1. Refusal of a labor union to admit to membership the employees
of an interstate motor carrier, and refusal of members of the union
to accept employment by the carrier -- even though as a result it
was impossible for the carrier to continue in business --
held not a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, as
amended. P.
325 U. S.
823.
2. That the refusal of members of the union to accept employment
by the carrier stemmed from personal antagonism toward a partner in
the carrier firm -- arising out of the killing of a union man, of
which the partner was acquitted -- did not render such refusal a
violation of the Sherman Act. P.
325 U. S.
824.
3. The fact that the refusal of the union members to accept
employment was related to the business of an interstate carrier did
not make such refusal a violation of the Sherman Act. P.
325 U. S.
825.
4. A labor union's breach of duty to employees in a collective
bargaining group is not, of itself, a violation of the Sherman Act.
P.
325 U. S.
826.
5. The Sherman Act does not afford a remedy for every tort
committed by or against persons engaged in interstate commerce. P.
325 U. S.
826.
6. The question whether the conduct of the union and its members
is actionable under state law is not here involved. P.
325 U. S.
826.
143 F.2d 902 affirmed.
Certiorari, 323 U.S. 704, to review the affirmance of a judgment
for the defendants, 47 F. Supp. 571, in a suit for an injunction
and treble damages under the Sherman Act.
Page 325 U. S. 822
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question here is whether an organization of laboring men
violated the Sherman Act, as amended, 26 Stat. 209, 38 Stat. 730,
by refusing to admit to membership petitioner's employees, and by
refusing to sell their services to petitioner, thereby making it
impossible for petitioner profitably to continue in business.
For about fourteen years prior to 1939, the petitioner, a
business partnership engaged in motor trucking, carried freight
under a contract with the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A
& P). Eighty-five percent of the merchandise thus hauled by
petitioner was interstate, from and to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The respondent union, composed of drivers and helpers, was
affiliated with other A.F. of L. unions whose members worked at
loading and hauling of freight by motor truck. In 1937, the
respondent union called a strike of the truckers and haulers of A
& P in Philadelphia for the purpose of enforcing a closed shop.
The petitioner, refusing to unionize its business, attempted to
operate during the strike. Much violence occurred. One of the union
men was killed near union headquarters, and a member of the
petitioner partnership was tried for the homicide and acquitted. A
& P and the union entered into a closed shop agreement,
whereupon all contract haulers working for A & P, including the
petitioner, were notified that their employees must join and become
members of the union. All of the other contractor haulers except
petitioner either joined the union or made closed shop agreements
with it. The
Page 325 U. S. 823
union, however, refused to negotiate with the petitioner, and
declined to admit any of is employees to membership. Although
petitioner's services had been satisfactory, A & P at the
union's instigation, cancelled its contract with petitioner in
accordance with the obligations of its closed shop agreement with
the union. Later, the petitioner obtained a contract with a
different company, but again, at the union's instigation, and upon
the consummation of a closed shop contract by that company with the
union, petitioner lost that contract and business. Because of the
union's refusal to negotiate with the petitioner and to accept
petitioner's employees as members, the petitioner was unable to
obtain any further hauling contracts in Philadelphia. The
elimination of the petitioner's service did not in any manner
affect the interstate operations of A & P or other
companies.
The petitioner then instituted this suit in a federal district
court against respondents, the union, and its representatives,
praying for an injunction and asking for treble damages. Demurrers
to the complaint were overruled, the case was tried, findings of
fact were made, and the district court rendered a judgment for the
respondents on the ground that petitioner had failed to prove a
cause of action under the Anti-Trust laws. 47 F. Supp. 571. The
Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the fact that
respondents' actions had caused petitioner to go out of business
was not such a restraint of interstate commerce as would be
actionable under the Sherman and Clayton Acts. 143 F.2d 902. We
granted certiorari because of the questions involved concerning the
responsibility of labor unions under the Anti-Trust laws.
The "destruction" of petitioner's business resulted from the
fact that the union members, acting in concert, refused to accept
employment with the petitioner, and refused to admit to their
association anyone who worked for petitioner. The petitioner's loss
of business is therefore
Page 325 U. S. 824
analogous to the case of a manufacturer selling goods in
interstate commerce who fails in business because union members
refuse to work for him. Had a group of petitioner's business
competitors conspired and combined to suppress petitioner's
business by refusing to sell goods and services to it, such a
combination would have violated the Sherman Act.
Binderup v.
Pathe Exchange, 263 U. S. 291,
263 U. S. 312;
Fashion Originators' Guild v. Federal Trade Commission,
312 U. S. 457,
668. A labor union which aided and abetted such a group would have
been equally guilty.
Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union No. 3,
ante, p.
325 U. S. 797. The
only combination here, however, was one of workers alone, and what
they refused to sell petitioner was their labor.
It is not a violation of the Sherman Act for laborers in
combination to refuse to work. They can sell or not sell their
labor as they please, and upon such terms and conditions as they
choose, without infringing the Anti-Trust laws.
Apex Hosiery
Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469,
310 U. S.
502-503. A worker is privileged under congressional
enactments, acting either alone or in concert with his fellow
workers, to associate or to decline to associate with other
workers, to accept, refuse to accept, or to terminate a
relationship of employment, and his labor is not to be treated as
"a commodity or article of commerce." Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730,
731; Norris-LaGuardia Act, 47 Stat. 70;
see also American Steel
Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U.
S. 184,
257 U. S. 209.
It was the exercise of these rights that created the situation
which caused the petitioner to lose its hauling contracts and its
business.
It is argued that their exercise falls within the condemnation
of the Sherman Act because the union members' refusal to accept
employment was due to personal antagonism against the petitioner
arising out of the killing of a union man. But Congress, in the
Sherman Act and the legislation which followed it, manifested no
purpose to make any kind of refusal to accept personal
employment
Page 325 U. S. 825
a violation of the Anti-Trust laws. Such an application of those
laws would be a complete departure from their spirit and purpose.
Cf. Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, supra, 310 U. S. 512;
Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union No. 3, supra.
Moreover,
"So long as a union acts in its self-interest and does not
combine with nonlabor groups, the licit and the illicit under ยง 20
are not to be distinguished by any judgment regarding the wisdom or
unwisdom, the rightness or wrongness, the selfishness or
unselfishness, of the end of which the particular union activities
are the means."
United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.
S. 219,
312 U. S. 232.
*
It is further argued that the concerted refusal of union members
to work for petitioner must be held to violate the Sherman Act
because petitioner's business was "an instrumentality of interstate
commerce."
See United States v. Trans-Missouri Freight
Assn., 166 U. S. 290,
166 U. S. 312.
Acceptance of this contention would imply that workers do not
possess the same privileges to choose or reject employment with
interstate carriers as with other businesses. The entire history of
congressional legislation, including the Railway Labor Act, 48
Stat. 1185, belies this argument.
Finally, it is faintly suggested that our decisions in
Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U.
S. 192;
Tunstall v.
Brotherhood,
Page 325 U. S. 826
323 U. S. 210, and
Wallace Corp. v. Labor Board, 323 U.
S. 248, require that we hold that respondents' conduct
violated the Sherman Act. Those cases stand for the principle that
a bargaining agent owes duty not to discriminate unfairly against
any of the group it purports to represent. But, if the record
showed such discrimination against employees here, it would not
even tend to show a violation of the Sherman Act. Congress has
indicated no purpose to make a union's breach of duty to employees
in a collective bargaining group an infraction of the Sherman
Act.
The controversy in the instant case, between a union and an
employer, involves nothing more than a dispute over employment and
the withholding of labor services. It cannot therefore be said to
violate the Sherman Act, as amended. That Act does not purport to
afford remedies for all torts committed by or against persons
engaged in interstate commerce.
"The maintenance in our federal system of a proper distribution
between state and national governments of police authority and of
remedies private and public for public wrongs is of far-reaching
importance. An intention to disturb the balance is not lightly to
be imputed to Congress."
Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U.
S. 469,
310 U. S. 513.
Whether the respondents' conduct amounts to an actionable wrong
subjecting them to liability for damages under Pennsylvania law is
not our concern.
Affirmed.
*
Dorchy v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 306,
272 U. S. 311,
cited here in dissent, has no relevancy to the issues before us. In
that case, Dorchy was convicted of calling a strike to enforce a
state claim contrary to state law. He attacked the state law on the
ground that the right to strike was guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment. This Court rejected Dorchy's constitutional contention
with the statement that "[n]either the common law nor the
Fourteenth Amendment confers the absolute right to strike." The
Court had no reason in the
Dorchy case to consider the
Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 730, which as we decided in the
Hutcheson case does recognize an absolute right of
employees to work or cease working according to their own
judgments. That which Congress has recognized as lawful this Court
has no constitutional power to declare unlawful by arguing that
Congress has accorded too much power to labor organizations.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS.
I think the judgment should be reversed.
The issue presented in this case, in my judgment, lies wholly
outside and beyond any precedent to be found in the decisions of
this court, and certainly so as to
Apex Hosiery Co. v.
Leader, 310 U. S. 469, on
which the court relies.
Page 325 U. S. 827
There was a labor dispute as to unionization between motor
carriers and the union representing employees. The record
demonstrates that the dispute involved in this case was no part of
that labor dispute ,but an off-shoot of it, not involving wages,
unionization, closed shop, hours, or other conditions of work.
The union, in an effort to organize the employees of motor
carriers, resorted to a strike. The petitioners resisted
unionization. During the ensuing disorder, a man was shot. T he
union officials attributed the killing to one of the petitioners.
In fact, he was acquitted by a jury. The respondents decided to
punish him. The respondents having succeeded in unionizing the
industry in Philadelphia, the petitioners could continue in their
business of interstate carriage only by having their men join the
union and by signing a closed shop contract. The union determined
to punish petitioners by refusing to sign a contract with them and
by forbidding the members of the union to work for them. There is
no suggestion in the record that they did so because of any labor
conditions or considerations, or that petitioners' men would not
join the union, or that union men would not work with them if they
did join. It is hardly an accurate description of their attitude to
say that the union men decided not to sell their labor to the
petitioners. They intended to drive petitioners out of business as
interstate motor carriers, and they succeeded in so doing.
The petitioners, for fourteen years, had been carriers of
merchandise in interstate commerce. The union compelled A. &
P., their principal patron, to break its contract with them and to
discharge them from further serving it. The union frustrated
efforts of petitioners to obtain contracts with other shippers.
The petitioners had been, and were at the time, in competition
with other similar interstate carriers. The sole purpose of the
respondents was to drive petitioners out of
Page 325 U. S. 828
business in that field. This they accomplished. Thus, they
reduced competition between interstate carriers by eliminating one
competitor from the field. The conspiracy therefore was clearly
within the denunciation of the Sherman Act as one intended, and
effective, to lessen competition in commerce, and not within any
immunity conferred by the Clayton Act.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER and MR. JUSTICE
JACKSON join in this opinion.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting.
The Court concedes that, if business competitors alone or in
combination with labor had conspired to drive petitioners out of
business by refusing goods or services, competitors and labor
organization would have violated the Sherman Act. The only
question, then, is whether respondent is exempted from the
prohibition of the Act. It it hard to see how this union is excused
from the terms of the Act when, in the
Allen-Bradley case,
we hold that labor unions, even though furthering their members'
interests as wage earners, violate the Act when they combine with
business to do the things prohibited by the Act. There too, labor
performed its part of the conspiracy by denying or threatening to
deny labor to employers. But, in that case, we hold that no
absolute immunity is granted by the statute, and that, because of
its purpose and its association, the labor union violated the Act.
Here too, the purpose of the respondent union is such as to remove
the union's activities from the protection of the Clayton and
Norris-LaGuardia Acts.
We say in the
Allen-Bradley case that, since a labor
dispute existed, the refusal of the union to work would not have
violated the Sherman Act if it had acted alone. In that case, the
Court reviews fully the
conflicting policies expressed in
those Acts intended to preserve competition
Page 325 U. S. 829
and in those which permit labor organizations to pursue their
objectives. Those statutes which restricted the application of the
Sherman Act against unions were intended only to shield the
legitimate objectives of such organizations, not to give them a
sword to use with unlimited immunity. The social interest in
allowing workers to better their condition by their combined
bargaining power was thought to outweigh the otherwise undesirable
restriction on competition which all successful union activity
necessarily entails. But there is no social interest served by
union activities which are directed not to the advantage of union
members, but merely to capricious and retaliatory misuse of the
power which unions have simply to impose their will on an
employer.
The
Apex case is authority only for the principle that
a labor organization which employs its power for recognized
purposes does not violate the Sherman Act unless its purpose is to
affect, and it does affect, competition in the marketing of goods
and services. That case says nothing of the direct destruction of
competition in interstate commerce, as an end in itself, which the
respondent union here effectuated. It explicitly declares that, to
some extent, labor unions are subject to the Sherman Act.
Apex
Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469,
310 U. S. 489.
Much of what we said in
American Medical Assn. v. United
States, 317 U. S. 519, is
applicable here, although that case did not involve a labor
union:
"The petitioners did not represent present or prospective
employees. Their purpose was to prevent anyone from taking
employment under Group Health. They were interested in the terms
and conditions of the employment only in the sense that they
desired wholly to prevent Group Health from functioning by having
any employees. Their objection was to its method of doing business.
Obviously there was no dispute between Group Health and the doctors
it employed or might employ in which petitioners were either
directly or indirectly
Page 325 U. S. 830
interested."
And, in that case, we held the Clayton and Norris-LaGuardia Acts
inapplicable and sustained convictions under the Sherman Act. It
can hardly be said that, merely because respondent is a labor
union, for that reason alone, a labor dispute is involved in the
present case.
Respondents contend that, in any event, their conduct is not
prohibited by the Sherman Act because prices within the field were
not affected, and the public did not suffer.
Appalachian Coals
v. United States, 288 U. S. 344, and
similar cases refusing to apply the Sherman Act held that certain
practices were permissible because they did not restrain
competition in the industry as a whole, although they did restrain
competition among the parties to the agreement. But there is a
difference between being a party to consensual restriction of
competition within a segment of an industry and being forced out of
the industry entirely. Competition within the field has been
lessened by the elimination of one of the companies engaged
therein. Of course, it cannot be said on this record that the
destruction of petitioner's business substantially affected market
conditions in the services which petitioner was engaged in
rendering.
Cf. Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, supra, at
310 U. S. 512.
But, even assuming that such an effect is necessary, the Court does
not distinguish between the situation presented in this case and a
case in which a union by similar methods and with similar motives
would drive out of business a company whose demise would affect
prices in the field.
With this decision, the labor movement has come full circle. The
working man has struggled long, the fight has been filled with
hatred, and conflict has been dangerous, but now workers may not be
deprived of their livelihood merely because their employers oppose
and they favor unions. Labor has won other rights as well --
unemployment compensation, old-age benefits and, what is
Page 325 U. S. 831
most important and the basis of all its gains, the recognition
that the opportunity to earn his support is not alone the concern
of the individual, but is the problem which all organized societies
must contend with and conquer if they are to survive. This Court
now sustains the claim of a union to the right to deny
participation in the economic world to an employer simply because
the union dislikes him. This Court permits to employees the same
arbitrary dominance over the economic sphere which they control
that labor so long, so bitterly, and so rightly asserted should
belong to no man.
Strikes aimed at compelling the employer to yield to union
demands are not within the Sherman Act. Here, the employer has
yielded, and the union has achieved the end to which all legitimate
union pressure is directed and limited. The union cannot,
consistently with the Sherman Act, refuse to enjoy the fruits of
its victory and deny peace terms to an employer who has
unconditionally surrendered.
Mr. Justice Brandeis, for a unanimous Court, held that a union
cannot lawfully strike for an unlawful purpose.
"The right to carry on business -- be it called liberty or
property -- has value. To interfere with this right without just
cause is unlawful. The fact that the injury was inflicted by a
strike is sometimes a justification. But a strike may be illegal
because of its purpose, however orderly the manner in which it is
conducted. To collect a stale claim due to a fellow member of the
union who was formerly employed in the business is not a
permissible purpose."
Dorchy v. Kansas, 272 U. S. 306,
272 U. S. 311.
No more permissible is an exaction of privately determined
punishment for alleged murder. And, being unlawful, union
activities of this kind are not protected by the Clayton and
Norris-LaGuardia Acts.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER join in this
opinion.