Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/257/184/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:21:39+00:00

Document:
1. A decree of injunction in a labor controversy was entered in the district court before the date of the Clayton Act, c. 323, 38 Stat. 738, but was pending on appeal in the circuit court of appeals when the act was approved. Held that the plaintiff had no vested right in the decree, and that the act was to be regarded in determining the appeal. P. 257 U. S. 201.
2. The irreparable injury to property referred to in the first paragraph of § 20 of the Clayton Act, supra, includes injury to the business of an employer. P. 257 U. S. 202.
by the defendant labor union, as distinguished from those who had been employed but were laid off some months previously and those who had not been in the employment, could invoke § 20 in their behalf. P. 257 U. S. 202.
4. The Clayton Act, § 20, in forbidding injunctions to restrain employees, recent or expectant, from the use of peaceful persuasion in promotion of their side of the controversy, or from obtaining or communicating information in any place where they may lawfully be, merely declares and stabilizes what was always the best equity practice. P. 257 U. S. 203.
5. Workmen have the right to work for whom they will and to go freely to and from their place of labor undisturbed by annoying importunities or by the intimidation of numbers, and their employer has a right, incident to his property and business, that they have free access to the place where the business is conducted. P. 257 U. S. 203.
6. The "picketing" of an employer's plant by groups of men stationed near the points of ingress and egress and in neighboring streets, who importunately intercepted the workmen of the employer or others seeking employment, and whose activities collected crowds of bystanders and resulted in personal violence, held unlawful, and to be enjoined eo nomine, without adding the words "in a threatening or intimidating manner." Pp. 257 U. S. 204, 257 U. S. 207.
7. Such "picketing" creates a condition of intimidation in which there can be no peaceable communication of information or peaceable persuasion in the sense of the Clayton Act. P. 257 U. S. 205.
8. An injunction for the protection of an employer in a strike controversy should be adapted to the facts of the particular case, safeguarding his rights while affording to ex-employees and others properly acting with them opportunity, consistent with peace and law, to observe who are still working for the employer, to communicate with them, and to persuade them to join his opponents. Held, in this case, that the strikers and their sympathizers should be limited to one representative for each point of ingress and egress at the plant, and that all others should be enjoined from congregating or loitering about the plant or in neighboring streets affording access thereto, that such representatives should have the right of observation, communication, and persuasion, avoiding abuse, libel, or threats, and in their efforts singly should not obstruct an unwilling listener by importunate following or dogging of his steps. P. 257 U. S. 206.
9. An injunction broadly forbidding ex-employees from persuading employees and would-be employee to leave or stay out of the employment conflicts with the Clayton Act, supra. P. 257 U. S. 208.
10. Where the member of a local labor union, though not ex-employees within the Clayton Act, have reason to expect reemployment at a plant where wage have been reduced, interference by them and their union by peaceable persuasion and appeal to induce a strike against the lowered wages is not malicious or without lawful excuse, and the principle against malicious enticement of laborers does not apply. P. 257 U. S. 208. Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229, and Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, distinguished.
238 F. 728 reversed in part and affirmed in part.
Review of a decree of the circuit court of appeals which affirmed, with important modifications, a decree of injunction rendered by the district court at the suit of the present petitioner against the respondent labor union and individuals.
Granite City, County of Madison, State of Illinois, or elsewhere, and from interfering by persuasion, violence, or threats of violence in any manner with any person desiring to be employed by said American Steel Foundries in its said foundry or plant, and from inducing or attempting to compel or induce by persuasion, threats, intimidation, force, or violence or putting in fear or suggestions of danger any of the employees of the American Steel Foundries or persons seeking employment with it so as to cause them to refuse to perform any of their duties as employees of the American Steel Foundries, and from preventing any person by persuasion, threats, intimidation, force, or violence, or suggestion of danger or violence, from entering into the employ of said American Steel Foundries, and from protecting, aiding, or assisting any person or persons in committing any of said acts, and from assembling, loitering, or congregating about or in proximity of the said plant or factory of the American Steel Foundries for the purpose of doing, or aiding or encouraging others in doing, any of the said unlawful or forbidden acts or things, and from picketing or maintaining at or near the premises of the complainant, or on the streets leading to the premises of said complainant, any picket or pickets, and from doing any acts or things whatever in furtherance of any conspiracy or combination among them, or any of them, to obstruct, or interfere with said American Steel Foundries, its officers, agents or employees, in the free and unrestrained control and operation of its plant, foundry, and property and the operation of its business, and also from ordering, directing, aiding, assisting, or in any manner abetting any person committing any or either of the acts aforesaid, and also from entering upon the grounds, foundry, or premises of the American Steel Foundries without first obtaining its consent, and from injuring or destroying any of the property of the said American Steel Foundries. "
"Eight. Because the complainant was not entitled to an injunction prohibiting the defendants, while on the streets of Granite City or while in proximity to such foundry, from trying to persuade strike breakers from taking the places of the strikers."
"Ninth. Because the complainant was not entitled to an injunction prohibiting the defendants from stopping employees of complainant and suggesting to them that they should not work at such plant while a strike was on."
"Tenth. Because the complainant was not entitled to an injunction prohibiting the defendants from assembling, or congregating in proximity of said foundry or on the streets leading to such foundry."
"Eleventh. Because the complainant was not entitled to an injunction prohibiting the defendants from placing any picket or pickets upon the streets leading to such foundry whose duty it was to notify those entering said foundry that there was a strike on."
The circuit court of appeals modified the final decree by striking out the word "persuasion" in the four places in which it occurred, and by inserting after the clause restraining picketing the following: "in a threatening or intimidating manner." 238 F. 728.
"When we opened April 6th, we employed whoever we saw fit, whoever applied for employment at the gate. We had only called for, in round numbers, 300 men, and laid off approximately 1,300. Eighty or 90 percent of the employees were old men. I assume these men were members of various organizations; I can't state definitely as to that."
When business was resumed in April, half of skilled workmen were given wages at rates from 2 cents to 10 cents an hour below those paid before the plant had shut down. The Trades Council was advised of this about April 15th, and appointed a committee to secure reinstatement of the previous wages. The manager of the complainant told them that he ran an open shop, did not recognize organized labor, and would not deal with the committee, but would entertain any complaint by an employee. The Council thereupon, on April 22nd, declared a strike on complainant's plant and displayed outside of the entrance to the plant a printed notice announcing that a strike was on at the plant and calling on union men and all labor to remain away from the works in order that an increase in wages might be secured. Only two men, defendants Churchill and Cook, acted upon the order to strike. Churchill was a member of the Machinist's Union. Cook was not a member of any union. The Council then established a picket, which was carried on for three or four weeks without intermission until the bill was filed on May 18th, and a restraining order issued.
plant. It was on Niedringhaus Avenue, and this street was the one used by many of the plant's employees in going to their homes in Granite City and in reaching the terminal of the streetcar line which many used. Complainant's employees testified that, just as the picketing began, they were warned by some of the defendants that they would be hurt if they did not quit. The master mechanic of the plant, Hall, testified that Lamb, one of the defendants, the national representative of the Machinist's Union at St. Louis, when in company with four other pickets, handed him the circular of the Trades Council, and told him: "We don't like the way you have treated our boys down here, and we just came down to raise a little hell." Lamb admitted saying to Hall that the cut in wages was a severe one, and that it looked as though they were going to raise hell in the town because conditions were good; that he did not like to see a fight going on, but it looked as though it would come. The evidence showed that the pickets would stand about near the Wabash tracks, sometimes on the foundries' side, sometimes on the depot side, sometimes on Niedringhaus Avenue, and that there were three or four groups of them varying from four to a dozen in each group. The headquarters of all the groups was at the Wabash depot.
were brought into the plant. All disturbances ceased after the restraining orders were served.
Galloway testified he was present at the plant three mornings for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and four or five evenings for maybe half an hour; that he engaged in no violence while he was there, and saw none; that the representatives of the Central Trades were there doing picket duty, and that the closest he saw them to the plant was twenty feet in front of Wabash depot; that the Central Trades did not instruct anybody to assault anyone, but told them to picket the streets leading to the plant and ask the men not to go into the plant or take work under the reduced wages. He said that the pickets were selected from the different crafts interested in the wages; that the joint board of the Council placed the pickets where they were, and the Council then sanctioned this action. He said he went down there to see that things were going right; that they placed the pickets there to prevent, if possible, the men from entering and working at the plant until they arbitrated the difference or advanced their wages to the former scale; that the pickets were not authorized to commit an unlawful act.
B. F. Lamb, already referred to, visited Granite City because he had a local union there affiliated with the Tr-City Trades Council. He went there three times a week during the strike, and did picket duty. He was on the picket line itself, which was about 100 or 120 yards from the plant. Pickets were merely there to convey information and ask cooperation. He denied that they authorized any assaults, and he saw no assaulting. He heard of some fights which took place away from the plant, but he was in no way connected with them.
"In my estimation, the four or five witnesses who swore to my presence at different times to assault testified falsely. When the reduction of wages took effect, I was ordered by the superior of our District Board to go over there and to have men over there that would go to work to have them come out if they could under reduction of wages; probably some of our union men would go in unbeknowns of the trouble. At the time I went over there, none of our men were at work in the plant, because they had been sent for. But I went over anyway."
Harry McKenney, a picket, testified that he did assault one of the follows there; that he, Churchill, and another picket were standing together, and that he told a man named Haefner, an employee, to stay away from the building; that Haefner called him an insulting and profane name, and said he would work where he pleased, and that then he hit Haefner; that he never tried to stop anybody from going into the plant by force; that he did hit Haefner while he was on the picket line; that he did not hit him because he was going into the works, but just because he called him a bad name.
that upset them. He said two or three fights took place, and that he (Churchill) saw the big one with 200 men in it. He was half a block away.
Ishman, another picketer, said he was a craneman and resided at Granite City; that he was a member of the Cranemen's Union; that he did picket duty during the strike; that he was there quite a bit morning and evening; that the duty of the pickets was to inform the employees of the plant that there was a strike on, and to inform them of the conditions under which they were working. He said that, on May 8th, Crabtree, an employee, and four other employees were coming across the railroad tracks from their work; that they had seven pickets there. He said they got to talking to them, and somebody started a fight; he said somebody made a pass at him, and that he hit somebody. He said they claimed it was Crabtree; that it was 150 yards from the plant.
Cook, a defendant, who was not a union man, went out with the strike. He said he left because he did not like his wages, and quit because there was a strike on. Nobody sent him there as a picket, but he joined them, and they were all together picketing and talking to some men going to or coming from work. He said he wanted to quit work, and did not want anybody else to work in his place.
It is clear from the evidence that, from the outset, violent methods were pursued from time to time in such a way as to characterize the attitude of the picketers as continuously threatening. A number of employees, sometimes fifteen or more, slept in the plant for a week during the trouble, because they could not safely go to their homes. The result of the campaign was to put employees and would-be employees in such fear that many abandoned work, and this seriously interfered with the complainant in operating the plant until the issue of the restraining order.
The first question in the case is whether § 20 of the Clayton Act of October 15, 1914, c. 323, 38 Stat. 738, is to be applied in this case. The act was passed while this case was pending in the circuit court of appeals. In Duplex Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 254 U. S. 464, a suit to restrain a secondary boycott had been brought before the passage of the act, but did not come to hearing until after its passage. It was held that, because relief by injunction operates in futuro and the right to it must be determined as of the time of the hearing, § 20 of the act relating to injunctions was controlling insofar that decrees entered after its passage should conform to its provisions. The decree here appealed from in the district court had been entered before the Clayton Act passed. But the whole cause was taken up by the appeal. The complainant had no vested right in the decree of the district court while it was subject to review. Rafferty v. Smith, Bell & Co., post, 257 U. S. 226. The circuit court of appeals was called upon to approve or to change the decree, and was obliged therefore to regard the new statute in its conclusion, and so are we.
"That no restraining order or injunction shall be granted by any court of the United States, or a judge or the judges thereof, in any case between an employer and employees, or between employers and employees, or between employees, or between persons employed and persons seeking employment, involving, or growing out of, a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment, unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to a property right, of the party making the application, for which injury there is no adequate remedy at law, and such property or property right must be described with particularity in the application, which must be in writing and sworn to by the applicant or by his agent or attorney. "
"And no such restraining order or injunction shall prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from terminating any relation of employment, or from ceasing to perform any work or labor, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful means to do so; or from attending at any place where any such person or persons may lawfully be, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or from peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; or from ceasing to patronize or to employ any party to such dispute, or from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful means so to do; or from paying or giving to, or withholding from, any person engaged in such dispute, any strike benefits or other moneys or things of value; or from peaceably assembling in a lawful manner, and for lawful purposes; or from doing any act or thing which might lawfully be done in the absence of such dispute by any party thereto; nor shall any of the acts specified in this paragraph be considered or held to be violations of any law of the United States."
It has been determined by this Court that the irreparable injury to property or to a property right, in the first paragraph of § 20, includes injury to the business of an employer, and that the second paragraph applied only in cases growing out of a dispute concerning terms or conditions of employment, between an employer and employee, between employers and employees, or between employees, or between persons employed and persons seeking employment, and not to such dispute between an employer and persons who are neither ex-employees nor seeking employment. Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443. Only two of the defendants, Cook and Churchill, who left at the time of the strike, can invoke in their behalf § 20. We must therefore first consider the propriety of the decree as against them, and then as against the other defendants.
The prohibitions of § 20 material here are those which forbid an injunction against, first, recommending, advising or persuading others by peaceful means to cease employment and labor; second, attending at any place where such person or persons may lawfully be for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working; third, peaceably assembling in a lawful manner and for lawful purposes. This Court has already called attention in the Duplex case to the emphasis upon the words "peaceable" and "lawful" in this section. 254 U. S. 254 U.S. 443, 254 U. S. 473. It is clear that Congress wished to forbid the use by the federal courts of their equity arm to prevent peaceable persuasion by employees, discharged or expectant, in promotion of their side of the dispute, and to secure them against judicial restraint in obtaining or communicating information in any place where they might lawfully be. This introduces no new principle into the equity jurisprudence of those courts. It is merely declaratory of what was the best practice always. Congress thought it wise to stabilize this rule of action and render it uniform.
the propagandists do as to time, manner, and place as shall prevent infractions of the law and violations of the right of the employees, and of the employer for whom they wish to work.
How far may men go in persuasion and communication and still not violate the right of those whom they would influence? In going to and from work, men have a right to as free a passage without obstruction as the streets afford, consistent with the right of others to enjoy the same privilege. We are a social people, and the accosting by one of another in an inoffensive way and an offer by one to communicate and discuss information with a view to influencing the other's action are not regarded as aggression or a violation of that other's rights. If, however, the offer is declined, as it may rightfully be, then persistence, importunity, following and dogging become unjustifiable annoyance and obstruction which is likely soon to savor of intimidation. From all of this the person sought to be influenced has a right to be free, and his employer has a right to have him free.
after the picketing began. All information tendered, all arguments advanced and all persuasion used under such circumstances were intimidation. They could not be otherwise. It is idle to talk of peaceful communication in such a place and under such conditions. The numbers of the pickets in the groups constituted intimidation. The name "picket" indicated a militant purpose inconsistent with peaceable persuasion. The crowds they drew made the passage of the employees to and from the place of work one of running the gauntlet. Persuasion or communication attempted in such a presence and under such conditions was anything but peaceable and lawful. When one or more assaults or disturbances ensued, they characterized the whole campaign, which became effective because of its intimidating character, in spite of the admonitions given by the leaders to their followers as to lawful methods to be pursued, however sincere. Our conclusion is that picketing thus instituted is unlawful, and cannot be peaceable, and may be properly enjoined by the specific term because its meaning is clearly understood in the sphere of the controversy by those who are parties to it. We are supported in that view by many well reasoned authorities, although there has been contrariety of view. Barnes v. Typographical Union, 232 Ill. 425; Franklin Union v. People, 220 Ill. 355; Philip Henrici Co. v. Alexander, 198 Ill.App. 568; Vegelahn v. Guntner, 167 Mass. 94; Glass Co. v. Glass Association, 72 N.J.Eq. 653, 77 N.J.Eq. 219; Jersey City Printing Co. v. Cassidy, 63 N.J.Eq. 759; Frank v. Herold, 63 N.J.Eq. 443; Goldberg v. Stablemen's Union, 149 Cal. 429; Pierce v. Stablemen's Union, 156 Cal. 70; Local Union No. 313 v. Stathakis, 135 Ark. 86; Beck v. Teamster's Union, 118 Mich. 497; In re Langell, 178 Mich. 305; Jensen v. Cook and Master's Union, 39 Wash. 531; St. Germain v. Bakery & Confectionary Workers' Union, 97 Wash. 282; Jones v.
E. Van. Winkle Gin & Machine Works, 131 Ga. 336; Union Pacific Co. v. Ruef, 120 F. 102; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe v. Gee, 139 F. 582; Stephens v. Ohio State Telephone Co., 240 F. 759.
A restraining order against picketing will advise earnest advocates of labor's cause that the law does not look with favor on an enforced discussion of the merits of the issue between individuals who wish to work, and groups of those who do not, under conditions which subject the individuals who wish to work to a severe test of their nerve and physical strength and courage. But, while this is so, we must have every regard to the congressional intention manifested in the act and to the principle of existing law which it declared, that ex-employees and others properly acting with them shall have an opportunity, so far as is consistent with peace and law, to observe who are still working for the employer, to communicate with them, and to persuade them to join the ranks of his opponents in a lawful economic struggle. Regarding as primary, the rights of the employees to work for whom they will, and, undisturbed by annoying importunity or intimidation of numbers, to go freely to and from their place of labor, and keeping in mind the right of the employer incident to his property and business to free access of such employees, what can be done to reconcile the conflicting interests?
and persuasion, but with special admonition that their communication, arguments, and appeals shall not be abusive, libelous, or threatening, and that they shall not approach individuals together, but singly, and shall not in their single efforts at communication or persuasion obstruct an unwilling listener by importunate following or dogging his steps. This is not laid down as a rigid rule, but only as one which should apply to this case under the circumstances disclosed by the evidence, and which may be varied in other cases. It becomes a question for the judgment of the chancellor who has heard the witnesses, familiarized himself with the locus in quo, and observed the tendencies to disturbance and conflict. The purpose should be to prevent the inevitable intimidation of the presence of groups of pickets, but to allow missionaries.
"from picketing or maintaining at or near the premises of the complainant or on the streets leading to the premises of said complainant, any pickets and pickets"
by adding the words "in a threatening or intimidating manner." This qualification seems to us to be inadequate. In actual result, it leaves compliance largely to the discretion of the pickets. It ignores the necessary element of intimidation in the presence of groups as pickets. It does not secure practically that which the court must secure and to which the complainant and his workmen are entitled. The phrase really recognizes as legal that which bears the sinister name of "picketing," which, it is to be observed, Congress carefully refrained from using in § 20.
part of the decree of the district court which forbade them by persuasion to induce employees, or would-be employees to leave, or stay out of, complainant's employ. The effect of it is to enjoin persuasion by them at any time or place. This certainly conflicts with § 20 of the Clayton Act. The decree must be modified as to these two defendants by striking out the word "persuasion."
The second important question in the case is as to the form of decree against the Tri-City Trades Council and the other defendants. What has been said as to picketing applies to them, of course, as fully as to the ex-employees, but how as to the injunction against persuasion?
The argument made on behalf of the American Foundries in support of enjoining persuasion is that the Tri-City Central Trades Council and the other defendants, being neither employees nor strikers, were intruders into the controversy, and were engaged without excuse in an unlawful conspiracy to injury the American Foundries by enticing its employees, and therefore should be enjoined.
It is to be noted that, while there was only one member of the unions of the Trades Council who went out in the strike, the number of skilled employees then engaged by the Foundries was not one-quarter of the whole number of men who would be engaged when it was in full operation. The works manager said that eighty or ninety percent of the employees were old men, and that he assumed these men were members of various organizations. Other witnesses, members of the unions, testified that they had been employees of complainant in the previous fall. It is thus probable that members of the local unions were looking forward to employment when complainant should resume full operation, and even though they were not ex-employees within the Clayton Act, they were directly interested in the wages which were to be paid.
but to make it applicable to local labor unions in such a case as this seems to us to be unreasonable.
condition, not present in a case like the present. Without entering into a discussion of those cases, which include Brennan v. United Hatters of North America, 73 N.J.L. 729, Curran v. Galen, 152 N.Y. 33, Berry v. Donavan, 188 Mass. 354, and Plant v. Woods, 176 Mass. 492, it is sufficient to say they do not apply here.
the members of the international union from its success and the formidable, countrywide, and dangerous character of the control of interstate commerce sought. The circumstances of the case make it no authority for the contention here.
and to quit their employment. For this reason, we think that the restraint from persuasion included within the injunction of the district court was improper, and, in that regard, the decree must also be modified. In this we agree with the circuit court of appeals.
The decree of the circuit court of appeals is reversed in part and affirmed in part, and the case is remanded to the district court for modification of its decree in conformity with this opinion.

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