AMERICAN STEEL FOUNDRIES v. TRI-CITY TRADES COUNCIL.
(U. S. Supreme Court, Dec. 5, 1921).
Strikes—Picketing—The Clayton Act—Circumstances to Be Considered in Injunction Case.
[Note—The following case on picketing is so important, being the latest and a final decision of the highest Court in the United States on a matter which has been treated differently by various Courts, that we reproduce the opinion here, as published in the New York Times.—Editor].
TAFT, Ch. Justice: This is a picketing case. Only two men in the employ of the Foundries had responded to the calling of the strike by the Tri-City Council. They were picketers, were defendants, and were enjoined. Only one of them was a member of a union of that council. The case involves, as to them, the application of Section 20 of the Clayton Act, of which the provisions material here are those which forbid an injunction in behalf of an employer against, first, 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; third, peaceably assembling in a lawful manner and for lawful purposes.
The Act emphasizes the words peaceable and lawful throughout the phrases which were used. We do not think that these declarations introduced any new principle into the equity jurisprudence of the Federal Courts. They are merely declaratory of what was the best practice always.
Congress thought it wise to stabilize this rule of action and to render it uniform. Its object was to reconcile the rights of the employer in his business and in the access of his employés to his place of business without intimidation or obstruction, on the one hand, and the right of the employés, recent or expectant, to use peaceable and lawful means to induce prudent principles and would-be employés to join their ranks, on the other.
If, in their attempts at persuasion or communication, those of the labor side adopt methods which, however, lawful in their announced purpose, inevitably lead to intimidation and obstruction, then it is the Courts duty—and the terms of Section 20 do not modify this—so to limit what the propagandists do as to time, manner and place as to prevent infractions of the law and violations of the right of the employés and of the employers for whom they wish to work.
In going to and from work, men have a right to as free 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 offer by the one to communicate and discuss information with a view to influencing the others action, are not regarded as aggression, or a violation of that others right.