Court Opinion

ID: 9419681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:01.965066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.951408
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Jackson,
dissenting.
The Court concedes that if business competitors alone or in combination with labor had conspired to drive petitioners out of business by refusing goods or services, competitors and labor organization would have violated the Sherman Act. The only question then is whether respondent is exempted from the prohibition of the Act. It is hard to see how this union is excused from the terms of the Act when in the Allen Bradley case we hold that labor unions even though furthering their members’ interests as wage earners violate the Act when they combine with business to do the things prohibited by the Act. There, too, labor performed its part of the conspiracy by denying or threatening to deny labor to employers. But in that case we hold that no absolute immunity is granted by the statute, and that because of its purpose and its association, the labor union violated the Act. Here too the purpose of the respondent union is such as to remove the union’s activities from the protection of the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts.
We say in the Allen Bradley case that, since a labor dispute existed, the refusal of the union to work would not have violated the Sherman Act if it had acted alone. In that case, the Court reviews fully the conflicting policies expressed in those Acts intended to preserve competition *829and in those which permit labor organizations to pursue their objectives. Those statutes which restricted the application of the Sherman Act against unions were intended only to shield the legitimate objectives of such organizations, not to give them a sword to use with unlimited immunity. The social interest in allowing workers to better their condition by their combined bargaining power was thought to outweigh the otherwise undesirable restriction on competition which all successful union activity necessarily entails. But there is no social interest served by union activities which are directed not to the advantage of union members but merely to capricious and retaliatory misuse of the power which unions have simply to impose their will on an employer.
The Apex case is authority only for the principle that a labor organization which employs its power for recognized purposes does not violate the Sherman Act, unless its purpose is to affect and it does affect competition in the marketing of goods and services. That case says nothing of the direct destruction of competition in interstate commerce, as an end in itself, which the respondent union here effectuated. It explicitly declares that to some extent labor unions are subject to the Sherman Act. Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 489. Much of what we said in American Medical Assn. v. United States, 317 U. S. 519, is applicable here, although that case did not involve a labor union: “The petitioners did not represent present or prospective employes. Their purpose was to prevent anyone from taking employment under Group Health. They were interested in the terms and conditions of the employment only in the sense that they desired wholly to prevent Group Health from functioning by having any employes. Their objection was to its method of doing business. Obviously there was no dispute between Group Health and the doctors it employed or might employ in which petitioners were either directly or indi*830rectly interested.” And in that case, we held the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts inapplicable and sustained convictions under the Sherman Act. It can hardly be said that merely because respondent is a labor union, for that reason alone a labor dispute is involved in the present case.
Respondents contend that, in any event, their conduct is not prohibited by the Sherman Act because prices within the field were not affected and the public did not suffer. Appalachian Coals v. United States, 288 U. S. 344, and similar cases refusing to apply the Sherman Act held that certain practices were permissible because they did not restrain competition in the industry as a whole, although they did restrain competition among the parties to the agreement. But there is a difference between being a party to consensual restriction of competition within a segment of an industry and being forced out of the industry entirely. Competition within the field has been lessened by the elimination of one of the companies engaged therein. Of course it cannot be said on this record that the destruction of petitioner’s business substantially affected market conditions in the services which petitioner was engaged in rendering. Cf. Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, supra, at 512. ' But, even assuming that such an effect is necessary, the Court does not distinguish between the situation presented in this case and a case in which a union by similar methods and with similar motives would drive out of business a company whose demise would affect prices in the field.
With this decision, the labor movement has come full circle. The working man has struggled long, the fight has been filled with hatred, and conflict has been dangerous, but now workers may not be deprived of their livelihood merely because their employers oppose and they favor unions. Labor has won other rights as well, unemployment compensation, old-age benefits and, what is *831most important and the basis of all its gains, the recognition that the opportunity to earn his support is not alone the concern of the individual but is the problem which all organized societies must contend with and conquer if they are to survive. This Court now sustains the claim of a union to the right to deny participation in the economic world to an employer simply because the union dislikes him. This Court permits to employees the same arbitrary dominance over the economic sphere which they control that labor so long, so bitterly and so rightly asserted should belong to no man.
Strikes aimed at compelling the employer to yield to union demands are not within the Sherman Act. Here the employer has yielded, and the union has achieved the end to which all legitimate union pressure is directed and limited. The union cannot consistently with the Sherman Act refuse to enjoy the fruits of its victory and deny peace terms to an employer who has unconditionally surrendered.
Mr. Justice Brandéis, for a unanimous Court, held that ■a union cannot lawfully strike for an unlawful purpose. “The right to carry on business — be it called liberty or property — has value. To interfere with this right without just cause is unlawful. The fact that the injury was inflicted by a strike is sometimes a justification. But a strike may be illegal because of its purpose, however orderly the manner in which it is conducted. To collect a stale claim due to a fellow member of the union who was formerly employed in the business is not a permissible purpose.” Dorchy v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 306, 311. No more permissible is an exaction of privately-determined punishment for alleged murder. And being unlawful, union activities of this kind are not protected by the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Frankfurter join in this opinion.