EVANS, Circuit Judge.
Petitioner seeks the enforcement of an order -of the National Labor Relations Board directing the respondent company to reinstate employees, who had theretofore gone on a strike and had been replaced by other employees. The order1 of the Board was predicated on a finding that the company had been guilty of unfair labor prac[949]*949tices; namely, refusal to bargain with the union which represented a majority of its employees.
The employees who had been hired to replace the strikers have intervened and appear separately.
The conflict between the company and the union has been protracted and bitter. It covers several issues. We find it necessary to state the facts somewhat in detail to give a thorough understanding of the case.
The Facts: The Columbian Enameling and Stamping Company, an Indiana corporation, located at Terre Haute, Indiana, manufactures and sells enamelware. It employed about 600 persons, 500 of whom were production and maintenance employees who were eligible to membership in the Enameling and Stamping Mill Employees Union, No. 19694. About 485 of the 500 eligible employees belonged to the union. The strike began March 22, 1935; the National Labor Relations Act became effective, July 5, 1935; and the specific day on which the company is alleged to have refused to bargain is July 23, 1935. The labor agreement between respondent and its employees ran for a year and expired July 14, 1935. Because of the importance of the chronological presentation of the successive steps in this conflict, we set them forth in detail. 2
[951]*951The issues of law are:
(1) The constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. 3
(2) Whether there is evidence to support the Board’s finding of unfair labor practices, and if so whether interstate commerce, if found to exist, is thereby burdened.
(3) Whether the Board’s order is valid. If so, whether it can be enforced to the detriment of the intervenors, present employees.
CONTENTIONS AND COUNTER-CONTENTIONS.
Respondent’s Contentions.
1) The act is unconstitutional.
2) Interstate commerce is not involved because both raw materials and finished products remain at rest in the Company’s place for several months before and after interstate shipment and therefore the continuity in interstate commerce shipment is broken.
Petitioner’s Contentions.
1) The act has been held constitutional (National Labor Relations Bd. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Bd. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, and other cases.)
2) Majority of raw material used in the manufacture comes from 20 states; and 85% of manufactured product is shipped to 47 states; three interstate railroads and eight interstate truckers are used.
[952]*952Respondent's Contentions. ‘
3) Further conferences would have been useless because all that union was demanding was a closed shop, and company would not so operate.
4) The act was passed after the strike and therefore is inapplicable; furthermore, the strike was an illegal one because there was an arbitration agreement, and being an illegal strike or strike in violation of wage and employment agreement, the relationship of employer and employee had been terminated. The arbitration contract provided that there should be no . strikes.
Petitioner's Contentions.
3) Union was demanding other things than closed shop, such as 2 hour pay when machinery broke down. Union was asking for the conferences, which was indicative-of fact that they were in conciliatory mood.
4) The act is applicable, and need not be retroactively construed to be here ápplicable because the refusal to meet and confer occurred on July 22 and thereafter, after the passage of the act, and the company had refused to arbitrate, and the arbitration agreement only provided that there should be no strike while a matter was pending before the Committee* of Arbitratiop. A strike does not terminate the employer-employee relationship (Citing the Michaelson Case, Michaelson v. U. S. ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 7 Cir., 291 F. 940). The National Labor Act has been held applicable in two cases where the strike occurred prior -to its passage. Jeffery-DeWitt Insulator Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 4 Cir., 91 F.2d 134, 139, 112 A.L.R. 948, cer. denied, Oct. 18, 58 S.Ct. 55, 82 L.Ed. —; Carlisle Lumber Co. Case, National Labor Rel. Board v. Carlisle Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 94 F.2d 138, now pending on application for certiorari in Supreme Court, filed Mar. 30.
Subsequent to the argument of this case the Supreme Court announced decisions in the following cases ***4 which have narrowed the issues through the final determination of what previously were controverted legal questions.
It may be and is assumed for the purposes of this case that the National Labor Relations Act is an authorized exercise of power by Congress and is valid, and that one out on strike does not thereby ordinarily interrupt the employer-employee relation previously existing. In other words, the status of the employee, as such, is not broken by the strike. (Some of the authorities so holding, including those of this court, are collected in the margin.5 )
We accept without discussion, as it seems clear under the recent decisions of the Supreme Court, petitioner’s view that respondent is engaged in interstate commerce. 6
It may also be assumed that ordinarily the status of employer-employee exists although the strike occurred before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act and continued after its passage.
These conclusions, however, do not meet or solve our question. We have a case where the parties (the employer and employees) bound themselves by a written agreement on the subject:
“In any case in which a satisfactory settlement of a dispute arising under this contract cannot be reached, such dispute shall be referred to a committee of arbitration composed of two persons selected by [953]*953the Management, two persons selected by the Union, and fifth person to he selected by these four, who shall reach a decision which shall be final and binding upon both parties to this contract. There shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by the Committee of Arbitration.”
It is in view of this agreement of the parties that our question arises.
What is the status of a group of employees who in the face of such a definite agreement left their employment? Is the doctrine of estoppel not applicable to parties to such an agreement? Is the maxim of equity that one who comes into a court of equity must come with clean hands, not applicable ?
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EVANS, Circuit Judge.
Petitioner seeks the enforcement of an order -of the National Labor Relations Board directing the respondent company to reinstate employees, who had theretofore gone on a strike and had been replaced by other employees. The order1 of the Board was predicated on a finding that the company had been guilty of unfair labor prac[949]*949tices; namely, refusal to bargain with the union which represented a majority of its employees.
The employees who had been hired to replace the strikers have intervened and appear separately.
The conflict between the company and the union has been protracted and bitter. It covers several issues. We find it necessary to state the facts somewhat in detail to give a thorough understanding of the case.
The Facts: The Columbian Enameling and Stamping Company, an Indiana corporation, located at Terre Haute, Indiana, manufactures and sells enamelware. It employed about 600 persons, 500 of whom were production and maintenance employees who were eligible to membership in the Enameling and Stamping Mill Employees Union, No. 19694. About 485 of the 500 eligible employees belonged to the union. The strike began March 22, 1935; the National Labor Relations Act became effective, July 5, 1935; and the specific day on which the company is alleged to have refused to bargain is July 23, 1935. The labor agreement between respondent and its employees ran for a year and expired July 14, 1935. Because of the importance of the chronological presentation of the successive steps in this conflict, we set them forth in detail. 2
[951]*951The issues of law are:
(1) The constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. 3
(2) Whether there is evidence to support the Board’s finding of unfair labor practices, and if so whether interstate commerce, if found to exist, is thereby burdened.
(3) Whether the Board’s order is valid. If so, whether it can be enforced to the detriment of the intervenors, present employees.
CONTENTIONS AND COUNTER-CONTENTIONS.
Respondent’s Contentions.
1) The act is unconstitutional.
2) Interstate commerce is not involved because both raw materials and finished products remain at rest in the Company’s place for several months before and after interstate shipment and therefore the continuity in interstate commerce shipment is broken.
Petitioner’s Contentions.
1) The act has been held constitutional (National Labor Relations Bd. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Bd. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352, and other cases.)
2) Majority of raw material used in the manufacture comes from 20 states; and 85% of manufactured product is shipped to 47 states; three interstate railroads and eight interstate truckers are used.
[952]*952Respondent's Contentions. ‘
3) Further conferences would have been useless because all that union was demanding was a closed shop, and company would not so operate.
4) The act was passed after the strike and therefore is inapplicable; furthermore, the strike was an illegal one because there was an arbitration agreement, and being an illegal strike or strike in violation of wage and employment agreement, the relationship of employer and employee had been terminated. The arbitration contract provided that there should be no . strikes.
Petitioner's Contentions.
3) Union was demanding other things than closed shop, such as 2 hour pay when machinery broke down. Union was asking for the conferences, which was indicative-of fact that they were in conciliatory mood.
4) The act is applicable, and need not be retroactively construed to be here ápplicable because the refusal to meet and confer occurred on July 22 and thereafter, after the passage of the act, and the company had refused to arbitrate, and the arbitration agreement only provided that there should be no strike while a matter was pending before the Committee* of Arbitratiop. A strike does not terminate the employer-employee relationship (Citing the Michaelson Case, Michaelson v. U. S. ex rel. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. R. Co., 7 Cir., 291 F. 940). The National Labor Act has been held applicable in two cases where the strike occurred prior -to its passage. Jeffery-DeWitt Insulator Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, 4 Cir., 91 F.2d 134, 139, 112 A.L.R. 948, cer. denied, Oct. 18, 58 S.Ct. 55, 82 L.Ed. —; Carlisle Lumber Co. Case, National Labor Rel. Board v. Carlisle Lumber Co., 9 Cir., 94 F.2d 138, now pending on application for certiorari in Supreme Court, filed Mar. 30.
Subsequent to the argument of this case the Supreme Court announced decisions in the following cases ***4 which have narrowed the issues through the final determination of what previously were controverted legal questions.
It may be and is assumed for the purposes of this case that the National Labor Relations Act is an authorized exercise of power by Congress and is valid, and that one out on strike does not thereby ordinarily interrupt the employer-employee relation previously existing. In other words, the status of the employee, as such, is not broken by the strike. (Some of the authorities so holding, including those of this court, are collected in the margin.5 )
We accept without discussion, as it seems clear under the recent decisions of the Supreme Court, petitioner’s view that respondent is engaged in interstate commerce. 6
It may also be assumed that ordinarily the status of employer-employee exists although the strike occurred before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act and continued after its passage.
These conclusions, however, do not meet or solve our question. We have a case where the parties (the employer and employees) bound themselves by a written agreement on the subject:
“In any case in which a satisfactory settlement of a dispute arising under this contract cannot be reached, such dispute shall be referred to a committee of arbitration composed of two persons selected by [953]*953the Management, two persons selected by the Union, and fifth person to he selected by these four, who shall reach a decision which shall be final and binding upon both parties to this contract. There shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by the Committee of Arbitration.”
It is in view of this agreement of the parties that our question arises.
What is the status of a group of employees who in the face of such a definite agreement left their employment? Is the doctrine of estoppel not applicable to parties to such an agreement? Is the maxim of equity that one who comes into a court of equity must come with clean hands, not applicable ?
No foundation more secure and reassuring or more protective of the rights of both labor and capital can be found than that reasonable contracts, not violative of public policy, should be respected by the parties who pledged their words and their integrity to abide by their terms. We grope only in darkness and trek further into the wilderness of confusion and lost landmarks if we lose sight of this beacon light. Progress lies only in respect for one’s agreement. Respect for and support of the cause of labor follows labor’s respect for its contract. The same Bill of Rights which through one section gives just protection to labor, through another section protects the just rights of others. Overriding one will result in the overthrow of the entire Bill of Rights.
In applying these observations to the instant case it is important to keep in mind the limitations which we have imposed. Only reasonable agreements are specified. Not violative of any rule of statute or public policy is another necessity. These are all important limitations to be observed and for several good reasons.
We are not blind to the fact that the purpose of governmental activity in labor matters is to treat all as nearly equally as is possible under existing conditions; that in dealings between employer and employee the former may hold the whip hand to the great disadvantage of the latter when the employees are numerous and unable to act collectively; hence collective bargaining is authorized. Nor can we fail to observe that where large groups, veritable armies in size, are collectively acting, there is possible danger lurking in the result of mass drives. Intolerance of the rights of others may result.
As so often occurs, parties deeply interested, and prejudiced by their interests, and seeing red, suffer from the delusion that numerical strength measures right; that so many, sincerely convinced of the merits of their cause, cannot be wrong. Alas, such an attitude is but another phase of the erroneous philosophy that might makes right. As the major premise of any syllogism, it leads only to erroneous conclusions and catastrophic results.
When the state or nation speaks through legislation which the Supreme Court approves as valid, we must accept it as an expression of public policy which we are to enforce willingly and in the spirit of its enactment. The National Labor Relations Act is such legislation. It was enacted after the strikers had withdrawn their services. In other words, at the time they went on strike there was in force no National Labor Relations Act and the employees acted in the face of their agreement — -“There shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by the Committee of Arbitration.”
In the face of such an agreement, were they strikers, that is, was there an employer-employee relationship existing, when they quit work? Did the status of employer-employee continue as to them after they quit?
We must answer this question in the negative. They are estopped to say that their violation of their specific agreement not to strike may be by them ignored and repudiated. Moreover, they have no standing in a court of equity to ask relief in the face of a solemn agreement which was reasonable, and which they deliberately breached.
The agreement which they had entered into ran for a single year. In three months more, it would have ended. Not only did the employees agree not to strike during the year, but they agreed to submit their arbitratable differences to arbitration. Such an agreement was promotive of the best interests of both parties. Surely no reasonable person could say it was unreasonable or unfair or indicative of duress. Surely, in the solution of the perplexing and troublesome questions arising out of the attempted settlement of labor disputes, the parties can adopt no principle as the basis of negotiations or of subsequent conduct, more sound, [954]*954safe, and sane than that wage agreements, understandings made by authorized representatives, and reasonable in the period of their application, must be respected.
This conclusion does not mean that we approve or uphold the refusal of the respondent to meet the request of the conciliators and enter into negotiationsTooking towards the settlement of disputes after the employees had quit their employment. Respondent’s employees were largely unionized. Under the Act, respondent, when requested to negotiate, had a moral duty to do so. National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893, 108 A.L.R. 1352. Instead it leant a friendly ear to unwise counsel wholly out of sympathy with the legislation designed to avoid and settle capital-labor disputes. It erred in its refusal to respect that law and ignore thé request of those charged with the burdensome task of, working out a peaceful solution of what had become a bitter controversy. There is little or no explanation which we can find for their refusal, save -an open defiant, flouting of the law of the land.
It must be freely conceded that labor has the right to quit work. It had, prior to the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act, the right to strike. That statement- of the law in the abstract is elementary. It has, however, a few limitations. One of them is where labor has expressly agreed for a limited time not to strike but to submit disputes to arbitration.
When, before the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, labor quit employment in the face of such a specific agreement, reasonable in time and in conditions and not violative of statutory law nor of -public policy, then labor estopped itself to call the termination of its employment, a strike. More, it had no standing in a court of equity to enforce rights growing out of its employer-employee relationship which it thus repudiated through termination of its contract. To that extent the right to strike is limited. For if a right is unenforceable or non-recognizable, it can hardly be called a right.
There are two propositions which the employers of labor and the employees must recognize and respect:
(a) The National Labor Relations Act is valid and constitutes a part of the laws of the land. Its provisions apply to all employers who are engaged in interstate commerce.
(b) Reasonable contracts of labor employment, not violative of any statute or public policy, which deal with compensation and working conditions must be respected by all employers entering into such agreements.
Courts have the plain duty of rigidly enforcing both these legal propositions. In no other way can the public welfare be promoted and the rights of both labor and capital be protected.
In disposing of this case we are confronted by a single question. The National Labor Relations Board held that the former employees of respondent, who went on a strike before the enactment of the Act in violation of their reasonable agreement not to strike, but to submit their differences to arbitration, were entitled to invoke the aid of a court of equity to secure reinstatement of the contract they voluntarily terminated. In so holding petitioner erred.
The holding in this case is, of course, restricted to the particular facts in this case which are:
(a) The withdrawal of the employees before the National Labor Act was enacted.
(b) The employees had a valid short time wage agreement during which they agreed not to strike but to submit differences growing out of the, agreement to arbitration.
(c) The employees ceased working in the face of their wage agreement with its anti-strike provision and at a time when there was no Federal Labor Act in force.
It is needless to add that we are not required to pass upon, nor do we pass upon a case where any one or all of said relevant factors are absent.
It follows that the petitioner’s petition for the order of enforcement sought must be and it is denied.
SPARKS, Circuit Judge. I concur m the conclusion.
Labor Contract of Columbian Enameling & Stamping Company, Inc. and Its Employees.
“At a meeting held in the offices of the Indianapolis Regional Labor Board on July 14, 1934, presided over by Dr. Earl R. Beckner, Chairman, the above parties agreed to the following contract:
“(1) Seniority rights shall prevail throughout the plant. In the event that it becomes necessary to reduce the force of employees, the last employee entered upon the Company’s payroll shall be the first employee to be furloughed. No new employees shall bo employed until all furloughed employees have been returned to work. In the recalling of furloughed employees for duty, the oldest employee in point of service shall be the first employee to be returned to duty. The seniority rule shall be applied on the basis of departments within the plant.
“(2) Employees of either sex will be promoted upon the basis of competency. Management shall have the right to determine competency.
“(3) No employees have been or will bo discriminated against because of his or her membership in or non-membership in, affiliation with or non-affiliation with any union or labor organization.
“(4) A rest-period shall be granted to all female laborers of ten minutes for every four hours of labor performed. This is to apply to all other departments where the rest-period is now practiced. . * * *
“(5) When either party to this agreement desires to terminate or modify this agreement, he shall give written notice to the other party at least thirty days in advance of such termination.
“(6) In the event that it becomes necessary to reduce the amount of employment given, management agrees to spread the available work among all the employees. Management reserves the right to determine at what point it becomes necessary to lay off employees rather than spread the work.
“(7) Any employee dismissed from the service of the Company shall be given a hearing within three days from date of dismissal, hearing to be conducted by representatives of the employee and the management. Should it be determined that the employee involved has been unjustly dismissed, such employee shall be restored to duty and paid for time lost.
“(8) Management will endeavor to provide proper ventilation in the factory.
“(9) * * *
“(10) A committee representing employees in the various departments shall be privileged to take up any grievance that may arise in their respective departments with the foreman in charge of said department. Failing to adjust such grievance, the committee shall be permitted to refer the matter to t-he Department Superintendent, from him if necessary to the Plant Superintendent and finally to the General Manager of the Company.
“In any ease in which a satisfactory settlement of a dispute arising under this contract cannot be reaehed, such dispute shall be referred to a committee of arbitration composed of two persons selected by the Management, two persons selected by the Union, and fifth [950]*950person to be selected by these four, who shall reach a decision which shall be final and binding upon both parties to this contract. There shall be no stoppage of work by either party to this contract, pending decision by the Committee of Arbitration.
“(11) Wherever possible the management shall limit the hours of work to eight per day. * ** *
“In drafting the contract which was signed on July 14th, 1934, by the representatives of the company and of its employees one clause which had been agreed to was inadvertently omitted. The clause follows:
“(12) This contract shall run for a period of one year from date, that is, until July 14,. 1935.
“It is agreed by the parties to the contract as originally drafted and signed on July 14, 1934, that the, above clause be and hereby is made a part of the original contract and; is to be . appended thereto. * * * ”