Carnegie-ill. Steel Corp.. v. United Steelworkers Of America

• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Writing for the Court: MAXEY, Chief Justice.
• Citation: 45 A.2d 857,353 Pa. 420
• Decision Date: 13 February 1946
• Parties: CARNEGIE-ILLINOIS STEEL CORPORATION v. UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA (CIO) et al.

353 Pa. 420
45 A.2d 857

CARNEGIE-ILLINOIS STEEL CORPORATION
v.
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA (CIO) et al.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Feb. 13, 1946.

Appeal No. 54, March term, 1946, from order and decree of Court of Common Pleas, Allegheny County, No. 1194, April term, 1946; Sara M. Soffel, Judge.

Bill in equity by the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation against the United Steelworkers of America, CIO, and others, to restrain the defendants from interfering with plaintiff's employees in the performance of work assignments and from preventing employees from entering or leaving the plaintiff's plants and from interfering with plaintiff's conduct of lawful operations by mass picketing or threats of force. From an order granting a preliminary injunction, the defendants appeal.

Appeal dismissed, and case remanded.

JONES, J., dissenting.

45 A.2d 858

Before MAXEY, C. J., and LINN, PATTERSON, STEARNE, and JONES, JJ.

Eugene Cotton, of Washington, D. C., Sylvan Libson, of Pittsburgh, and Joseph Sharfsin, of Philadelphia, for appellants.

Elder W. Marshall, Seward H. French, Jr., and Reed, Smith, Shaw & McClay, all of Pittsburgh, for appellee.

MAXEY, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff filed a bill in equity against the defendants, making certain allegations as to the commission of acts of force and violence against employees of the plaintiff and interfering with the ingress of such employees to the plaintiff's property, an extensive steel works situated at Homestead. These employees who were allegedly barred from plaintiff's plant were not engaged in the work of producing steel and were in no sense of the term ‘strikebreakers.’ None of the manufacturing and productive facilities at the Homestead Steel Works have been in operation at any time during the strike. These barredout employees were assigned to the work of maintaining the power-houses, the boilers, the pumps, the steam lines and the sprinkler system, and to guard against the constant hazard of fire and to prevent the freezing of water lines essential to water cooling systems in the plant. The steam lines and water lines in the plant total several hundred miles in length. The work of these maintenance men was essential to the keeping of the steel plant in condition to resume the production of steel as soon as the steel strike should come to an end. The maintenance employees are members of the labor union which is conducting the strike. The maintenance of the plant also required the presence inside of the plant of superintendents and foremen and their assistants to supervise the work of the maintenance men. That the property of the plaintiff, which represents an original investment of over $60,000,000 and which is now valued at approximately $120,000,000 must be protected and maintained at all times, even when production is stopped by strikes, is self-evident. Eleven of the fifty-eight open hearth furnaces at the Homestead Works of the steel corporation are the property of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, that is, they belong to the American people. The cost of the Government owned facilities of this plant is said to be $90,000,000.

The complaint alleged that from the commencement of the steel strike until 12:01 A. M. January 26, 1946, the union pickets at the gates of the plaintiff's steel plant at Homestead ‘permitted free access to said properties of the plaintiff for all personnel scheduled to perform such essential maintenance of said properties' but ‘on January 25, 1946, the International Union and Local Union 1397 advised plaintiff that commencing with the hour of 12:01 A. M. January 26, 1946 it would no longer permit access to the Homestead Steel Works, of any of the supervisory personnel of the plaintiff corporation below the level of departmental superintendents and has since that date uniformly denied access to said properties, of all assistant foremen, assistant general foremen, and general foremen and assistant department superintendents and other employees of plaintiff.’ The complaint further sets forth that ‘pickets have continued to congregate at said gate [leading to the plaintiff's steel plant] in groups numbering up to 200 persons, and through mass picketing, standing shoulder to shoulder several deep, have refused entrance and access to said Works to all supervisory and other personnel employed by the plaintiff who have sought to enter said Works, excepting only the Works superintendent and the Department Superintendents.’

The bill alleges that the unlawful acts of the defendant Local Union ‘have caused and are causing great and irreparable loss, damages and injuries' to the plaintiff corporation. It is further alleged in the bill that ‘the defendants have seized and held the plant, equipment, machinery and property of the plaintiff and deprived plaintiff of its use.’

The plaintiff asked for ‘an injunction preliminary until final hearing and

45 A.2d 859

perpetual petual thereafter to restrain and enjoin the defendants from

‘(a) Interfering with, hindering, or obstructing the agents, servants and employees of the plaintiff engaged in the performance of their work assignments for the plaintiff at the Homestead Steel Works or in the operation and maintenance of plaintiff's properties;

‘(b) Preventing or attempting to prevent any person or persons, whether employees of the plaintiff or others, from freely entering or leaving the plaintiff's plants and properties at said Homestead Steel Works;

‘(c) Conspiring, combining, confederating, agreeing or arranging with each other or with any other person or persons, organizations, or associations, to interfere with or injure the plaintiff in the conduct of its lawful operations at the Homestead Steel Works, by massed picketing, threats or acts of violence, force or show of force, or other means of intimidation or coercion.’

In support of plaintiff's bill there were filed fourteen injunction affidavits. The general superintendent of the Homestead Steel Mill of plaintiff corporation filed an injunction affidavit stating that on January 25, 1946, he was notified in a telephone conversation with Frank Casper, President of the United Steel Workers of America, Local 1397, that ‘the Union had decided that no supervision below the level of department superintendent would be admitted to the plant, and that the agreement which we had made permitting free access to and from the plant by all supervisors was at an end.’

Other injunction affidavits make allegations as follows:

On January 25, 1946, a large group of pickets, estimated to be from one hundred to two hundred in number, standing three deep, extended across the gate and blocked the entrance to plaintiff's Homestead plant and thus denied access to the plant to individuals below the rank of superintendent. On January 29, 1946, at 8:30 in the evening (after suit had been instituted in the instant proceeding), Arthur H. McGurk, who desired to enter the Homestead Plant for the purpose of securing some equipment from his locker, was grabbed by pickets at the 48? mill gate and forcibly detained within the boundaries of the plant. He was escorted from company property by pickets, across the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and up a bank to a point on a driveway near Eighth Avenue. He was placed, against his will, in the seat of a red open-body truck, between the driver and another picket, and taken to a point in front of and across from the Union headquarters at Eighth and Dickson Streets. Upon alighting from the truck he attempted to make a break, stumbled and fell-one of the pickets falling on top of him, injuring his left knee and left breast and tearing his clothes. He was then forcibly taken into custody, escorted into the Union hall, where a great number of individuals were present, and was then taken into a private office and the door locked. The door was later opened by a man identified as John Bresko. McGurk was then released and went directly to his home, arriving there about 9:30 P.M. E. J. Horgan was on the night of January 29, 1946 admitted by the pickets to the plant and was told by one of the pickets, James R. Conroy, that any supervisors who used the 48? mill gate would be taken out of the plant; that threats were made by others in the group ‘that there would be bloodshed if management did not stop making use of the 48‘ Mill Gate.’ William E. Crouch, Jr., in his injunction affidavit, states that on the 26th day of January, 1946, at 2:15 A. M., while attempting to enter the Homestead Steel Works between the hot metal bridge and the 48? mill gate, an unknown picket grasped his arm and later six or seven other pickets forcibly prevented his progress toward the mill, escorted him across the tracks, up the bank, searched him, and then placed him in an automobile, seating him in the back seat between two pickets. He was forcibly restrained by the pickets and the captain of the pickets he identified as a man called ‘Red.’ The threatening attitude of the pickets and the suggestion that he was lucky he had not been beaten up caused him to answer their questions. He was restrained by the pickets for an hour or an hour and a quarter and was released later through the efforts of Mr. Feit.

There were other similar injunction affidavits filed all purporting to show that supervisory officials were denied access to plaintiff's plant and that the defendant labor union and its officials and agents had arrogated to itself and themselves the authority to determine what employees of the plaintiff corporation should and should not,

45 A.2d 860

respectively, enter the corporation's plant, and that the Union enforced its assumed authority by massing approximately 200 pickets at the gate leading into the plant.

The court below in response to the above bill of complaint, supported by the above injunction affidavits and others, granted the injunction prayed for and ordered that it should continue until a hearing was held in that court on a motion for the...