Iron Molders' Union No. 125 of Milwaukee v. Allischalmers Co.

166 F. 45, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4835
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 9, 1908
DocketNo. 1,434
StatusPublished
Cited by111 cases

This text of 166 F. 45 (Iron Molders' Union No. 125 of Milwaukee v. Allischalmers Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Iron Molders' Union No. 125 of Milwaukee v. Allischalmers Co., 166 F. 45, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4835 (7th Cir. 1908).

Opinions

BAKER, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). No Wisconsin statute authorized an unincorporated voluntary association to be sued in its common name. So the objection might have prevailed if it had been seasonably made. Karges Furniture Co. v. Amalgamated Wood Workers’ Union, 165 Ind. 421, 75 N. E. 877, 2 L. R. A. (N. S.) 788; Pickett v. Walsh, 192 Mass. 572, 78 N. E. 753, 6 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1067, 116 Am. St. Rep. 272. But the members could have been reached, of course, either by naming and serving them all, or, if that were impracticable on account of their numbers, by suing some as representatives of all. The bill treated the unions as representative of their membership; an individual member filed a verified answer in the names of the unions, alleging that he had been authorized by them so to do; and the case was carried through three hearings (temporary injunction, contempt, final decree) without a suggestion that there was a defect of parties, or rather a defect in the form under which appellee asked to have the membership of the unions brought into court. An objection of this kind will not be entertained on appeal unless it has been first duly presented in the trial court. Barnes v. Chicago Typographical Union, 232 Ill. 424, 83 N. E. 940, 14 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1018.

The evidence showed that appellee was entitled to injunctive relief. To keep other workmen out of appellee’s foundries, some of the union men went to the extent of using vile and abusive language, threats of violence, and actual assaults. This was effective enough to damage appellee’s business quite seriously, and was carried on under circumstances that might be held to indicate the unions’ tacit approval. None of the appellants ever challenged by appeal the justice of the temporary injunction or of the punishments for its violation. And on this appeal from the-final decree not a shadow of justification is found for these acts of violence and intimidation. The only substantial question is [49]*49whether or not the trial court has stepped beyond the line of safeguarding the legal rights of appellee and has thereby deprived appellants of some of their legal rights.

To organize for the purpose of securing improvement in the terms and conditions of labor, and to quit work and to threaten to quit work as means of compelling or attempting to compel employers to accede to their demands for better terms and conditions, are rights of workmen so well and so thoroughly established in the law (Thomas v. Rid, Co. [C. C.] 62 Fed. 803; Arthur v. Oakes, 63 Fed. 320, 11 C. C. A. 209, 25 L. R. A. 114; Wabash Rld. Co. v. Hannahan [C. C.] 121 Fed. 563), that nothing remains except to determine in successive cases as they arise whether the means used in the endeavor to make the strike effective are lawful or unlawful.

By section 4466a, St. Wis. 1898, and, appellee asserts, by the common law as well, it is illegal for two or more persons to combine for the purpose of “doing a harm malevolently for the sake of the harm as an end in itself, and not merely as a means to some further end legitimately desired.” Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S. 194, 25 Sup. Ct. 3, 49 L. Ed. 154. As the combination among appellants was entered into and carried on in Wisconsin, a threshold inquiry is whether the present is a malicious mischief case under this paragraph, wherein otherwise innocent means are condemned because the end is wicked, or a true strike case under the preceding paragraph, wherein, because the end is lawful, all means may be called into play except those that are unlawful in themselves.

The record shows that the local unions had a conference in regard to conditions in all the foundries in the city and county of Milwaukee; that ihey formulated demands respecting wages, overtime, double time on holidays, piecework, weekly pay day, limitation of the number of apprentices, and a joint arbitration board; that these demands were made alike upon all the form dry owners within that territory; and that when the demands were rejected the union men in all the foundries struck. Nothing in the record indicates that there was any want of good faith in making these demands, or that the strike was undertaken with any other purpose than to enforce them, or that appellee received or was singled out to.receive different treatment from that dealt out to other foundry owners. So ilie employment of assault and duress in the progress of the strike should be attributed to a combination to accomplish a lawful end by unlawful means, rather than the employment of unlawful means should be taken as proof that the end sought to be accomplished by such means was itself unlawful. And con • sequently the parts of the decree which prohibit the use of persuasion and picketing can be justified only on the basis that sttch means are not lawfully to be applied in a genuine struggle of labor to obtain better terms and conditions; for surely men are not to he denied the right to pursue a legitimate end in a legitimate way, simply because they may have overstepped the mark and trespassed upon the rights of their adversary. A barrier at the line, with punishment and damages for having crossed, is all that the adversary is entitled to ask.

So far as persuasion was used to induce apprentices or others (sec[50]*50tion 16 of the decree) to break their contracts to serve for definite times, the prohibition was right. And the reason, we believe, is quite plain. Fach partjr to such a contract has a property interest in it. If either breaks it, he does a wrong, for which the other is entitled to a remedy. And whoever knowingly makes himself a party to a wrongful and injurious act becomes equally liable. But in the present case the generality of the men who took or sought the places left b)r the strikers were employed or were offered employment at will, as the strikers had been. If either party, with or without cause, ends an employment at will, the other has no legal ground of complaint. So if the course of the. new men who quit or who declined employment was the result of the free play of their intellects and wills, then against them appellee had no cause of action, and much less against men who merely furnished information and arguments to aid them in forming their judgments. Now it must not be forgotten that the suit was to' protect appellee’s property rights. Regarding employments at will, those lights reached their limit at this line: For the maintenance of the incorporeal value of a going business appellee had the right to a free access to the labor market, and the further right to the continuing services of those who accepted employment at will until such services were terminated by the free act of one or the other party to the employment. On the other side of this limiting line, appellants, we think, had the right, for the purpose of maintaining or increasing the incorporeal value of their capacity to labor, to an equally free access to the labor market. The right of the one to persuade (but not coerce) the unemployed to accept certain terms is limited and conditioned by the right of the other to dissuade (but not restrain) them from accepting. For another thing that must not be forgotten is that a strike is one manifestation of the competition, the struggle for survival or place, that is inevitable in individualistic society. Dividends and wages must both come from the joint product of capital and labor. And in the struggle wherein each is seeking to hold or enlarge his ground, we believe it is fundamental that o'ne and the same set of rules should govern the action of both contestants.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Brady v. National Football League
644 F.3d 661 (Eighth Circuit, 2011)
Hi-State Beverage Co. v. Ohio Bureau of Employment Services
603 N.E.2d 274 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1991)
Bays v. Shenango Co.
559 N.E.2d 740 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1990)
Abilla v. Agsalud
741 P.2d 1272 (Hawaii Supreme Court, 1987)
Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Inc. v. Department of Employment & Training
522 A.2d 382 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1987)
United States v. Frederick G. Norton
808 F.2d 908 (First Circuit, 1987)
Fredricks v. Industrial Commission
91 N.W.2d 93 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1958)
Zimmer v. Westinghouse Electric Corp.
139 A.2d 754 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1958)
Westinghouse Electric Corp. v. Board of Review
135 A.2d 489 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1957)
Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala.
353 U.S. 448 (Supreme Court, 1957)
Collins v. Barry
136 N.E.2d 597 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1956)
Marathon Electric Manufacturing Corp. v. Industrial Commission
69 N.W.2d 573 (Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1955)
Ward v. Barnes
266 S.W.2d 338 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1954)
Kennedy v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp.
101 A.2d 592 (New Jersey Superior Court App Division, 1953)
Gentile v. Director of Division of Employment Security
109 N.E.2d 140 (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
166 F. 45, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4835, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/iron-molders-union-no-125-of-milwaukee-v-allischalmers-co-ca7-1908.