Strauss v. Steiner

173 Misc. 521, 18 N.Y.S.2d 395, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1516
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 9, 1940
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 173 Misc. 521 (Strauss v. Steiner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Strauss v. Steiner, 173 Misc. 521, 18 N.Y.S.2d 395, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1516 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1940).

Opinion

Cuff, J.

This is a motion for a temporary injunction. Plaintiff conducts a retail meat business employing twenty-six to twenty-eight men. Defendant is a labor union functioning in the butcher trade. The latter has installed pickets at plaintiffs’ place of business. To be relieved of that condition plaintiff seeks the injunction.

Defendants oppose the motion and cross-move for a dismissal of the complaint on the ground that plaintiffs have not complied with the conditions precedent required by section 876-a of the Civil Practice Act. The rejoinder of plaintiffs is that section 876-a has no application to these facts because they say no labor dispute ” obtains.

The proof shows that no employee of plaintiffs is on strike, belongs to the union or has a grievance against plaintiff, the [522]*522employer. There are these three additional factors: After the picketing started the workers of plaintiffs, meeting at the home of one of their number, considered the question of joining the defendant union and unanimously rejected the idea. They investigated working conditions in unionized shops in the neighborhood and found that plaintiff’s treatment of their help is “ as good and in many instances much better than ” that accorded the workers in the closed shop establishments. It was also revealed at that meeting that no employee had been asked to join defendant union until two days after picketing had been instituted, when two employees were approached; both declined the invitation. On the foregoing statement of facts plaintiffs rest their claim that there is no “ labor dispute.”

Defendants’ position is contained in the answering affidavit of the president of the union. He says: In the course of the existence of this union it has raised the general standard of living of its members by reducing their hours of labor, increasing their wages and generally improving their working conditions. The defendant union has been seeking to unionize the place of business of the plaintiffs and has sought to negotiate with the plaintiff with that in view. The plaintiff refused to negotiate, nor employ union help, and defendant union has caused their place of business to be picketed.” On that statement defendants claim that there is a “ labor dispute.”

This is the question: Is there a labor dispute ” when the employees of an establishment are entirely not of the union; are not on strike; are wholly satisfied with their working conditions; have refused, after consideration, to join the union and are of the opinion that their working conditions will not be bettered, may even be rendered worse, by union affiliation?

The Appellate Division of the Third Department in Bond Stores, Inc., v. Turner (258 App. Div. 769) held that no “ labor dispute ” existed where the circumstances were singularly similar to the case at bar. In that case there was no union employee, no strike, no grievance by an employee. There was a rejection of a proposal to affiliate with the union by sixty of the sixty-three workers, which poll included all of plaintiff’s employees as well as all others engaged in the occupation of retail clothing workers in the city of Albany. The defendant union based its claim that there was a labor dispute ” upon the single fact that plaintiff had refused to enter into a closed shop agreement. That case seems to be parallel with this one. My learned colleague, Justice Dalt, sitting in Nassau county at the November, 1939, term, citing the Bond Stores, Inc., case, ruled, in a similar situation, that no “ labor dispute ” was present [523]*523and granted a proprietor an injunction. In his memorandum, however, he pointed out that Fairfield Bar & Restaurant, Inc., v. Friedman (14 N. Y. Supp. [2d] 709) and Bent Steel Sections, Inc., v. Doe (170 Misc. 736), each a Special Term decision which had not been reviewed by an appellate court, were to the contrary. (Kraushaar v. Krug, N. Y. L. J. Nov. 25, 1939, p. 1804.)

Subdivision 10 of section 876-a of the Civil Practice Act not only defines a “ labor dispute” (If c), but also states when a case shall be held to involve a “ labor dispute (if a).

Subdivision 10 (if a) provides: A case shall be held to involve or grow out of a labor dispute when the case involves persons who are engaged in the same industry, trade, craft or occupation, or who are employees of one employer.”

That provision means that workers are to be considered, under section 876-a, by the occupations that they follow. To determine if a “ labor dispute ” is involved in a given lawsuit, the question is not to be decided by conditions obtaining within the group of employees of any one firm. (Exchange Bakery & Restaurant, Inc., v. Rifkin, 245 N. Y. 260, 263.) The unit to be reckoned with embraces all workers engaged in the particular occupation. It matters not that they have different employers. The whole craft or trade is to be viewed as one entity in so far as employees are concerned, because the act throws together all persons who are engaged in the same industry, trade, craft or occupation.” Subdivision 10 (If a) further provides: “ A case shall be held to involve or grow out of a labor dispute * * * when the case involves any conflicting * * * interests in a labor dispute (as hereinafter defined) of ‘ persons participating or interested therein (as hereinafter defined).”

Persons participating or interested ” in a labor dispute is defined in paragraph (b) of the same section as follows: “ A person * * * shall be held to be a person participating or interested in a labor dispute if relief is sought against him * * * and if he * * * is engaged in the industry, trade, craft or occupation in which such dispute occurs, or is a member, officer or agent of any association * * * of employees engaged in such industry, trade, craft or occupation.”

That language makes each defendant a person participating ” in a “ labor dispute.”

Paragraph (c) declares: “ The term ‘ labor dispute ’ includes any controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, or concerning employment relations, or [524]*524any other controversy arising out of the respective interests of employer and employee, regardless of whether or not the disputants stand in the relation of employer and employee.” The controversy in this case arises out of the kind of interests referred to in that definition.

Section 876-a indicates that where words are defined by it the intention was to have courts adhere closely to the meaning that the statute itself places upon those words. The purpose of the framers of the law was evidently to avoid the results of judicial construction of many of the important features of this legislation. The wisdom of that action is open to doubt, but the action has been taken and deserves respect. The legislation was enacted to make easier the path of labor unions to win workers to their cause and to make resistance to their pressure more difficult. It “is ' an elaborate and drastic statute,” said Justice Taylor in Remington-Rand, Inc., v. Crofoot (248 App. Div. 356, 359; affd., 279 N. Y. 635).

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Bluebook (online)
173 Misc. 521, 18 N.Y.S.2d 395, 1940 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1516, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/strauss-v-steiner-nysupct-1940.