
 ganizations Two of many instances
 indicate 2, the sinister trend. The Springfield Foundry Company of Spring gfe1d, Massachusetts, decided to
 de-unionize it's foundry. Without pre- vious warning all of the union mold
 CTS were discharged, and the follow
 ing morning professional strike break
 CTS were placed at work nj the foun-
 dry The International Union sup ported. our members and gave them
 every assistance possible. A lower l court issued an injunction restraining | our members from maintaining a strike against this foundry, or of do- 1 ing anything which would help them to collectively secure unemployment as union men. Their strike was de- clared to be an illegal one on the grounds that it was illegal to attempt ! to prevail upon the employer to again employ union men under union con , ditions This injunction was sustained l by the supreme court of the state.
 One of the most complete monop- | o1ists in America is the United Shoe | Machinery company. It dominates the shoe industry, 1t prevents shoe
 manufacturers from buying, leasing
 or using any shoe machinery except
 that which 1t manufactures. Over a year ago it decided to de-unionize its machine shop in Beverly, Massachu- ! setts. It informed it's employees that unless they signed individual con- tracts which, among other things, pro- vided they would immediately with draw from the Machinists union, and
 bind themselves not to join any other union while in the company's employ, 1 they would be discharged. The purpose of this corporation was to destroy the Machinists union and to prevent this, if possible, the union machinists wene on strike. An injunction was promptly issued de- claring their strike to be illegal, and restraining them from remaining on strike, and this injunction was also sustained by the supreme court ot the state, so that in Massachusetts
 membership in trade union, so far as judge-made law is concerned, de- l 41,o 1r1- stead of the wage earner's desire. Ii the employer is unwilling that his employees should be members of trade | unions, if he threatens to discharge them unless they withdraw their trade union membership, the courts will support him to the extent of re- straining wage earners from gong on strike, or remaining on strike, or do ing anything which could assist their effort to prevent these unrlghteous,
 un-American, yellow dog contracts from being forced upon them.
 Not only this, but under the
 usurped power exercised by our courts of equity, class distinctions are created, and one group of clti-
 zens, the employers, are permitted to do the very things which are specltl- callv denied to labor. Time and again federal and state courts have refused to issue injunctions restraining em- p1oyers and business men from boy cotting other employers and business men. A striking evidence of this fact arose recently in Minnesota. The owner of the Wonderland theater of
 Minneapolis, discharged his union moving picture operators, and em-
 ployed non-unionists in their. place
 The theater was declared unfair by the Minneapolis labor movement. An injunction was secured restraining