Court Opinion

ID: 9713824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:23:16.956324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:20.658890
License: Public Domain

*65Concurring Opinion
Royse, C. J.
I am in complete and whole-hearted agreement with the holding of the majority opinion that there was no labor dispute in this case.
However, I cannot agree with the following dicta in their opinion:
“We are willing to go a step farther and say a union’s attempt to organize a group of employees and the unwillingness of such employees to be organized constitutes a labor dispute”.
In my opinion the principle thus announced directly contravenes a ruling precedent of our Supreme Court in the case of Roth v. Local Union No. 1460 of Retail Clerks Union et al (1940), 216 Ind. 363, 24 N. E. 2d 280, where the Supreme Court, in construing the Anti-Injunction Act of 1933, §40-501, et seq., Burns’ 1952 Replacement, at p. 370, said:
“The statute here under consideration declares that it is the public policy of this state that the individual unorganized worker shall be free to decline to associate with his fellows and that he shall be free from interference, restraint, or coercion on the part of his employer. This must mean that no labor union may demand that an employer require his employee to join such union, because no employer has the right to require an employee to join or refrain from joining a labor union. Any person or group which undertakes to coerce an employer to do that which is contrary to the express public policy of this state thereby undertakes to compel the performance of an unlawful act. The lawful weapon of peaceful picketing may not be utilized to accomplish such an unlawful purpose. It is quite immaterial that the things done to bring about the unlawful purpose were not per se unlawful.”
I believe the effect of the statement of the majority opinion would be to force an employer to force his *66employees to join a labor union against their own personal wishes and thus deprive them of their inalienable rights as citizens, or to suffer the destruction of his business through the powerful and effective club of economic coercion — picketing.
Nor can I agree with the construction placed upon the case of Spickelmier v. Chambers (1943), 113 Ind. App. 470, 47 N. E. 2d 189, (Transfer denied) by the majority opinion. It is true that in that opinion, in stating the facts, this court said:
“The appellant’s employees were not members of any union and had no desire to become members of any union and there was no dispute or controversy of any kind between them and their employer.”
However, as hereinafter shown, our opinion and decision in that case was not based on that fact. At p. 475, in discussing the issues presented, this court said:
“It is true that a representative of the appellee in conversation with one of the partners several times stated that the appellee desired the appellant ‘to put your men in the Union,’ but it also appears that the appellee was demanding that the appellant pay the union scale of wages which the appellant would not do. The appellee informed the appellant that its object was to organize the appellant’s drivers, that it desired to make a contract with the appellant and that it wished the appellant to pay the union scale of wages to the end that other concerns in the same business who had contracts with the appelle and who> paid the union scale would no longer complain that they were unable to meet the appellant’s competition because of the comparative meagerness of the wage paid by appellant.”
We then stated our reasons for holding there was a labor dispute in the following language at pp. 476, 477:
“. . . the evidence discloses that after the last conversations between the parties the appellee continued its unsuccessful efforts to organize the *67appellant’s men, contacting all of appellant’s drivers for that purpose, the last on February 9, 1941, while during the same period of time the appellant’s drivers were several times, when called together by appellant, as often happened, asked whether they were satisfied with their jobs; wages were increased in some instances; and on December 28, 1940, at the usual annual good fellowship meeting and banquet they were advised of a profit-sharing plan contemplated for the ensuing year. There is no direct evidence that these activities on the part of the appellant were intended to thwart the efforts of the appellee to organize the men, but they would in our opinion tend to do so and this the appellant must have known. It therefore appears to us that each of the parties, following their last conversations, continued to the time of the picketing to take steps well calculated to fortify their respective positions, and we therefore are of the opinion that the labor dispute between these parties continued to exist and did exist on the 10th day of February, 1941”.
I, as a member of this court when that case was decided, approved that decision and I do so now. I did not then and do not now construe it as the majority opinion would do in this case.