Evening star., 1941-02-10
Vital Picketing
.DecisiionsGiven;;
Ford Rebuffed
Manufacturer Loses
Labor Board Fight
In Supreme Court
BY J. A. FOX.


In two decisions of vast Importance
to labor the Supreme Court today
upheld one picketing ban because
the picketing was accompanied by
violence and then lifted another
prescription against picketing that
had been imposed by lower court
where the union involved had no
members in the establishment pick
eteG.
In a third action bearing on labor
today, the court administered a set
back to Henry Ford in his fight
with organized labor by refusing to
review a Labor Board order reQulr-
ing the Detroit manufacturer to
cease interference with the collec-
tive bargaining right of his workers
and TO reinstate with pay % Of his
workers who were dismissed at River
Rouge in 1887 in drive of tbs
c. l. o. United Automobile Workers
TO unionlze the plant.
The Supreme Court action leaves
in effect the board order which pre-
viously had been upheld by the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The two picketing cases came up
from the Illinois courts. In the first,
in which the court divided sharply
TO 3, the decision by Justice Frank
furter said the Illinois Supreme
Court had acted properly in enjoin-
ing picketing by an American Fed
Grafton of Labor teamster local to
prevent the sale of cut-rate milk in
Chicago.
In the second. the court knocked
out the injunction that had been
granted 10 the owner and Is women
employees Of beauty parlor who
resisted the efforts of the American
Federation of Labor Cosmetologists
and Hairdressers' Union TO organize
the establishment
History of Disorder Traced.
The unions challenged both in
functions on the ground that they
violated the Constitutional guaran-
tee of the right of freedom Of
speech.
In disposing Of this contention
in the first case. Justice Frank
furter recited long history Of
disorder which preceded the in
/ junction and said the Supreme
Court could not hold that a State
through its courts can not base
protection against future coercion
on an inference of the continuing
/ threat of past misconduct"
The picketine in this case was
set in a background of violence"
| he said.
Justices Black. Douglas and Reed
| dlssented
In the beauty shop case. the court
| divided. s to 2, with Justice Frank
| furter again reading this opinion
and Justice Roberts writing a dis
sent in which Chief Justice Hughes
joined.
Placards Claimed False.
The owner of the beauty shop and
his employees obtained an injunction
when the Cosmetologists and Hair
dreSsers' Union pioketed the estab-
lishment with placards it was
charged were false.
In granting the injunction. the
Illinois Supreme Court said that
peaceful picketing or peaceful per-
suasion are unlawful when con-
| Quoted by strangers to the en-
ployer-i E.. where there is not a
proXimate relation of employees and
employers"
The Supreme Court disposed Of
this contention briefly:
"A State cannot exclude working
men from peacefully exercising ths
right of free communication by
drawing the circle of economic COM
petition between employers and
workers so small as to contain only
an employer and those directly en-
ployed by him. The interdependence
of economic interests of all those
engaged in the same industry has
become commonplace"
The dissent said that the record
in this case presents difficult ques-
tions concerning Illinois legal pro-
cedure on which the ltigants them
selves are in disagreement. and we
ought not to attempt to resolve
them"
The milk case developed from q
bitter fight of Milk Wagon Drivers
Local No. 753 to organize the milk
industry in Chicago, which had been
resisted by a group of dairies dis
tributing their milk by the so-called
vendor system.
Enumerating the acts of violence
CSee SUPREME COURT. Page A-3)