Glover v. Minneapolis Bldg. Trades Council
| Decision Date | 09 July 1943 |
| Docket Number | 33414. |
| Citation | 10 N.W.2d 481,215 Minn. 533 |
| Parties | 7 Lab.Cas. P 61,687 GLOVER v. MINNEAPOLIS BUILDING TRADES COUNCIL et al. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
In the exercise of freedom of speech secured by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, a labor union may peacefully picket the premises, where a person is engaged in building a house for the purpose of sale, to induce him to let work in connection with the construction thereof, done by him with his own hands, to others, who would employ union labor to do the same.
Sam J. Levy, of Minneapolis, for appellant.
John A. Goldie, of Minneapolis, for respondents.
Joseph A. Padway and James A. Glenn, both of Washington, D. C amici curiae.
The question is whether or not the complaint states a cause of action entitling plaintiff to injunctive relief.
Plaintiff is engaged in the business of building and selling houses. In constructing them he employs union labor, except for furnace installation and sheetmetal work, which he does himself. When he is unable to do the work himself, he lets it to a contractor who employs union labor. Plaintiff is an experienced furnace and sheetmetal worker and holds a license as a gravity warm-air heating installer issued under an ordinance of the city of Minneapolis.
Defendants are certain building trades unions, including the sheetmetal workers local, whose members do furnace installation and sheetmetal work, a general organization with which the unions are affiliated, and certain officers and representatives of the bodies mentioned. They demanded of plaintiff that he cease doing the furnace and sheetmetal work himself and that he give it to some person or firm who would employ only union labor to do the same. This plaintiff refused to do.
Upon plaintiff's refusal to accede to the demands made upon him, defendants caused pickets to walk in the street in front of his premises carrying banners proclaiming that the work being done was nonunion and unfair to the building and construction trades affiliated with the American Federation of Labor in Minneapolis and vicinity.
The workmen employed on the job quit and notified plaintiff that they would not return to work so long as the picketing continued. Plaintiff alleges that as a consequence of the picketing he was unable to obtain skilled workmen to finish the house picketed and to construct others which he planned to build.
No unfair labor practice in violation of Minn.St.1941, § 179.11 (Minn.Labor Relations Act, § 11), Mason St.1941 Supp. § 4254-31, or other unlawful act on the part of the defendants is alleged.
Plaintiff contends that the picketing is unlawful 'under any theory of the law.' Defendants claim that their acts constitute an exercise of freedom of speech secured to them by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. If the federal constitution secures to defendants the right to picket in the manner complained of, it is determinative of this controversy regardless of what the state law is. In Bakery & Pastry Drivers, etc., v. Wohl 315 U.S. 769, 774, 62 S.Ct. 816, 818, 86 L.Ed. 1178, the court made this clear by stating: '* * * one need not be in a 'labor dispute' as defined by state law to have a right under the Fourteenth Amendment to express a grievance in a labor matter by publication unattended by violence coercion, or conduct otherwise unlawful or oppressive.'
The constitution of the United States according to its express provision is the supreme law of the land. Article 6, cl. 2. The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, as the final arbiter of the meaning and application of the federal constitution, are binding on state courts (City of Waseca v. Braun, 206 Minn. 154, 288 N.W. 229; Dahl v. Collette, 202 Minn. 544, 279 N.W. 561) even though inconsistent with their prior decisions. Bourjois Sales Corp. v. Dorfman, 273 N.Y. 167, 7 N.E.2d 30, 110 A.L.R. 1411; 14 Am.Jur., Courts, p. 336, § 117. Since the right claimed by defendants is one based on the federal constitution, the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States control decision in the instant case.
The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States hold that peaceful picketing under the circumstances set forth in the complaint is part of freedom of speech secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. In Senn v. Tile Layers Protective Union, 301 U.S. 468, 57 S.Ct. 857, 81 L.Ed. 1229, the facts were identical with those in the case at bar, except that Senn employed a helper to assist him in doing the work. Senn was a small tile-laying contractor who hired a helper. The tile layers union requested him to unionize his shop, which he agreed to do if he might continue to work as a journeyman tile layer in conducting his business. The union refused to relax its rule forbidding an employer to work at the trade. Thereupon Senn refused to unionize, and the union picketed his place of business with banners proclaiming that he was unfair to the union. Such picketing was permissible under the state anti-injunction act of Wisconsin, which contained a provision similar to our anti-injunction act, Minn.St.1941, § 185.10(5), (Mason St.1940 Supp. § 4260-4[e]), prohibiting any court from issuing an injunction to restrain any person or persons interested in a labor dispute from giving publicity to the existence of, or the facts involved in, any labor dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling, or by any other method not involving fraud or violence. The court not only upheld the Wisconsin statute authorizing such conduct, but held that under the Fourteenth Amendment the defendants had a constitutional right to do such acts in the absence of statute. It said (301 U.S. page 478, 57 S.Ct. page 862, 81 L.Ed. 1229): 'Members of a union might, without special statutory authorization by a state, make known the facts of a labor dispute, for freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.' Further, holding that the unions might constitutionally induce Senn to refrain from exercising his right--the same as plaintiff's here--to work in his business with his own hands, the court said (301 U.S. page 481, 57 S.Ct. page 863, 81 L.Ed. 1229): 'The unions acted, and had the right to act as they did, to protect the interests of their members against the harmful effect upon them of Senn's action.' That is the precise situation involved here. The Senn case is decisive of the instant one.
In Bakery & Pastry Drivers, etc., v. Wohl, 315 U.S. 769, 62 S.Ct. 816, 86 L.Ed. 1178, supra, picketing to compel peddlers of bakery goods to hire members of a union as relief men to do the work of selling done by the peddlers themselves was held to be a constitutional right. An injunction of a state court enjoining such picketing was held to violate the right of free speech guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 102, 60 S.Ct. 736, 744, 84 L.Ed. 1093, 1102, holding a statute prohibiting peaceful picketing unconstitutional, the court said: 'In the circumstances of our times the dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as within that area of free discussion that is guaranteed by the Constitution.' On the same day the court said in Carlson v. California, 310 U.S. 106, 60 S.Ct. 746, 84 L.Ed. 1104, that freedom of speech included the publicizing of facts in a labor dispute in a peaceful way by banner.
In Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor owmoor Dairies, Inc., 312 U.S 287, 293, ...
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