32 N.E.2d 86 | Ind. | 1941
This is an appeal from an interlocutory order enjoining the appellants from picketing a coal mine. The appellants and appellees are all coal miners.
The facts are not in dispute. Prior to August, 1939, some of the appellants and some of the appellees worked in the mine owned by the Richardson and May Coal and Mining Corporation. They were then members of the union known as the United Mine Workers of America, and, apparently, the wages and working conditions in the mine conformed to the union requirements. In August, 1939, the appellants and the appellees entered into a contract with the mine owner in which the owner *366 was termed the lessor and the workmen lessees. The owner was to receive a flat price per ton for coal mined. The president of the owner company and one of its employees were to be employed as mine superintendent and top boss at a flat wage per day. Other operating expenses were to be paid, and the residue of the price procured for the coal sold was to be apportioned among the workmen. This contract conflicted with union standards, and the union miners who worked under it were required to sever their connection with the union. The contract went into effect in August, 1939, and the appellants and appellees worked under it until August, 1940, when it was terminated. Upon the termination of the contract, the appellants and some of the appellees met for the purpose of discussing the organization of a local union, and they did organize under the jurisdiction of the United Mine Workers of America. They thereupon undertook to reach an agreement with the owner of the mine for employment in the mine, which was temporarily closed down, at the union wage scale. On August 26, 1940, a picket line was established by the appellants, as members of the union, in aid of their effort to procure employment at a union wage scale. This picket line continued when there was activity at the mine, until approximately the time of the hearing on the petition for a temporary injunction. Some time between August 23, 1940, and November 12, 1940, the appellees, who were not members of the union, negotiated a new lease-agreement, similar to the one above referred to, with the mine owner, and on November 12, 1940, began working in the mine and operating it under this agreement. The picketing continued, with signs or placards upon which appeared "Unfair to Organized Labor," "Be Fair," and "We Want Fairness." The mine was what is known as a wagon mine, which sold *367 its output to trucks which came to the mine. The signs were displayed to approaching truck drivers. An effort was made to persuade the drivers to go to other mines. There is no showing of force or violence in the picketing. There is evidence that pickets stood in the driveway and endeavored to persuade trucks to go away, but not of any threat of force. The number of pickets varied from 2 to 15 or 20. There is nothing to indicate an attempt at intimidation by mass picketing. On the contrary, the evidence discloses that the pickets were courteous and merely solicitous and not threatening in their attitude.
It is clear that the appellants desired employment in the mine at the union wage scale; that they considered the mine owner unfair for not paying union wages; and that they considered the contract under which the mine was being operated as unfair to labor.
In the recent cases of Milk Wagon Drivers' Union of Chicago,etc., et al. v. Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc.,
"All that we have before us, then, is an instance of `peaceful persuasion' disentangled from violence and free from `picketingen masse or otherwise conducted' so as to occasion `imminent and aggravated danger.' Thornhill v. Alabama,
"Such a ban of free communication is inconsistent with the guarantee of freedom of speech. That a state has ample power to regulate the local problems thrown up by modern industry and to preserve the peace is axiomatic. But not even these essential powers are unfettered by the requirements of the Bill of Rights. The scope of the Fourteenth Amendment is not confined by the notion of a particular state regarding the *369
wise limits of an injunction in an industrial dispute, whether those limits be defined by statute or by the judicial organ of the state. A state cannot exclude workingmen from peacefully exercising the right of free communication by drawing the circle of economic competition between employers and workers so small as to contain only an employer and those directly employed by him. The interdependence of economic interest of all engaged in the same industry has become a commonplace. American Foundries v.Tri-City Council,
Appellees contend that the signs used by the picketers are untrue. This is based upon the contention that the appellees were operating the mine and that they were not unfair to union 3. labor. But this contention ignores the actualities. There was a labor dispute between the appellants and the owner of the mine before the appellees made their so-called lease-contract, and it seems that the union considers the operation of the mine by workmen eligible to become members of the union under a contract such as we have *370 here to be in itself unfair and inimical to the best interests of union labor.
The decisions above referred to require that the judgment be reversed, with instructions to dissolve the temporary injunction.
Judgment reversed.
NOTE. — Reported in