United Const Workers Affiliated with United Mine Workers of America v. Laburnum Construction Corp./Dissent Douglas

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK concurs, dissenting.

If this labor organizer had committed murder on the picket line, he would, of course, be subject to prosecution by Virginia. For the federal Act in no way deals with such conduct and there may be doubt if constitutionally it could do so, at least in such a way as to supersede local law.

The present case is different. The labor organizer's conduct that has led to this judgment for damages is conduct with which the federal Act specifically deals. On the facts found by the state court, the labor organizer and the union have committed an unfair labor practice under § 8(b)(1)(A), by using threats and the force of a picket line to make employees join a union, contrary to their desires. A state court or a state labor board could not enjoin that conduct, as Garner v. Teamsters Union, 346 U.S. 485, 74 S.Ct. 161, teaches. And I think like reasons preclude a State from applying other sanctions to it.

This conduct is the stuff out of which labor-management strife has been made, ever since trade unionism began its growth. For years the law of the jungle applied, victory going to the strongest. The emergence of more civilized methods of settling these disputes is familiar history. At first, the law was mostly on the side of management. The courts, as well as the legislatures, shaped the rules against the interests of labor. Gradually the human rights in industry were recognized until they finally received more generous recognition under the Wagner Act.

That Act subjected these industrial disputes to settlement and adjudication in administrative proceedings. For example, the administrative agency was granted power to forbid employers from interfering with trade-union activities. May a union not only institute proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board but sue the employer as well? Or may it have a choice of remedies? I would think not. But if the union may not sue the employer for the tortious conduct, why may the employer sue the union? I think that for each wrong which the federal Act recognizes the parties have only the remedy supplied by that Act-and for a simple reason. The federal Act was designed to decide labor-management controversies, to bring them to a peaceful, orderly settlement, to put the parties on the basis of equality which the rules designed by Congress envisaged. If the parties not only have the remedy Congress provided but the right to sue for damages as well, the controversy is not settled by what the federal agency does. It drags on and on in the courts, keeping old wounds open, and robbing the administrative remedy of the healing effects it was intended to have.