Evening star., 1937-03-28
LABOR AIM in SIT-DOWNS
TOCINCHRIGHTTO WORK
Editor Believes Workers Are Prompted
by Conviction of Proprietary
Interest in Their Jobs.

cluded those very words The right to
bargain collectively with representa-
tives of their own choosing was the
basis of labor's contention that it had
the right to picket.
Now the picket, peacefully walking
up and down the sidewalk, carrying
sign that gave notice of strike in a
plant or in an industry, generally has
been sustained in his rights by the
court. 1t is now an assumed right.
Under that right labor can legally ap-
peal to the public as q third party to
industrial disputes Under that right
labor can somewhat hamper the busi-
ness and thus can, and does, legally
limit the rights of the owner of the
tools Of industry under his e-simple
title.
We Americans have gone further
than we realize in establishing the
workers right to his job when we
legallze picketing. But we have done
even more than curtail the employers
right to the free use of his plant. BY
State and national laws we have taken
away the tool owners right to protec-
ton of the courts when he would stop
the argument and would limit labor's
right to collective bargaining with
representatives of its own choosing"
How have we done this? BY denying
to the owner of industrial property the
right to enjoin labor in its right to
organize, to strike and, finally, to
picket.
Labor Can Tell Story.
Therefore. we can see that labor had
a right to the sidewalk and the high
way in front of an industrial plant. a
right to use that sidewalk and high
way as forum in which to warn the
public that strike is going on and
to present to the public the justice of
labor's claims in collective bargaining.
Labor cannot riot in the street or on
the sidewalk, under the law. The
plckets of labor cannot obstruct
traffic. But pickets can tell their
story and vitiate the owners title to
his property by enlisting public SYM
pathy in the justice of their cause
&c. before the sit-doWn strike ap-
peared, labor was legally at the fac
tory door, but legally at the factory
door only in an appeal to reason, only
as debater in an argument, only as
and while workers used the demo-
cratic process of free speech and free
assemblage. They stood on the side
walk, protected by the bill of rights
Then, suddenly, with the sit-down
strike, they crashed in the front door
and sat down. Labor took long step
toward its objective when 1t passed
the industrial threshold and began to
picket inside the factory walls. It left
the bill of rights on the sidewalk, a
goal achieved, salient captured, and
now, with the sit-down strike, labor is
second base.
Well, what about it? Where do we
go from here? A hundred years ago
the right to strike, the right to picket
on the sidewalk and in the street
were as hotly contested as today is
the right to seize the tools of in
dustry and appeal from the demo-
u hSiS ploSCcoCo Va 4CdSOlllllS Oll WIG
sidewalk to the undemocratic process
Of force inside the door of the mill |
Out of this struggle for possession |
Of the tools of industry must come
some decent compromise.
Labor Elects Executives.
Labor, by the democratic process, |
has elected the executives in this
Labor does not have |
the courts. The courts are ready to
throw the trespaSsers out of the in |
vaded property. But mere trespass
and invasion may not be the only |
issues involved in the question pre-
sented by the sit-doWn strike. Labor
evidently feels the issues go deeper
into the industrial problem than the |
mere difference between the rights
Of the owner, as compared with the
rights of the users of industrial
property.
1t took the courts SO years to work |
out a body of decisions in the struggle
between the rights of the consumers
# the products of public utilities and
he rights of the owners of the property
hat manufactured the services uf |
public utilities. Will labor wait so
ears, or even, in the modern sped
Up process, 10 years, while these new
lights which labor claims are being
ldjudicated by the courts? Clearly,
abor believes that it has won its entire
ase when it has elected the executives,
rational and State, who agree with
abor's contention that it has a right
o bargain collectively with repre-
entatives of its own choosing" even
When this right curtails, as of course
t does, many property rights of the
'Wners of industrial plants.
Political executives, that is, Gov
rnors and the President, shrink from
lslng the police or the militia to de-
end the rights of the tool owners.
Governors are loath to shed blood. The
President is silent, while labor, having
he nine points of law which go with
possession, challenges the political ma
'hinery of this country to move in the
lefense of ancient rights, property
lights that have been established for
! thousand years.
Well, again we ask, where do We 20
rom here?
tCopyright. 1877