Court Opinion

ID: 9548141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:58:12.756027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:31.426162
License: Public Domain

BIRD, C. J., Concurring.
 I write separately because I believe it is only fair to give the Legislature some guidance in an area filled with constitutional problems. To prompt the Legislature to enter this field without such guidance1 not only invites error but encourages it. Such a practice is not only disingenuous, it is disrespectful to the litigants and knowingly misleads the public.
Today’s decision brings the law of public employee strikes into the 20th century and makes the common law contemporary. As the court has explained, the flat prohibition against such strikes was grounded in outmoded notions of sovereignty and unreasoned fears of free labor organization.
It is appropriate that today’s affirmation of the right to strike should come so soon after the tragic events surrounding the strike of Solidarity, the Polish labor union. The Solidarity strikers proclaimed that the rights to organize collectively and to strike for dignity and better treatment on the job were fundamental human freedoms. When the Polish government declared martial law and suppressed the union in December 1981, Americans especially mourned the loss of these basic liberties.
*594The public reaction to the Solidarity strike revealed the strength of the American people’s belief that the right to strike is an essential feature of a free society. In an economy increasingly dominated by large-scale business and governmental organizations, the right of employees to withhold their labor as a group is an essential protection against abuses of employer power. (See, e.g., Amer. Foundries v. Tri-City Council (1921) 257 U.S. 184, 209 [66 L.Ed. 189, 199, 42 S.Ct. 72, 27 A.L.R. 360].) Hence, it is widely presumed that “we have the right as free men to refuse to work for just grievances: the strike is an unalienable weapon of any citizen.” (Reagan & Hubler, Where’s the Rest of Me? (1965) p. 138.)
The majority opinion suggests that the right to strike may have constitutional dimensions. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 589-591.) I write separately to elaborate on this point. Although the right to strike has a long history in American jurisprudence, its textual and theoretical foundations have eluded a comprehensive analysis. Instead, the courts have danced a minuet around the issue. The time has come to make explicit that which has so frequently been presumed. If the right to strike does indeed differentiate this country from those that are not free, then it must be given substance and enforced.
The constitutional right to strike rests on a number of bedrock principles: (1) the basic personal liberty to pursue happiness and economic security through productive labor (U.S. Const., 5th and 14th Amends.; Cal. Const., art. I, §§ 1, 7, subd. (a)); (2) the absolute prohibition against involuntary servitude (U.S. Const., 13th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 6); and (3) the fundamental freedoms of association and expression (U.S. Const., 1st Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, §§ 2, subd. (a), 3).
It is beyond dispute that the individual’s freedom to withhold personal service is basic to the constitutional concept of “liberty.” Without this freedom, working people would be at the total mercy of their employers, unable either to bargain effectively or to extricate themselves from an intolerable situation. Such a condition would make a mockery of the fundamental right to pursue life, liberty and happiness by engaging in the common occupations of the community. (See Sail’er Inn, Inc. v. Kirby (1971) 5 Cal.3d 1, 17 [95 Cal.Rptr. 329, 485 P.2d 529, 46 A.L.R.3d 351]; see also Nash v. City of Santa Monica (1984) 37 Cal.3d 97, 110 [207 Cal.Rptr. 285, 688 P.2d 894] (conc. and dis. opn. of Bird, C. J.) [right to withhold personal service as a landlord is a constitutionally protected liberty interest]; id., at p. 114 (dis. opn. of Mosk, J.) [same]; cf. U.S. Const., 13th Amend. [prohibiting involuntary servitude]; Cal. Const., art. I, § 6 [same].)
Nevertheless, in the early years of this country, the concerted withholding of labor was outlawed under the doctrine of “criminal conspiracy.” (See *595Frankfurter & Greene, The Labor Injunction (1930) pp. 2-3, and cases cited.) Although workers—with the exception of chattel slaves—enjoyed the right to leave employment as individuals, they were prohibited from doing so as a group. (Ibid.) Apparently, the courts assumed that working people could adequately protect their liberty interests by exercising their personal right to terminate employment and compete as individuals in the labor market.
As Archibald Cox has written, “[sjome of the major problems of constitutional law . . . arise from the necessity of shaping guarantees born of an individualistic society to the conditions resulting from the solidarity of organized groups.” (Cox, Strikes, Picketing and the Constitution (1951) 4 Vand.L.Rev. 574, 579 [hereafter Cox].) The recognition of group rights for laborers trailed behind the legal acceptance of the modern business corporation, a group form of property ownership.2
The right to strike was initially regarded as labor’s counterpart to the massive economic power concentrated in the corporation. With the rise of monolithic business enterprises, it could no longer be maintained that employees’ freedom to compete in the labor market as individuals would be sufficient to protect their liberty interests. In a famous dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed: “One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return. Combination on the one side is patent and powerful. Combination on the other is the necessary and desirable counterpart, if the battle is to be carried on in a fair and equal way.” (Vegelahn v. Guntner (Mass. 1896) 44 N.E. 1077, 1081 (dis. opn. of Holmes, J.).)
In Holmes’s view, the right to strike was integral to this latter combination: “If it be true that workingmen may combine with a view, among other things, to getting as much as they can for their labor, just as capital may combine with a view to getting the greatest possible return, it must be true that, when combined, they have the same liberty that combined capital has, to support their interests by argument, persuasion, and the bestowal or re*596fusal of those advantages which they otherwise lawfully control.” (Vegelahn v. Guntner, supra, 44 N.E. at p. 1081.)
This theoretical foundation was later adopted by the United States Supreme Court. In an opinion by Chief Justice Taft, the court declared: “[Unions] were organized out of the necessities of the situation. A single employee was helpless in dealing with an employer. He was dependent ordinarily on his daily wage for the maintenance of himself and family. If the employer refused to pay him the wages that he thought fair, he was nevertheless unable to leave the employ and to resist arbitrary and unfair treatment. Union was essential to give laborers opportunity to deal on equality with their employer. They united to exert influence upon him and to leave him in a body, in order, by this inconvenience, to induce him to make better terms with them. They were withholding their labor of economic value to make him pay what they thought it was worth. The right to combine for such a lawful purpose has, in many years, not been denied by any court.” (Amer. Foundries v. Tri-City Council, supra, 257 U.S. at p. 209 [66 L.Ed. at p. 199].)
A few years later the high court, with Chief Justice Hughes writing, asserted that the right of employees to engage in “collective action” was “not to be disputed.” (Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Ry. Clerks (1930) 281 U.S. 548, 570 [74 L.Ed. 1034, 1046, 50 S.Ct. 427].) Finally, the court proclaimed that employees’ rights of self-organization were “fundamental” in nature. (Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin (1937) 301 U.S. 1, 33 [81 L.Ed. 893, 909, 57 S.Ct. 615, 108 A.L.R. 1352].)
Though these forceful statements suggest that the Supreme Court included the right to strike among those liberties protected by the Constitution, that proposition was never squarely asserted. Instead, a federal district court was the first to define the right in unambiguous terms: “The right to peaceably strike or to participate in one, to work or refuse to work, and to choose the terms and conditions under which one will work, like the right to make a speech, are fundamental human liberties which the state may not condition or abridge in the absence of grave and immediate danger to the community.” (Stapleton v. Mitchell (D.Kan. 1945) 60 F.Supp. 51, 61, app. dism. by stip., 326 U.S. 690 [90 L.Ed. 406, 66 S.Ct. 172] [invalidating a Kansas law that prohibited various labor activities, including strikes]; see also Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory (1944) 246 Ala. 1 [18 So.2d 810, 827-828] [striking down Alabama law that prohibited all strikes not endorsed by a majority of the struck employer’s employees].)
The status of the right to strike as a constitutionally protected “liberty” arises not only from the considerations of fairness set forth by Justice *597Holmes and Chief Justices Taft and Hughes, but also from the inherent nature of work. In the words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, “[t]he coming of the machine age tended to despoil human personality. It turned men and women into ‘hands.’ The industrial history of the early Nineteenth Century demonstrated the helplessness of the individual employee to achieve human dignity in a society so largely affected by technological advances. Hence the trade union made itself increasingly felt, not only as an indispensable weapon of self-defense on the part of workers but as an aid to the well-being of a society in which work is an expression of life and not merely the means of earning subsistence.” (A.F. of L. v. American Sash Co. (1949) 335 U.S. 538, 542-543 [93 L.Ed. 222, 225, 69 S.Ct. 258, 6 A.L.R.2d 481] (cone, opn. of Frankfurter, J.).)
Perhaps in response to this concern, some courts—including a California Court of Appeal—adopted an absolutist position, recognizing no distinction whatever between the rights of employees to quit work as individuals or in a group: “It is the right of every man to engage to work for or to deal with, or to refuse to work for or to deal with, any man or class of men as he sees fit, whatever his motive or whatever the resulting injury, without being held in any way accountable therefor. [Citations.] These rights may be exercised in association with others so long as they have no unlawful object in view.” (Overland P. Co. v. Union L. Co. (1922) 57 Cal.App. 366, 370-371 [207 P. 412]; see also Tobriner, The Organizational Picket Line: Lawful Economic Pressure (1951) 3 Stan.L.Rev. 423 , 426, fn. 16 [in spite of four separate opinions, the decision of this court in Parkinson Co. v. Bldg. Trades Council (1908) 154 Cal. 581 [98 P. 1027] rests on the absolute right of a labor union to strike].)
It has been argued that constitutional protection for strike activities would intrude on the legislative function. The courts have exercised restraint in applying the constitutional guarantee of “liberty” to legislative determinations of economic policy. This restraint reflects the fear that the diffuse concept of liberty could be employed as a device for the imposition of judicial policy judgments. (See Lochner v. New York (1905) 198 U.S. 45, 74-76 [49 L.Ed. 937, 948-949, 25 S.Ct. 539] (dis. opn. of Holmes, J.).)
Nevertheless, the mere fact that an enactment covers economic matters does not insulate it from scrutiny where an important constitutional guarantee is implicated. The Constitution expressly protects certain rights of “property.” (U.S. Const., 5th and 14th Amends.; Cal. Const., art. I, §§ 1, 7, subd. (a).) As Professor Cox has observed, “[a] constitution which assures the owner of property an opportunity to obtain a reasonable return on his capital must recognize the worker’s interest in the conditions under *598which he labors and the price he receives for his work.” (Cox, supra, 4 Vand.L.Rev. at p. 580.)
Furthermore, recognition of the right to strike does not require an unconstrained judicial construction of the term “liberty.” The courts can find constitutional guidance in the close nexus between the right to strike and a specific constitutional provision: the ban on involuntary servitude. (U.S. Const., 13th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 6.) Though this provision might not by itself guarantee the right to strike, it does provide clear support for the proposition that the strike is an exercise of constitutionally protected liberty.
Justice Brandéis once declared, in a case involving a peaceful, concerted refusal to work: “If, on the undisputed facts of this case, refusal to work can be enjoined, Congress [has] created ... an instrument for imposing restraints upon labor which reminds of involuntary servitude.” (Bedford Co. v. Stone Cutters Assn. (1927) 274 U.S. 37, 65 [71 L.Ed. 916, 928, 47 S.Ct. 522, 54 A.L.R. 791] (dis. opn. of Brandeis, J., joined by Holmes, J.); see also France Packing Co. v. Dailey (3d Cir. 1948) 166 F.2d 751, 758 (dis. opn. of O’Connell, J.) [construing War Labor Disputes Act to permit voluntary strikes in view of the constitutional ban on involuntary servitude].) Some courts have invalidated antistrike restrictions as inconsistent with the ban on involuntary servitude. (See e.g., Henderson v. Coleman (1942) 150 Fla. 185 [7 So.2d 117, 121]; United States v. Petrillo (N.D.Ill. 1946) 68 F.Supp. 845, 849, revd. (1947) 332 U.S. 1 [91 L.Ed. 1877, 67 S.Ct. 1538].)3
The close connection between the right to strike and the prohibition against involuntary servitude derives from the purposes of the 13th Amendment. That amendment guarantees the freedom to terminate employment not for its own sake, but in order to “prohibit[] that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit which is the essence of involuntary servitude.” (Bailey v. Alabama (1911) 219 U.S. 219, 241 [55 L.Ed. 191, 201, 31 S.Ct. 145].)
Accordingly, the amendment is concerned not merely with the formal right to quit, but also with the practical ability of working people to protect their interests in the workplace: “[I]n general the defense against oppressive hours, pay, working conditions, or treatment is the right to change employ*599ers. When the master can compel and the laborer cannot escape the obligation to go on, there is no power below to redress and no incentive above to relieve a harsh overlordship or unwholesome conditions of work.” (Pollock v. Williams (1944) 322 U.S. 4, 18 [88 L.Ed. 1095, 1104, 64 S.Ct. 792]; see generally, Cox, supra, 4 Vand.L.Rev. at p. 576.)
As courts and commentators universally acknowledge, the group right to strike has replaced the individual right to “change employers” as the principal defense of working people against oppressive conditions. The rise of multinational corporations and large-scale government has produced a corresponding decrease in the practical significance of the right to quit for the individual. To withdraw the right to strike is to deprive the worker of his or her only effective bargaining power. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 589-590; see also Burton & Krider, The Role and Consequences of Strikes by Public Employees (1970) 79 Yale L.J. 418, 419-420, and sources cited.) This undeniable fact is reflected in the intensity of the public reaction to the suppression of the Solidarity strike.
Over 30 years ago, the question of whether the 13th Amendment protects the right to strike was termed “momentous” by two justices of the United States Supreme Court. (A.F. of L. v. American Sash Co., supra, 335 U.S. at p. 559 [93 L.Ed. at p. 234] (conc. opn. of Rutledge, J., joined by Murphy, J.) [expressly reserving judgment on the question].) Yet, that court has never squarely addressed the issue.4
The notion of a 13th Amendment right to strike has been rejected by some lower federal courts and state courts. These courts have relied on two lines of reasoning. First, some have suggested that the prohibition against involuntary servitude protects only the right of employees to withhold personal services as individuals. (See, e.g., Western Union Tel. Co. v. International B. of E. Workers (N.D.Ill. 1924) 2 F.2d 993, 994-995, affd. (7th Cir. 1925) 6 F.2d 444 [46 A.L.R. 1538].) However, as explained above, this line of *600argument cannot justify the total nonprotection of strike activities in an economy dominated by large and powerful employers. (See ante, at p. 598-599.)
Other courts have held that the 13th Amendment does not protect a temporary withholding of labor. (See, e.g., Dayton Co. v. Carpet, Linoleum and Resilient Fl. D., etc. (1949) 229 Minn. 87 [39 N.W.2d 183, 197-198], app. dism., (1950) 339 U.S. 906 [94 L.Ed. 1334, 70 S.Ct. 570].) However, in view of the purposes of the prohibition on involuntary servitude, “can it matter whether the worker quits permanently or merely leaves the establishment until conditions are changed? In the former case he may be said to be exercising the right to sell his services to the highest bidder, leaving others to take his former job, while in the latter case he is seeking to injure the employer by cutting off the supply of labor. But this reasoning scarcely justifies a constitutional distinction, for in either case the improvement of employment conditions ultimately depends upon a withholding of labor from marginal employers until they offer more. . . . [T]he temporary or permanent character of the quitting seems irrelevant.” (Cox, supra, 4 Vand.L.Rev. at pp. 576-577.)
More fundamentally, it is not suggested here that the prohibition on involuntary servitude standing alone necessarily guarantees the right to strike. That provision does, however, provide ample support for the proposition that the right to strike must be counted among those constitutionally protected “liberties” that are essential to human freedom.
The concerted withholding of labor warrants protection not only as an exercise of personal liberty, but also as an incident of the fundamental freedoms of association and expression. (U.S. Const., 1st Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, §§ 2, 3.) As the majority point out, the right of workers to combine and exert “ ‘various forms of economic pressure’ ” on employers is constitutionally protected. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 588, quoting In re Blaney (1947) 30 Cal.2d 643, 647-648 [184 P.2d 892].)
Working people enjoy the constitutional right to form and join unions. (See, e.g., Orr v. Thorpe (5th Cir. 1970) 427 F.2d 1129, 1131; American Federation of State, Co., & Mun. Emp. v. Woodward (8th Cir. 1969) 406 F.2d 137, 139-140.) Without a constitutionally protected right to strike, the use of these freedoms would be “little more than an exercise in sterile ritualism.” (School Committee v. Westerly Teachers Ass’n (1973) 111 R.I. 96 [299 A.2d 441, 448] (dis. opn. of Roberts, C. J.); see also United Federation of Postal Clerks v. Blount (D.D.C. 1971) 325 F.Supp. 879, 885 (conc. opn. of Wright, J.), affd. mem. 404 U.S. 802 [30 L.Ed.2d 38, 92 S.Ct. 80].)
*601Recent decisions concerning consumer boycotts provide persuasive authority for the protection of strikes under the guarantees of free association and expression.5 Consumer boycotts were, like strikes, originally prohibited at common law. (See generally, Note, Political Boycott Activity and the First Amendment, supra, 91 Harv.L.Rev. at pp. 676-677.)
However, in a series of cases involving consumer boycotts by civil rights advocates, the courts began to recognize that such boycotts, like strikes, provide a necessary counterweight to entrenched economic power. In 1948, Justice Roger Traynor observed that “[i]n their struggle for equality the only effective economic weapon Negroes have is the purchasing power they are able to mobilize to induce employers to open jobs to them. . . . Only a clear danger to the community would justify judicial rules that restrict the peaceful mobilization of a group’s economic power to secure economic equality.” (Hughes v. Superior Court (1948) 32 Cal.2d 850, 868 [198 P.2d 885] (dis. opn. of Traynor, J.), affd. (1950) 339 U.S. 460 [94 L.Ed. 985, 70 S.Ct. 718]; see also Garner v. Louisiana (1961) 368 U.S. 157, 201 [7 L.Ed.2d 207, 239, 82 S.Ct. 248] (conc. opn. of Harlan, J.) [the First and Fourteenth Amendments protect sit-ins called to protest the racial practices of private businesses].)
In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982) 458 U.S. 886, 907-915 [73 L.Ed.2d 1215, 1232-1238, 102 S.Ct. 3409] (hereafter Claiborne Hardware), the United States Supreme Court held that a peaceful, politically motivated boycott constituted an exercise of the constitutional freedoms of association and expression. In that case, black citizens of Port Gibson, Mississippi, boycotted white-owned businesses to pressure those businesses and elected public officials to implement policies of racial equality. (Id., at pp. 898-900 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1226-1228]; N. A. A. C. P. v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (Miss. 1980) 393 So.2d 1290, 1295-1297.) The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s holding that the boycotted businesses were entitled to injunctive and monetary relief. (Id., at pp. 1293, 1302.)
The United States Supreme Court reversed. (Claiborne Hardware, supra, 458 U.S. at p. 934 [73 L.Ed.2d at p. 1249].) The court rejected the common law view that boycotts were devoid of constitutional value by virtue of their coercive nature. “Speech does not lose its protected character . . . simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action.” (Id., *602at p. 910 [73 L.Ed.2d at p. 1234].) On the contrary, the boycott was entitled to protection as an effective and nonviolent means of bringing about political, social, and economic change. (Id., at pp. 907-915 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1232-1238].) Accordingly, “[t]he right of the States to regulate economic activity could not justify a complete prohibition” against the boycott. (Id., at p. 914 [73 L.Ed.2d at p. 1237].)6
This court has recently had occasion to apply the principles announced in Claiborne Hardware. In Environmental Planning & Information Council v. Superior Court (1984) 36 Cal.3d 188 [203 Cal.Rptr. 127, 680 P.2d 1086] (hereafter Environmental Planning), an environmental group sought to influence a newspaper’s editorial policies by boycotting businesses that advertised in the newspaper. The newspaper’s publisher brought suit claiming tortious interference with an economic relationship.
This court rejected the publisher’s argument that only civil rights boycotts should be accorded constitutional protection: “As in Claiborne Hardware, . . . [the boycotters’] activities constitute a ‘politically motivated boycott designed to force governmental and economic change’ (458 U.S. at p. 914[]), and the fact that the change which they seek bears upon environmental quality rather than racial equality, can hardly support a different result.” (Environmental Planning, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 197.) Applying common law principles in light of federal and state constitutional guarantees, the court held that the environmental group was engaging in lawful activity. (Id., at pp. 197-198.)
I see no principled basis for granting protection to “politically motivated” consumer boycotts while withdrawing protection from labor boycotts. In Environmental Planning, this court expressly reserved the question whether Claiborne Hardware's apparent distinction between political and labor boycotts reflects the dictates of the California Constitution. (36 Cal.3d at p. 198, fn. 9.) The prior decisions both of this court and of the United *603States Supreme Court indicate that labor boycotts should be entitled to full constitutional protection.
Differential treatment of political and labor activity runs afoul of the well-established principle of judicial impartiality among speakers and messages. “Of course, it is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by association pertain to political, economic, religious or cultural matters, and state action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny.” (N. A. A. C. P. v. Alabama (1958) 357 U.S. 449, 460-461 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1498-1499, 78 S.Ct. 1163], quoted by the majority, ante, at p. 587, fn. 37; see also Environmental Planning, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 197.)
Similarly, labor unions are entitled to no less protection than civil rights organizations and environmental groups. “The inherent worth of the speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.” (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) 435 U.S. 765, 777 [55 L.Ed.2d 707, 718, 98 S.Ct. 1407].)
If these principles of judicial neutrality held sway without qualification, the political-labor distinction could be rejected without further discussion. However, as this court has recognized, “commercial” expression is accorded a lowered level of protection. (See Environmental Planning, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 197; accord Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp. (1983) 463 U.S. 60, 64 [77 L.Ed.2d 469, 476, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 2879].)
The United States Supreme Court has defined commercial speech alternately as “speech which does ‘no more than propose a commercial transaction’” (Va. Pharmacy Bd. v. Va. Consumer Council (1976) 425 U.S. 748, 762 [48 L.Ed.2d 346, 358, 96 S.Ct. 1817]) or “expression related solely to the economic interests of the speaker and its audience” (Central Hudson Gas & Elec. v. Public Serv. Comm’n (1980) 447 U.S. 557, 561 [65 L.Ed.2d 341, 348, 100 S.Ct. 2343]). Labor expression cannot be reduced to such narrow concerns. It should not be relegated to the lowered protection accorded commercial expression.
Labor disputes cover a broad range of issues, many of which involve basic concerns of liberty. “A collective bargaining agreement is an effort to erect a system of industrial self-government. ” (Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Co. (1960) 363 U.S. 574, 580 [4 L.Ed.2d 1409, 1416, 80 S.Ct. 1347].) For the bulk of each day, working people are subject to the codes of conduct that govern their workplaces. Those codes—whether embodied in collective *604bargaining agreements, employer rule books, or informal practices—govern matters ranging from race relations to permission to use the bathroom. (See generally, Shulman, Reason, Contract, and Law in Labor Relations (1955) 68 Harv.L.Rev. 999, 1002-1008 [hereafter Shulman]; Cox, Reflections Upon Labor Arbitration (1959) 72 Harv.L.Rev. 1482, 1490.) While on the job, working people feel the force of these rules more immediately and directly than those of the government.
Herein lies the link between the guarantee of personal liberty, as informed by the ban on involuntary servitude, and the freedoms of association and expression. The issues that arise in the workplace rival those addressed in the political process in their actual impact on the breadth of liberty enjoyed by working people. The strike is an essential weapon in the worker’s defense against “that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit . . . .” (Bailey v. Alabama, supra, 219 U.S. at p. 241 [55 L.Ed. at p. 201]; see ante, at pp. 598-599. And, it is a weapon that employs the constitutionally favored methods for promoting change: peaceful association and expression. (See ante, at p. 602 & fn. 6.) Surely, the Constitution protects the efforts of working people to preserve and expand their liberties by means of nonviolent—albeit outspoken and impolite—forms of association and expression. (Cf. Claiborne Hardware, supra, 458 U.S. at pp. 907-912 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1232-1236].)
As the Polish strikers discovered, a free labor organization cannot coexist with political tyranny. The converse is no less true: “Collective bargaining is today, as Brandéis pointed out, the means of establishing industrial democracy as the essential condition of political democracy, the means of providing for the workers’ lives in industry the sense of worth, of freedom, and of participation that democratic government promises them as citizens. ” (Shulman, supra, 68 Harv.L.Rev. at p. 1002.)7
The fact that unions and their members seek increased compensation as well as greater liberty does not lower the expression of their grievances to the level of commercial speech. In the words of Congress, “[t]he labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce.” (15 U.S.C. § 17.) Unlike the sale of a commodity, the sale of labor gives rise to rights of control over a person’s time and activity. The employer obtains not only the product of the employee’s labor, but also considerable power to dictate when and how the work will be performed. (See generally, Dept. of Health, *605Ed. & Welf., Work in America (1973) [hereafter HEW Report].) The amount of compensation is, in part, a tradeoff for personal subordination. This feature of wages and benefits explains why the 13th Amendment, a guarantee of personal liberty, is concerned with “the defense against oppressive hours, pay [and] working conditions.” (Pollock v. Williams, supra, 322 U.S. at p. 18 [88 L.Ed. at p.1104].)8
In short, the asserted political-labor distinction provides no basis for denying to working people and unions the protection afforded civil rights activists and environmentalists. Accordingly, a restraint on the right to strike should be upheld under the California Constitution only if it serves a compelling state interest by the least restrictive means.9
*606The right to strike must be guaranteed to public and private employees alike. In accepting public employment, individuals do not thereby sacrifice their constitutional rights. (See, e.g., Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 499, 503-505 [55 Cal.Rptr. 401, 421 P.2d 409].) The constitutional guarantees of personal liberty, freedom of association, and freedom of expression are no less important to public workers than to other working people.
At one time, the ban on public employee strikes might have been described as a limited exception to the general right to strike. However, between 1930 and 1970, public employees increased from about 3.2 million to more than 13 million. As a percentage of the work force, public employment rose from approximately 6.5 percent to over 15 percent, with state and local workers accounting for most of the increase.10 There would be an obvious inconsistency were this court to recognize that the right to strike is essential to a free society while denying that right to a significant proportion of the working population.
It has been argued that public employee strikes lack constitutional protection since they enable public workers to exercise a disproportionate influ*607ence on the political process. In this view, the principles announced in Claiborne Hardware should apply only to consumer boycotts. The power to withhold patronage is said to be less dangerous than the power to withhold labor because consumer power is more widely dispersed. (See generally Harper, supra, 93 Yale L.J. at pp. 426-427.)
However, as the present majority opinion explains, the coercive potential of public employee strikes is sharply limited by economic and political conditions. Many government services can be foregone over substantial periods without serious harm. Others can be contracted out to private industry. Where services are financed by user fees, the users can exert effective pressure against the strikers. Last but not least, the taxpaying public in general frequently mounts effective opposition to public employee strikes. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 578-579.)
On a deeper level, the constitutional considerations behind the right to strike are, if anything, more compelling than those supporting the right to withhold patronage. Consumer boycotts, unlike strikes, do not implicate either the fundamental liberty to pursue happiness through labor or the prohibition against involuntary servitude. (See ante, at pp. 596-600.)
Furthermore, the argument of “disproportionate” political influence is untenable in view of the United States Supreme Court’s treatment of monetary wealth, perhaps the most concentrated form of economic power.11 Restrictions on political expenditures and contributions are subject to strict judicial scrutiny. (Buckley v. Valeo (1976) 424 U.S. 1, 15-19, 58-59 [46 L.Ed.2d 659, 685-688, 710, 96 S.Ct. 612].) Corporations as well as individuals enjoy the right to employ concentrated wealth in the political process. (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, supra, 435 U.S. at pp. 777, 789-792 [55 L.Ed.2d at pp. 725-728].)
In Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley, supra, 27 Cal.3d 819, this court addressed the constitutionality of a Berkeley city ordinance that prohibited contributions of more than $250 per person to committees formed to support or oppose a ballot measure. The court held that the ordinance was necessary to serve the compelling governmental interest in *608preventing well-financed special interest groups from dominating the referendum process. (Id., at pp. 825-829, 832.)
The United States Supreme Court reversed. (Citizens Against Rent Control v. Berkeley, supra, 454 U.S. 290 [hereafter CARC].) The high court reasoned that the pooling of financial resources was essential to effective advocacy because of the rising costs of advertising and direct mail. (Id., at p. 296, fh. 5 [70 L.Ed.2d at p. 499]; accord Federal Election Commission v. National Conservative Political Action Committee (1985) — U.S. —, — [84 L.Ed.2d 455, 467-468, 105 S.Ct. 1459, 1467-1468].) Further, the court rejected this court’s view that the city could restrict the use of concentrated wealth by special interest groups in order to assure others an equal voice in the political process. (CARC, supra, 454 U.S. at pp. 295-296 [70 L.Ed.2d at pp. 498-499].)
In Claiborne Hardware, supra, 458 U.S. 886, the high court made clear that its concern for effective advocacy was not limited to the expenditure of money, a form of economic power that is possessed primarily by the wealthy. Instead, the court extended the reasoning of CARC to cover the collective withholding of patronage, a form of economic influence available to ordinary consumers. (Id., at pp. 907-915 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1232-1238].)
The strike, a combination for the purpose of withholding labor, is no less essential to working people than was the pooling of wealth to the landlords in CARC or the collective withholding of purchasing power to the civil rights activists in Claiborne Hardware. While working people cannot compete with wealthy individuals or corporations in paying for access to mass communications, they can bring their causes to the public’s attention by withholding the one asset that they possess in abundance—the capacity to engage in productive labor.
This court can scarcely deny to working people the protections that are accorded the forms of economic power possessed by other groups. As Justice Traynor once observed, the courts “should not impose ideal standards on one side [of a conflict among groups in society] when they are powerless to impose similar standards upon the other.” (Hughes v. Superior Court, supra, 32 Cal.2d at p. 868 (dis. opn. of Traynor, J.).)
It remains only to determine whether the common law’s flat prohibition on public employee strikes is necessary to serve a compelling state interest. The majority have convincingly refuted the traditional justifications for that ban. (See maj. opn., ante, at pp. 573-580.) Although the state has a com-*609polling interest in averting immediate and serious threats to the public health and safety, a flat ban on public employee strikes is by no means the least restrictive method for accomplishing that end. (See id., at p. 580.) Accordingly, today’s holding is compelled not only by common law principles but also by the California Constitution.

See concurring opinions of Grodin, J. and Kaus, J. See also In re Misener (1985) ante, page 543 [213 Cal.Rptr. 569, 698 P.2d 637] and its antecedent, People v. Collie (1981) 30 Cal.3d 43 [177 Cal.Rptr. 458, 634 P.2d 534, 23 A.L.R.4th 776], which graphically illustrate this very problem.

The modern form of corporate organization, which grants the corporate management broad powers to act on behalf of shareholders, emerged in the latter part of the 19th century. (See generally, Berle & Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (1939) pp. 127-152.) During the 1890’s, the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations possess constitutional rights. (See, e.g., Chicago, &c. Railway Co. v. Minnesota (1890) 134 U.S. 418 [33 L.Ed. 970, 10 S.Ct. 462] [“liberty”]; Smyth v. Ames (1898) 169 U.S. 466 [42 L.Ed. 819, 18 S.Ct. 418] [“property”].)

In Petrillo, the Supreme Court reversed the district court’s holding as to involuntary servitude solely on the ground that the restriction at issue did not—on its face—prohibit strike activities. (United States v. Petrillo, supra, 332 U.S. at pp. 12-13 [91 L.Ed. at pp. 1885-1886].)

The court came closest to confronting the issue in Auto. Workers v. Wis. Board (1949) 336 U.S. 245 [93 L.Ed. 651, 69 S.Ct. 516]. In that case, a union had conducted a series of “union meetings” at irregular times during work hours. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Board issued an order prohibiting any “concerted effort to interfere with production of the complainant except by leaving the premises in an orderly manner for the purpose of going on strike.” {Id., at p. 250 [93 L.Ed. at p. 661], italics added.) The court sustained the order against a 13th Amendment challenge. Whatever the merits of this conclusion (see id., at p. 269 [93 L.Ed. at p. 671] (dis. opn. of Murphy, J.) [the majority find the union’s tactic objectionable only because it is effective]), it is clear that the court did not decide the general question of whether the 13th Amendment guaranteed the right to strike: “Our only question is . . . whether it is beyond the power of the State to prohibit the particular course of conduct described.” {Id., at p. 251 [93 L.Ed. at p. 661].)

A boycott is an organized refusal to deal. (See Note, Political Boycott Activity and the First Amendment (1978) 91 Harv.L.Rev. 659.) A strike is one form of boycott—i.e., an organized refusal by workers to provide labor.

The court’s analysis covered both the boycott itself and the expressive activities used to sustain and expand it. (Claiborne Hardware, supra, 458 U.S. at pp. 907-912 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1232-1236].) A boycott is at once a form of association and a means of expression. The decision to boycott results from processes of assembly and debate. (See, e.g., id., at p. 907 [73 L.Ed.2d at p. 1232].) Once commenced, the boycott is a form of symbolic expression. Most obviously, it forcefully communicates the participants’ views to the target. Further, as a newsworthy event, the boycott provides the participants with a platform for explaining and advocating their views to the public. They pay for this platform by foregoing the benefits of trade or employment. (Compare Citizens Against Rent Control v. Berkeley (1981) 454 U.S. 290, 296 [70 L.Ed.2d 492, 498-499, 102 S.Ct. 434] [the contribution and expenditure of money are essential to effective advocacy since the means for communicating with the public are costly].) In short, the boycott is a nonviolent method of conveying not only the content but also the intensity of the participants’ views.

The Constitution does not mandate collective bargaining. Whatever the particular system of labor relations, a degree of liberty in the employment relationship is essential to democracy.

Over a century ago, John Stuart Mill eloquently expressed a view of liberty in the employment relation: “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” (Mill, On Liberty (Shields edit. 1956) p. 72.) More recently, it has been widely recognized that issues relating to authority and work content are of central importance in labor relations. (See, e.g., HEW Report; Hill, Competition and Control at Work (1982) pp. 16-44; Hirszowicz, Industrial Sociology (1982); Work in America: The Decade Ahead (Kerr & Rosow edits. 1979); Martin, Contemporary Labor Relations (1979) pp. 125-129; Tepperman, Not Servants Not Machines: Office Workers Speak Out (1976); Case Studies on the Labor Process (Zimbalist edit. 1979).) Whatever one’s views on the question of personal liberty in the workplace, it is clear that debate and controversy over that issue cannot be reduced to the status of purely “commercial” speech.

The notion that the United States Constitution protects the right to strike was rejected by a two-judge majority in United Federation of Postal Clerks v. Blount, supra, 325 F.Supp. 879, affd. mem. 404 U.S. 802 [30 L.Ed.2d 38, 92 S.Ct. 80] (hereafter Blount). However, the California Constitution possesses independent vitality. (See, e.g., Serrano v. Priest (1976) 18 Cal.3d 728, 764-766 [135 Cal.Rptr. 345, 557 P.2d 929].) Hence, Blount is not binding authority as to the state constitutional claim. Nor did the Blount court provide any persuasive reasoning in support of its holding.
First, the Blount court erroneously suggested that since the common law provided no protection for strikes, neither did the United States Constitution. (Blount, supra, 325 F.Supp. at p. 882.) The court did not have the benefit of the Claiborne Hardware decision, which held that a consumer boycott was constitutionally protected in spite of the fact that such boycotts had been prohibited under the common law. (458 U.S. at pp. 907-915 [73 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1232-1238].) Moreover, this court today overturns the common law ban on public employee strikes in this state.
Next, the court asserted that the right to strike was fully protected for the first time by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). (Blount, supra, 325 F.Supp. at p. 882.) However, as the Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court has explained, the NLRA presumed that working people already possessed the right to strike: “The fact is that § 7 of that act makes no mention of the right to strike. In § 13 thereof reference is made to the right to strike as follows: ‘Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike, or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.’ Obviously, § 13 is a rule of construction. [Citation.] It is my opinion that the NLRA recognized the rights which labor already had and was intended to afford those rights extensive legislative protection.” (School Committee v. Westerly Teachers Ass’n, supra, 299 A.2d at p. 447 (dis. *606opn. of Roberts, C. J.).)
Nowhere did the Blount court address the concerns set forth in the present opinion.
Other federal authorities are no more persuasive. In two cases decided prior to Claiborne Hardware, supra, 458 U.S. 886, the Supreme Court summarily rejected First Amendment claims by labor unions. (See NLRB v. Retail Store Employees (1980) 447 U.S. 607, 616 [65 L.Ed.2d 377, 385-386, 100 S.Ct. 2372] [upholding restriction on peaceful consumer boycott picketing]; Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc. (1982) 456 U.S. 212, 226-227 [72 L.Ed.2d 21, 32, 102 S.Ct. 1656] [upholding prohibition against longshoremen refusing to handle cargo bound to or from the Soviet Union].) However, in each case, the court provided only one paragraph of explanation, relying mainly on the “coercive” nature of boycott activities. The subsequent decision in Claiborne Hardware undercut this reasoning. Peaceful boycott activities were held protected in spite of their coercive aspects. (458 U.S. at p. 910 [73 L.Ed.2d at p. 1234].) Clearly, there is no principled basis for reftising to apply this approach in the labor context. (See ante, at pp. 602-605; see also Pope, The Three-Systems Ladder of First Amendment Values: Two Rungs and a Black Hole (1984) 11 Hastings Const. L.Q. 189, 232-246; Getman, Labor Law and Free Speech: The Curious Policy of Limited Expression (1984) 43 Maryland L.Rev. 4, 12-19; Harper, The Consumer’s Emerging Right to Boycott: NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and Its Implications for American Labor Law (1984) 93 Yale L.J. 409 [hereafter Harper]; Note, Labor Picketing and Commercial Speech: Free Enterprise Values in the Doctrine of Free Speech (1982) 91 Yale L.J. 938; Note, Peaceful Labor Picketing and the First Amendment (1982) 82 Colum.L.Rev. 1469.)

These figures were compiled from United States Department of Commerce’s Statistical Abstract of the United States, page 303, table No. 487 (1984) [hereafter Statistical Abstract]; 1 United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (1975) Series D 11-25, page 127; 2 United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, supra, Series Y 272-289, page 1100, Series Y 308-317, page 1102, Series Y 332-334, page 1104.

 As of 1972, 1 percent of the population held over 20 percent of the nation’s personal wealth. (See Statistical Abstract, supra, at p. 487, table No. 794.) Some 218,000 individuals possessed estates worth over $10 million each. (Id.., at p. 479, table No. 791.) As this court has recognized, such wealth can enable the possessor to exercise a disproportionate influence on the political process. (Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley (1980) 27 Cal.3d 819, 826-827 [167 Cal.Rptr. 84, 614 P.2d 742], revd. sub nom. Citizens Against Rent Control v. Berkeley, supra, 454 U.S. 290 [70 L.Ed.2d 492, 102 S.Ct. 434].)