Alco-Zander Co. v. Amalgamated Clothing Workers

• Citation: 35 F.2d 203
• Decision Date: 08 October 1929
• Docket Number: No. 5383.,5383.
• Parties: ALCO-ZANDER CO. et al. v. AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

35 F.2d 203 (1929)

ALCO-ZANDER CO. et al. v. AMALGAMATED CLOTHING WORKERS OF AMERICA et al.

No. 5383.

District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

October 8, 1929.

George J. Schorr, Harry S. Mesirov, Benjamin M. Golder, and Morris Wolf, all of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs.

Stanley Folz, of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendants.

KIRKPATRICK, District Judge.

On September 4, 1929, the complainants, manufacturers of men's clothing engaged in business in Philadelphia, filed two bills in equity against the defendants, an unincorporated labor organization of national extent with headquarters in New York, and against certain of its officers and agents, all citizens and residents of the state of New York, praying for injunctions to restrain certain acts of interference with complainants' business, including combining to bring about strikes in the factories of the complainants. In the first bill, No. 5383, June term, 1929, jurisdiction was based upon alleged restraint of interstate competition in violation of the Sherman Act (15 USCA § 1 et seq.). In the second bill, No. 5385, June term, 1929, in which only four of the plaintiffs, all Pennsylvania corporations, joined, and in which the national labor organization was omitted as a defendant, jurisdiction was based upon the diverse citizenship of the parties, and the cause of action arises under the common law. The court directed notice to be given to the defendants so far as possible, and fixed September 6, 1929, for a hearing, at which time testimony was taken and affidavits filed. Certain of the defendants, including the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the national organization, appeared at the hearing by counsel, but offered no evidence. On September 9, 1929, the court issued temporary restraining orders substantially as prayed for in the bills; and on September 16, 1929, the orders were modified in order to avoid certain misunderstandings as to their scope which appeared to have arisen. Thereafter, on September 20, 1929, the parties stipulated in writing that the temporary restraining orders should without further proceeding be taken and deemed to be preliminary injunction.

Appeals have been taken from these temporary injunctions, and, in view of the importance of the issues involved, this opinion is filed in order that the record may show the reasons which prompted the issuance of the restraining orders. Although the two proceedings are entirely different in theory, it will be convenient to deal with the entire controversy in a single opinion. The facts as developed at the hearing are as follows:

In the garment industry, Philadelphia is a nonunion field. None of the complainants' shops are unionized, and if any of the complainants' employees were members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America prior to June, 1929 (which does not appear), their number was negligible. In the year 1927 the production of the Philadelphia market amounted to approximately $80,000,000 in value, 80 per cent. of which was shipped in interstate commerce. The wages paid in Philadelphia in the same period amounted to over $14,000,000. On the other hand, the garment industry in New York City has been for some time unionized and New York has been recognized as a union market. In 1927, the production in New York amounted to about $360,000,000 and the wages paid were over $50,000,000.

The existence of a large nonunion market so close to the unionized New York market had been for some time a source of anxiety to the Amalgamated and its officers. They believed that, by reason of the more favorable wages and conditions of work which labor in New York had been able to obtain, the New York manufacturers were unable to compete effectively with the Philadelphia market, and they were apprehensive that as a result the industry in New York in time either would be injured and curtailed with consequent unemployment of union workers there, or would be compelled to go back to a nonunion basis with reduced wages to its employees. In point of fact, the production of the New York market had decreased $16,000,000 from 1925 to 1927, while in the same period that of the Philadelphia market had increased $3,000,000, while as early as 1921 strikes had been called in New York to stop New York houses from sending work to Philadelphia to be made up by nonunion labor there. As the official organ published by the Amalgamated stated: "The open shop basis of operation of the clothing industry in Philadelphia is a menace to the standards of clothing labor everywhere, to the industrial three-fourths of the unionized markets." "Philadelphia undersells New York because of its over-worked and under-paid labor. The Amalgamated does not want Philadelphia employers to compete with New York or other employers on an unfair basis because in the final count that kind of manufacturers' competition means competition between the clothing workers of Philadelphia and of New York and of other cities." "It was inconsistent with the Amalgamated policy to permit the Philadelphia clothing market to compete with the other markets with the aid of underpaid labor and artificially maintained divisions in the ranks of labor rather than on the basis of industrial efficiency and managerial and distributive ability." "The open shop in Philadelphia must cease for the Amalgamated is not safe industrially as long as the open shop continues." One of the defendants, head of the Eastern Organization Department of the Amalgamated and in charge of the Philadelphia campaign, declared, "The work in Philadelphia is important because Philadelphia can make a grave-yard of New York," A member of the general executive board of the Amalgamated stated: "Just as the coal miners' union died, not because of Pennsylvania, but because of West Virginia, so is New York dependent on what will happen not in New York but in Philadelphia. It is in Philadelphia that we must first stop reductions. Fifteen thousand tailors there can break New York."

These considerations moved the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America to undertake a campaign for the unionizing of the Philadelphia market, the avowed purpose of which was to destroy the advantage which Philadelphia manufacturers had over New York and other parts of the country by reason of nonunion hours and wages. In 1922 at the convention of the national body a resolution authorizing such a campaign was adopted. This resolution recited that, "The fact that Philadelphia is not fully organized places it in severe competition with the organized centers, especially in New York." The campaign then undertaken failed to yield satisfactory results, and at the national convention of the Amalgamated at Cincinnati in 1928, the present campaign was authorized by a resolution which recited that "conditions in the city of New York are going from bad to worse daily," and that "our conditions in New York have been undermined and the industry paralyzed."

The above declarations are a few of many. They leave no doubt whatever that the primary purpose of the campaign for the unionization of the Philadelphia market was the protection of the unionized markets in other states, particularly New York, and that, while the improvement of the condition of the workers in Philadelphia may have been present as a motive, it was at best a secondary and remote one. Using the language of industrial warfare, the move was a piece of major strategy — an offensive undertaken for the purpose of relieving pressure upon other fronts.

The method which the Amalgamated adopted to carry out its purpose was the calling of strikes in the factories of the complainants and others, totally without notice or warning and apparently without previously presenting demands of any kind to the employers. At any rate, it is a fact that in none of the complainants' plants was there any existing dispute between employers and employees as to wages or conditions of work. Contemporaneous with the calling of the strikes, the employees of the factories were invited to join the union. In case of some employees, the invitation preceded the calling of the strikes. In general, quitting work meant joining the union, and vice versa. After a sufficient number of employees had quit to cripple the business and stop production, they would be organized and negotiations would be undertaken with the employer for the recognition of the union. It is not clear whether the agreements to be made with the employers contemplated an immediate readjustment of wages and working conditions, but that such readjustment was the ultimate purpose and was intended to follow soon is beyond question. It is quite likely that, in proceeding in this manner, the union adopted the most effective method to accomplish its purpose. The mere advocacy of union membership among the plaintiff's employees would have been at best a slow process and might in the long run have proved futile. This, however, has no bearing upon the lawfulness of the acts. If the primary intent were not so clearly apparent, it might be argued that the calling of strikes was merely an effective means of increasing union membership by a practical demonstration of what could be accomplished; but, in view of the evidence, it is plain that the object of the strikes was to put an end to all production in Philadelphia under nonunion conditions and only to permit it to be resumed if and when the manufacturers were willing to operate upon an union basis and under union wage scales. Except as a means to the end of compelling the manufacturers to change their methods of operation, the defendants were not seeking to enlarge the union membership. Hitchman Coal Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. at page 256, 38 S. Ct. 65, 62 L. Ed. 260, L. R. A. 1918C, 497, Ann. Cas. 1918B, 461.

Some of the complainants, no doubt sensing the impending attack, presented contracts to their employees, and in most cases these contracts were signed by the great majority of the...