Armstrong Cork & Insulation Co. v. Walsh

177 N.E. 2, 276 Mass. 263, 1931 Mass. LEXIS 1001
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJune 29, 1931
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 177 N.E. 2 (Armstrong Cork & Insulation Co. v. Walsh) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Armstrong Cork & Insulation Co. v. Walsh, 177 N.E. 2, 276 Mass. 263, 1931 Mass. LEXIS 1001 (Mass. 1931).

Opinion

Wait, J.

The plaintiff is a corporation engaged in manufacturing, selling, and, to some extent, installing cork board, a material used for insulation against heat and cold, which is placed upon the roofs of buildings and also in interiors of cold storage and refrigerating plants, ice houses and other places used for cold storage. The corporation has a large and valuable business, and is widely well known. It not only sells its product, leaving purchasers to instal at their pleasure, but also itself contracts for the installation and guarantees its work. For the latter purpose it has long maintained a construction crew under a trained engineer, in which the mechanics are union men belonging to the laborers’, the carpenters’ and the plasterers’ labor unions. Except within [268]*268a radius of twenty-five miles about the city of New York it has not employed roofers in its work. This proceeding is an episode in a struggle by the United Slate, Tile and Composition Roofers, Damp and Waterproof Workers’ Association, a voluntary unincorporated labor union, which with its members will be referred to.as the "roofers,” to obtain as part of its "jurisdiction” all work in installing, applying, setting and distributing cork material when installed in hot asphalt or other similar plastic material.

The bill was filed on March 14, 1930.' The defendants are the president, vice-president, secretary-treasurer, recording secretary and the business agents of Local Union No. 33 of the United Slate, Tile and Composition Roofers, Damp and Waterproof Workers’ Association, who are named individually, and "the other officers and members” of the association and of Local Union No. 33 who are numerous, mostly unknown to the plaintiff, but are alleged to be “fairly represented by said officers and have a common interest with them in the suit.” They are referred to as “the roofers.” The bill seeks injunctive relief. Answer was filed by the defendants. After hearings by a master and a report to which no exceptions were filed or taken by either party, the cause was heard by a judge of the Superior Court who reserved the case for the determination of the full court upon the pleadings, a stipulation of the parties with regard to conduct pending the proceedings, the order of reference, the master’s report, the decree confirming the report, the plaintiff’s motion for entry of a final decree and all questions of law, such decree to be entered, or order made, as justice and equity may require.

The master reports the following facts: For ordinary roof covering slabs of the cork board are dipped in hot asphalt and laid in place with little occasion for cutting and trimming them. For ceilings and walls of rooms, and for cold storage and refrigeration construction, much accurate cutting, trimming and fitting are called for, and the board is laid in a better grade of asphalt or in Portland cement mortar. Although hot pitch or tar is used to some extent in interior work, it is never used for installing the board in cold storage [269]*269and refrigeration work. The work is performed by carpenters where asphalt or a similar substance is used, and. by plasterers if the board is laid in cement. Except within a radius of twenty-five miles of the city hall of New York city where certain men among the roofers have had special training, no roofers have been employed. In a few instances the plaintiff has employed roofers elsewhere, but with unsatisfactory results. Roofers do not customarily carry the tools nor possess the skill adequately to perform the work essential to satisfactory installation; but they could acquire tools and skill for the part of the work which they claim within a short period!

As early as 1928 the roofers claimed the work of laying cork board in hot asphalt wherever used. The work on a few jobs was given them, but was not satisfactory to the plaintiff. In January of 1930 the roofers’ union made formal demand for the work and for an agreement. The plaintiff refused to make the desired agreement and was notified “that whenever said work was to be laid in hot asphalt, and other mechanics were employed to do said work, that the other mechanics be discharged and that the defendants be hired in their stead, and that if said demands were not acquiesced in by the plaintiff or other contractors, then in that event they, the roofers, would refuse to work upon any building for any contractor or subcontractor where the material of the plaintiff was being installed by any mechanics other than the roofers.” Pursuant to instructions from the International Roofers Union to Local Union No. 33 to endeavor to obtain all the work of installing and applying the cork board material demanded of the plaintiff, that locpl voted on February 10,1930, to refuse “to handle any product of the Armstrong Cork Company until they come to a signed agreement with our Local”; and it, forthwith, notified the Building Trades Employers Association of its refusal. Conferences on March 5 and March 7 were held without reaching an agreement. At the latter conference, the representative of Local No. 33 claimed for the roofers “ All heating of asphaltic material, all brush work, spray gun system, all mopping, all setting of cork on roofs, on floors, dipping of all [270]*270cork and heating of same, and the right to determine the number of men used on each operation.” A representative of the carpenters claimed "The setting of all cork in cold storage insulations, whether on roofs, walls, ceilings or floors, except where the cork is set in Portland cement”; and a representative of the plasterers claimed "The work of setting all of the cork in Portland cement.” On March 10, 1930, Local No. 33 voted to stand by the action taken on February 10. Copies of the votes were sent to the Building Trades Employers Association so that members should govern themselves accordingly in making contracts for cork board insulation.

The master found that "It is the defendants’ plan to obtain a monopoly of all of the work of installing and applying cork board material manufactured by the plaintiff and others engaged in a similar line of business, to the exclusion of all other crafts, wherever said material is set upon a hot asphalt base, regardless of whether it is upon the roof or the interior of a building and without regard to the character of the building upon or in which it is to be installed. The defendants further propose to refuse to handle any of the material of the plaintiff or to refuse to work upon any building for any contractor, subcontractor or owner, where the plaintiff is engaged in the installation and application of.its said material with its own mechanics. The defendants also propose, and already have advised contractors, builders and owners generally that there will be labor difficulties upon their work if the plaintiff’s material is used or if a contract is made with the plaintiff whereby it undertakes to furnish and erect its material, hoping thereby to induce contractors, builders and owners generally to bring pressure to bear upon the plaintiff to comply with the defendants’ demands, lest its business be ruined if it neglects and refuses to do so.”

In carrying out this plan certain of the defendants in the employ of the Columbia Cornice Company refused to handle material purchased of the plaintiff by, and about to be installed by, the former company on a job of the ThompsonStarrett Company, Inc., at 75 Federal Street, Boston,' although none of the plaintiff’s employees were, or were to be, [271]*271employed upon the work.

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Bluebook (online)
177 N.E. 2, 276 Mass. 263, 1931 Mass. LEXIS 1001, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/armstrong-cork-insulation-co-v-walsh-mass-1931.