Hansen v. Local No. 373 Of Perth Amboy

• Decision Date: 30 October 1947
• Docket Number: 158/329.
• Citation: 55 A.2d 298
• Parties: HANSEN et al. v. LOCAL NO. 373 OF PERTH AMBOY AND VICINITY OF INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF BRIDGEMEN AND STRUCTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL IRON WORKERS et al.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

55 A.2d 298

HANSEN et al.

v.LOCAL NO. 373 OF PERTH AMBOY AND VICINITY OF INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF BRIDGEMEN AND STRUCTURAL AND ORNAMENTAL IRON WORKERS et al.

158/329.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

Oct. 30, 1947.

Suit by Valdemar Hansen and others against Local No. 373 of Perth Amboy, N.J., and Vicinity of the International Association of Bridgemen and Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers, a voluntary unincorporated association, and others, for an injunction against mass picketing. Order in accordance with opinion.

Syllabus by the Court

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1. Picketing en masse in the intentional manner here acknowledged is not peaceful and free of intimidation. It engenders violence.

2. The privilege to pursue one's business, vocation or profession is a property right.

3. In the particular circumstances of the present cause, the principle exemplified by the equitable maxim, ‘He that hath committed iniquity shall not have equity,’ ought not in good conscience, natural justice, and public policy, to be applied to deny the complainants some measure of injunctive protection of their property rights.

Stein, Stein & Hughes, of Elizabeth, for complainants.

David T. Wilentz, of Perth Amboy, for defendants.

Arthur J. Sills, of Perth Amboy, for defendant Wesley Hansen.

JAYNE, Vice Chancellor.

It seems paradoxical to speak of a union without unity. Yet, essentially, the present litigation is a quarrel within the family of the American Federation of Labor. A prompt determination of the present application will be more accommodating and serviceable to the parties and to those indirectly involved than a memorandum comprehensive of all the incidents disclosed by the proofs and stipulated facts.

Accordingly, a brief prefatory statement must for immediate purposes suffice to exhibit the cause and subject matter of the controversy. In March 1946 the Ford Motor Car Company began the erection of its Mercury-Lincoln Assembly Plant in Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey, at an estimated cost of approximately $8,500,000. The project required the services of many hundreds of craftsmen, including carpenters, millwrights, and iron workers.

The construction work progressed until in July 1947 the time approached for the installations of the conveyor and mono-rail systems at an estimated cost of approximately $1,000,000. The controversial question thereupon arose whether the installation of those systems was in type and pattern a class of work to be performed by the members of the ‘Carpenters' Union’ or by those of the ‘Iron Workers' Union.’

It is said that at a meeting attended by a representative of the Carpenters' International and by representatives of the two local unions, Carpenters' Union and Iron Workers' Union, it was agreed ‘that the work * * * was to be done on a man-to-man basis, that is an equal amount of millwrights (Carpenters' Union) and an equal amount of iron workers * * * under the supervision of Garrett Smith, who was to place the men where he thought they would be best suited.’

In any event, peace prevailed until about September 3, 1947, when the members of the Carpenters' Union inaugurated a ‘walkout.’ Thereafter they resolved to return, whereupon on October 9, 1947, the iron workers established a ‘lock-out,’ which they have successfully and continuously maintained against the carpenters.

The bill of complaint in this cause filed and prosecuted in conformity with the procedural requirements of the statute, R.S. 2:29-77.3, N.J.S.A., does not invite me to determine the basic and fundamental ‘jurisdictional dispute’ between the local unions. That issue has been introduced to the National Labor Relations Board.

In such a situation I venture to step somewhat out of bounds to recommend earnestly that some feasible so-called ‘spot agreement’ be entered into, definitely without prejudice to the adverse contentions of the respective disputants, and understood to be operative only ad interim until the decision of the jurisdictional dispute, all to the end that the construction work may advance and that local labor unions will not be charged with the sole responsibility for the costly delay.

I would conjecture that hostile discord between local labor unions is an internal illness that organized labor assoications would desire to abate immediately. For associated local unions, provoked by an honest difference of opinion relative to the class of work, to draw picket lines against each other would seem to me to diminish the desired allied and concordant respect for the more conventional picket lines and eventually promote baneful consequences. It will be indeed lamentable if our existing over-abundance of employment generates adversities akin to those resultant from a scarcity of it.

Nonetheless, my present judicial duty is to determine whether in view of the dissentient and intolerant convictions of the local unions, the persistent lock-out as now maintained by the iron workers against the carpenters and millwrights is lawful, or subject to the injunctive interference of this court. The issue in that particular is neither intricate nor perplexing.

The defendants frankly concede that they have intentionally...