The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-04-14
Courts Place Labor
In Class Of Trusts
Under Sherman Law
(By a Staff Correspondent

blow by the decision of the Supreme
Court, reversing the Circuit Court OF
Appeals, and giving the right of EN-
ployers to enjoin the Stone Cutters
Union for acts alleged to violate the
Sherman Antitrust Law justices
Louis d. Brandeis and 0. w. Holmes
dissented from the majority view and
upheld the union.
The case is one in a series of SUI
preme court decisions which have in
terpreted the meaning of the Clayton
Act of 1914 adversely to what organ
lied labor desired. The Clayton Act
acclaimed as organized labor's
Magma Charta" when passed by con-
gress, supposed to exempt unions
from the operations of the antitrust
laws and to prevent issuance of in
functions in labor disputes, has been
so interpreted by the Supreme Court
as to be liability rather than a help
Aids Powerful Corporations.
The present case, known as the
Bedford Cut Stone Co. VS.. Journey
men Stone Cutters Association of
North America, further shears the
wings of the Clayton Act by permit
ting injunction on a new series of
practices resorted to by organized la
Dor as economic weapons.
The Stone Cutters Union has a
membership of 5000 with $50 locals
and about 30 to 35 members in each.
The "a corporations involved in on
the employers side control about 70
percent of all the cut stone in the
country and represent a combined in
vestment of $6,000,0O0.
Following the strike in the Bedford
Cut Stone Company's plant, the cor
pOration, after pursuing lockout
policy toward union men, undertook
to solve its labor difficulties by the
company union" method Evidently
the Bedford corporation was mem
Der of the United States Chamber of
Commerce extension course on how
to hornswoggle labor.
The stone-cutters' union thereupon
urged its members working on build
ings in other states to refuse to work
on stone put out by the scab labor of
the Bedford company. The corpora
ton went into the courts for an in
junction for relief against this pro
tective act by the laboring men.
The Supreme Court in its over
riding of the lower courts refusal to
grant an injunction now upholds the
use of the injunction in labor dis
putes. 1t takes the ground that labor
battles are now of interstate char
acter and that therefore iniunctions
are in order. Associate Justice Suth-
erland, who wrote the majority opin-
ion, held that the unions action
threatened to destroy or narrow the
interstate trade of the Bedford Com
pany.
Knifes Labor.
What the Bedford Company's con-
duct toward the laborers threatened
to do to them apparently meant moth
ing to the august tribunal.
In effect the courts order directs
the union, as corporate body and as
composed of individuals, to do a GER
tain type of work. How this verdict
will be carried out remains to be seen.
Commenting on this important an
gle of the situation, Associate Justice
Brandeis in his very sharp dissenting
opinion said
"lf on the undisputed facts of this
case refusal to work can be enjoined,
Congress created by the Sherman law
and the Clayton Act an instrument
for opposing restraints on labor
which remind US of involuntary serv-
itude."
Class Decision.
Mr.. Brandeis then went on to show
how the Supreme Court had inter-
preted the Sherman law to permit
the United States Steel Company and
the United States Shoe Machinery
Company to dominate their respective
fields, adding that it would be
strange if Congress had by the same
act willed to deny the members of a
small craft of workingmen the right
to cooperate in simply refraining
from work when that course was the
only means of self-protection against
a combination of militant and power
full employers"
The failure of the Clayton Act to
10 what the officialdom of organized
labor claimed it would do is vivid
of the sham of such leg
islation and a demonstration of the
stupendous power of the Supreme
Court. The act said, in substance,
that an injunction should not be is
sued in labor dispute except to
prevent irreparable injury to prop
erty for which there is no adequate
remedy at law, and also that there
your enemies" and its adoption