Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/802

 INTIMIDATION BY FINES rights and the only question is on which side of the line the coercive fine shall stand. The minority tacitly admits this. The majority opinion then proceeds to lay down the case against strike fines as lucidly and forcibly as it can be expressed. Mr. Justice Hammond treats the officers of labor unions like third parties who have no right by intimidation to interfere with the freedom of contract of members who wish to work. He says that the rule of free dom of contract is founded upon prin ciples of public policy and that it can make no difference to the public or to the em ployer that the person intimidated is or is not a member of the society intimidating. The minority replies that the right to combine and the right of such combina tions to regulate the conduct of their mem bers towards third parties by suitable penalties cannot be objectionable. The minority adds that the law against labor unions cannot be more stringent than is applicable to other organizations estab lished for proper purposes. We may take breath at this point long enough to recollect, however, that the majority can in no sense be accused of animus towards labor unions as such. The only question in this, the Willcutt case, is whether the principle of the Martell case that coercive fines are illegal when levied by a combination of employers to the damage of a third person is applicable to such fines levied by a combination of employees. The only question is whether the labor unions shall be subject to the same restrictions as the employers' unions if we stand on the majority platform that the Martell case was correctly decided. The minority opinion goes on to enlarge on the voluntary character of labor unions and remarks that persons who do not agree with the wisdom of their aims or methods may drop their membership. The ma jority reply that practically speaking this is not so — that most laborers must join unions or starve. The majority remarks

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that the fact that the laborer has a choice to join a union or not is not decisive, as in almost all cases of coercion there is a choice, as a traveler stopped by a highwayman has a choice to give up his life or his purse. The minority replies, "The situation of one who finds himself compelled to choose be tween two alternatives, however distaste ful, which he has brought upon himself and neither of which is unlawful, is no way comparable to that of one who is compelled by wrongful force to elect between sub mitting to one of two alternative injuries, both of which are unlawful." Does not the majority opinion amount to an attack on the laborer's right of combi nation? The situation really is this. A body of peaceable men have organized and voluntarily entered into contractual rela tions with each other to act together in securing certain lawful ends. Each mem ber of the union is under a contractual duty to obey the will of the majority enforced under the rules of the union. In denying the right to enforce these rules the em ployer does not really object to the fine on the individual as such, but to the concerted action of the employees as enforced under their agreement — hence he is really attack ing the agreement to abide by the will of the the majority. One result of this view of the case is that we observe clearly that the only contract right concerned is that of the employees with each other. The employer had no contract right to have his men continue to work in the Willcutt case, while the fel lows of the men who worked did have a contract right that they should obey the union rules. The men who worked were under contract to leave and under no con tract to stay. The injunction issued pro tected a breach of contract at the suit of a third party and for his benefit enjoined the enforcement of the very penalty for that breach which had been agreed upon by the parties to the contract. Injunctions are often issued to restrain a breach of con