Evening star., 1928-12-16
Senate to Take Up
Labor Injunctions
BY HARDEN COLFAX.

Forces whose viewpoints are as FAR
apart as the poles of the earth are due
to come to oratorical grips next week
at scheduled meeting of a subcom-
mittee of the Senate committee on the
judiciary to begin hearings on bill
designed to limit the jurisdiction of
Federal courts in issuing injunctions in
cases involving labor disputes. The
measure seeks to declare a legislative
policy assuring to workers the right of
| collective bargaining and otherwise act
| ing in concert, peaceably.
Should Congress pass this bill, drafted
| by the subcommittee as substitute for
another measure on which extensive
hearings were held last Spring. Feder-
| al courts would be forbidden to issue
| iniunctions in a wide range Of cases
such as:
Refusing to work, or striking;
Paying, or withholding, a strike or
unemployment benefit;
Giving publicity to labor dispute
by advertising, speaking, patrollng or
any other method not involving fraud
or violence;
Aiding, lawfully, any person involved
in a court action;
Assembling, peaceably, to organize
a labor dispute;
any of these acts;
Agreeing with others as to these acts;
Urging, without fraud or violence,
any of these acts.
Also. the courts would be permitted
to issue injunctions, excepting In cases
of actual violence or in a few other
circumstances, only after open hearing
on the facts, and an appeal to the Cir
: cult Court of Appeals would be pro-
vided with instructions to expedite a
/ review.
In cases of contempt, growing out Of
an injunction, jury trial would be
necessary, unless the contempt were
committed in the presence of the court.
Passage of this bill, If it were upheld
| by the courts as valid, would deal a Sc
| we're blow to company unions" and to
so-called "yellow-dog contracts" where
In employees agree when accepting en-
! ployment that they VIII not join a
| union, for the measure speclt1cally pro-
vides such contracts are not enforce
able by injunction.
/ Neither capital nor labor may be ex-
pected to be satisfied with the substi-
| tute bill on which hearings are sched-
uled to open Tuesday. The original
measure in the present Congress would
have prohibited injunctions to protect
property excepting where there was no
remedy at law and would have defined
property as those things which are
tangible and transferable" Naturally,
! this caused objections from important
sources which otherwise might not
| have entered the picture. The sub
/ committees substitute boils down to the
subject of injunctions in labor disputes,
provides for injunctions in these when
there is no adequate remedy at law,
and seeks to avoid definition OF prop
erty.
, Yet that question of what is prop
| erty?" promises to continue to be very
live issue in the renewed hearings.
Physical violence can be done only to
those things which are physical, but The
question is raised Immediately whether
property can be confined to the phy-
sical. Is property an animate or in
animate object, such as horse or a
! chair or is it the right to possess, en-
/! joy and transfer the horse or the
chair? The right to enjoy, or use, the
object might be impaired without any
violence whatsoever to the physical OBJ
| ject itself. SO argue those who oppos,
| restriction of the powers of the courts.
| Fundamentally, there is fine con-
stitutional question mark in regard to
! any such contemplated legislation ss