Court Opinion

ID: 9595019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:34:58.109637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:46:53.139851
License: Public Domain

MOORE, J., pro tem., Concurring.
I concur. The question involved in this case is whether the picket line around defendant employer’s establishment is illegal. If the picket line be maintained by threat to use force or if its aim be to achieve an illegal purpose, it should be enjoined. But if it is maintained by neither immoral nor illegal means and if its purpose is to effectuate a lawful end, it should not be subjected to any restrictive order of the court. The allegations of the complaint do not set forth that any act has occurred whereby plaintiffs suffer any fear of violence. Hence, upon that ground defendants cannot be enjoined. We have, therefore, to determine (1) whether defendants purpose to effectuate the execution of a contract between the employer and the union be an illegal practice, and (2) whether the peaceful picketing by defendants to persuade the employer to execute such a contract gives occasion for equity to interfere.
In order to enforce a demand reasonably related to labor conditions a union is justified, by a long line of decisions, in resorting to any peaceable legal means. The courts have supported the union’s right to strike, picket and boycott in the enforcement of such demands including the right to induce those in sympathy with its cause to withdraw patronage from an employer. (Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, 154 Cal. 581 [98 Pac. 1027, 16 Ann. Cas. 1165, 21 L. R. A. (N. S.) 550]; Pierce v. Stablemen’s Union, 156 Cal. 70 [103 Pac. 324] ; Lisse v. Local Union, 2 Cal. (2d) 312 [41 Pac. (2d) 314].) If the motive actuating a strike is immaterial (Greenwood v. Building Trades Council, 71 Cal. App. 159 [233 Pac. 823]) we must then determine whether the fact that union and individual defendants are not employees of *332the defendant automobile company renders their picket line illegal.
If the acts of defendants are to be condemned, such condemnation must be founded upon statute or upon court decisions or it must be shown to violate good morals. We find no language in the Labor Code that outlaws a contract between union and employer. The chief aim of sections 921-923 was to remove from the path of labor the yellow dog contract at first canonized in some court decisions but later repudiated by legislatures and by the highest courts. Section 921 inhibits the promise at the time of employment of either worker or employer to join or not to join or withdraw from an employer or an employee organization. Section 922 forbids anyone to coerce an applicant for employment not to join a labor organization. This is an apparent effort of the legislature to preserve the economic freedom of the toiler from the oppression of the employer. But the legislature could not have intended to suppress competition among workers. They have the same right to carry on their struggle as they have always had since the decision by this court in the Parkinson case. A part of the program of every labor group is to gain the favor of employers and the effort of any group will not be interrupted by the courts because such effort may result in the defeat of a minority or of a majority. The struggle for existence and the struggle for supremacy of labor groups, as among themselves, should continue unhindered by judicial interference so long as they maintain peace and order. Nowhere have the lawmakers suggested that an organized group of workers shall not seek to induce an employer, by peaceable means, to enter into a contract to the effect that he will employ only members of their organization or affiliated bodies. The argument is made that the success of the union’s picket will require the Howard Automobile Company to violate public policy as defined by section 922. But section 923 clearly indicates that it was the employer against whom the workers are to be protected. After there declaring why negotiation between employer and employee " should result from voluntary agreement between employer and employees”, it proceeds: “Therefore, it is necessary that the individual workman have full freedom of association” etc., and “that he shall be free from the interference, restraint or coercion of employers ’ ’ etc. That the legislature could not have intended *333to limit the activities of any labor union in seeking advantage over another is emphasized by the facts: (1) That the right to do so was vouchsafed by the Parkinson decision more than thirty years ago, and (2) that said sections of the Labor Code are the fruit of the effort of organized labor.
The Norris-La Guardia Act, which is a fair attempt to express the public policy of the nation in regard to labor controversies, makes provision that a labor dispute includes any controversy seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. In Lauf v. E. G. Shinner & Co., 302 U. S. 669 [58 Sup. Ct. 41, 82 L. Ed. 516], the Supreme Court held that while an employer cannot coerce his employees, yet the union may compel him to do so. If then the picket line of the defendants is peaceably maintained and if its purpose is to enforce a demand of the workers upon the employer of labor, wherein lies its illegality? Certainly the right of a worker to publish his criticism, and to speak freely of an employer’s attitude toward union labor will not be denied even though the legislature may attempt by statute to curb such criticism. (De-Jonge v. State of Oregon, 299 U. S. 353 [57 Sup. Ct. 255, 81 L. Ed. 278] ; Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242 [57 Sup. Ct. 732, 81 L. Ed. 1066] ; 14th Amendment, United States Constitution.)
If labor should be prohibited from publishing all the facts concerning employment by an. employer, the worker would be deprived of rights emphatically and often declared. The assertion that defendants “conspired” to injure the employer could have no significance unless they were engaged in a criminal or unlawful enterprise. (Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, supra.) The demands of a union to strengthen its forces cannot be deemed unlawful even though there be no controversy between the employer and his employees. (In re Lyons, 27 Cal. App. (2d) 293 [81 Pac. (2d) 190].) There is no provision in the organic law which forbids the unions of organized labor from competing with unorganized workers. In the case of Senn v. Tile Layers Protective Union, 301 U. S. 468 [57 Sup. Ct. 857, 81 L. Ed. 1229], Justice Brandeis said: “Earning a living is dependent upon securing work; and securing work is dependent upon public favor. To win the patronage of the public, each may strive *334by legal means. Exercising its police power, Wisconsin has declared that in a labor dispute peaceful picketing and truthful publicity are means legal for unions. It is true that disclosure of the facts of the labor dispute may be annoying to Senn even if the method and means employed in giving publicity are inherently unobjectionable. But such annoyance, like that often suffered from publicity in other connections, is not an invasion of the liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. ... It is true that disclosure of the facts may prevent Senn from securing jobs which he hoped to get. But the hope for a job is not property guaranteed by the Constitution. The diversion of it to a competitor is not an invasion of a constitutional right.”
Also, in the case of Nann v. Raimist, 255 N. Y. 307 [174 N. E. 690, 73 A. L. R. 669], it was declared by Justice Cardozo that the legality of defendant’s conduct is not affected by the fact that no strike was in progress in any of the plaintiff’s shops; that if the defendant believed in good faith that the policy pursued by plaintiff and by the shops united with the plaintiff was hostile to the interests of organized labor and was likely, if not suppressed, to lower the standards of living in the trade, defendants had the privilege by the pressure of notoriety and persuasion to bring its own policy to triumph. See Exchange Bakery & Restaurant v. Rifkin, 245 N. Y. 260 [157 N. E. 130], where it was held that in order that a union may prevail, it may call a strike and picket the premises of an employer with the intent of inducing him to employ only union labor. “Picketing without a strike is no more unlawful than a strike without picketing. Both are based upon a lawful purpose. Resulting injury is incidental and must be endured.” (Ibid.) If the legislature had intended to outlaw a contract between a union and an employer, obligating the employer to hire only members of the labor organization, it would have said so in terms unmistakable, for the subject has been aired in the American courts for more than a generation and has long been the theme of the publicist and the editor. Men engaged in the serious undertaking of enacting laws for a great commonwealth could not have overlooked a matter of such universal importance. On the contrary, the lawmakers have afforded to organized labor every reasonable device for the conduct *335of its campaign to effectuate its plan of procuring employment for union members to the exclusion of other workers. For illustration, section 1011 of the Labor Code inhibits an employer from misrepresenting the bind of labor in his employ. Section 1110 upholds an agreement between two or more persons to do or not to do any act in furtherance of any trade dispute between employers and employees.
In the Parkinson case, supra, the entire court agreed that the attempt by defendant to secure a closed union shop was a legitimate objective. Therefore, since there is no statutory inhibition against the contract which defendant union seeks to have defendant automobile company enter into with said union, and since this court has already held that such a contract is a legitimate objective, for this court now to deprive an organized group of workers from procuring the execution of such a contract, where they are using only peaceful persuasion to achieve their purpose would render the court a law-making body instead of a law-interpreting tribunal.