International Ass'n of Machinists v. State ex rel. Watson

• Citation: 15 So.2d 485,153 Fla. 672
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS et al. v. STATE ex rel. WATSON, Atty. Gen.
• Decision Date: 10 November 1943
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

15 So.2d 485

153 Fla. 672

INTERNATIONAL ASS'N OF MACHINISTS et al. v. STATE ex rel. WATSON, Atty. Gen.

Florida Supreme Court

November 10, 1943

Appeal from Circuit Court, Hillsborough County; L. L. Parks judge.

Joseph A. Padway and Herbert S. Thatcher, both of Washington, D. C., and Raymond Sheldon, of Tampa, for appellants.

J. Tom Watson Atty. Gen., Lawrence A. Truett and Fred M. Burns, Asst. Attys. Gen., and John W. Donahoo, of Jacksonville, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The Attorney General of the State of Florida instituted quo warranto proceedings against Tampa Shipbuilding Company, Incorporated a Florida corporation, to prevent the corporation from continuing the operation of its business in Hillsborough County under an existing collective bargaining agreement theretofore entered into with certain labor unions.

The substance of the information filed by the Attorney General is that Tampa Shipbuilding Company was incorporated and qualified as a Florida corporation on November 7, 1940. The shipbuilding plant and shops of the corporation furnish substantially all of the available employment for boilermakers, iron shipbuilders, welders, ship carpenters, blacksmiths and drop forgers; and the major part of the available employment for electrical workers, machinists, operating engineers, plumbers and steam fitters, sheet metal workers, technical engineers, architects, draftsmen and pattern makers, for shipbuilding, within Hillsborough County. By its acceptance of articles of incorporation from the State of Florida Tampa Shipbuilding Company consented and agreed with the State, and with the people thereof, to refrain from entering into any contract or undertaking that was in violation of the Constitution or laws of the State of Florida, or that was ultra viers or contrary to the public policy of the State. Notwithstanding this agreement, the corporation, on July 16, 1941, entered into an unlawful contract with certain labor unions in Hillsborough County to employ only union labor in its shipbuilding operations, thereby illegally conspiring with said unions to prevent qualified persons from obtaining employment in the shipbuilding industry in Hillsborough County, unless as a condition of employment such persons were, or became and remained, members in good standing of the particular unions which represented the crafts in which they were skilled. As a resulf of this agreement numerous citizens and residents of Hillsborough County, and the territory adjacent thereto, who are duly qualified by experience and training, have been refused employment in the plants and shops of the Tampa Shipbuilding Company because they were not members of a union; or, if employed, have been laid off because they did not become or remain members of a union.

The charge is that such a contract creates an unlawful combination with the unions and monopoly in restraint of the equal right to work; that it is beyond the authority of the corporation to enter into such contract because the same is contrary to public policy, and is in violation of the laws and Constitution of the State of Florida.

The prayer is that Tampa Shipbuilding Company show cause by what warrant of authority it claims the right to make said contract and do business thereunder; that it be declared that the corporation is unlawfully usurping its corporate privileges by continuing said contract; and that the corporation be ousted from the continuation thereof.

In its answer Tampa Shipbuilding Company alleges that it is engaged in the construction of ships and vessels for the Navy Department of the United States Government. It admits that the major portion of the shipbuilding business in Hillsborough County is carried on in its plants and shops, although other plants are being operated in the county for the construction of ships. It admits that it entered into the collective bargaining contract with the unions as alleged and that it is operating thereunder. It admits that the effect of the contract is to favor employees who are union members, but that said contract was entered into only after there had been a conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana (known as the Gulf Zone Stabilization Conference) at which representatives of the shipbuilding industry in the zone affected, representatives of labor unions and representatives of the War Production Board, the United States Nevy and the United States Maritime Commission had agreed upon certain basic standards for wages and employment in the Gulf Zone, which standards were thereafter approved by the Secretary of Navy for application to shipyards holding Navy construction contracts.

Respondent alleges that its contract entered into with the unions embodies only the standards established by the Gulf Zone Stabilization Conference; and that if compliance with its contract with the unions has affected the citizens and residents of Hillsborough County in the manner alleged, it has been without design or intention on the part of the respondent that such results should flow from its participation in the contract so approved by the Navy Department of the United States Government.

By stipulation of the parties the unions who were parties to the labor agreement with Tampa Shipbuilding Company were allowed to intervene as respondents. In due course they filed their answer alleging, among other things, the results of the 'Gulf Zone Stabilization Conference', alluded to in the answer of the shipbuilding company and that its contract with the Shipbuilding Company is in conformance with basic standards for wages and employment there agreed upon and subsequently approved by the Federal Government.

Thereafter, testimony was taken on the issues presented by the information and answers thereto. At final hearing the trial court entered its judgment finding that the 'closed shop' feature of the contract '* * * has become ultra vires and invalid by virtue of present war conditions * * *'; and that the respondent, Tampa Shipbuilding Company, and the intervening unions, shall 'forthwith cancel the clause in said contract complained of * * * and desist from further executing and performing the same.' (Italics supplied by us).

We think that the primary question involved in this appeal is whether, at the instance of the Attorney General of Florida, the shipbuilding company, which is engaged in building vessels exclusively for the Navy Department in times of war and under Government contract, may be required to desist from adhering to a 'closed shop' contract, the conditions of which have been formulated by the Federal Government; neither the Federal Government, the shipbuilding company nor the unions involved being here complaining.

We are dealing in this case with two parties sui juris who have entered into a contract under the conditions above set forth, which both parties were competent to make and execute, and which the circuit judge has properly adjudged to have been lawful and valid at the time it was made; but a clause and condition of which he has held to be unenforceable because our country is now at war.

Neither the shipbuilding company nor the unions, who are the parties to the labor agreement, nor the Government, is complaining that such agreement is invalid or that the contracts for building ships are not being prosecuted and completed on schedule. The Attorney General of the State is the sole moving party, presumably on the hypothesis that an appreciable portion of the citizenry of the State is affected by the provisions for the employment of union labor exclusively--a situation not supported by the record because the complaints of fewer than a score of workmen were recounted. Has the Attorney General authority to prosecute this action? If so, has he made such showing on the record as will authorize the entry of a final judgment or order striking down the contract?

If the Attorney General may prosecute this action, it must be on the ground that by the operation of the contract between the parties the public policy of the State is being violated. The question of public policy has been ably discussed by this court in Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Beazley, 54 Fla. 311, 45 So. 761. See, also, City of Leesburg v. Ware et al., 113 Fla. 760, 153 So. 87. The question of whether the court should interfere with controversies of this character as a matter of public policy was referred to in Jetton-Dekle Lumber Company v. Mather et al., 53 Fla. 969, 43 So. 590, 592, where we said: '* * * moreover, may it not be judicial to add that, as the questions trench so close upon the political, they may finally be solved only by the political departments of the government?'

Whether or not the provisions of a contract involving the manufacture of materials to be used exclusively in the prosecution of the war are helpful or harmful to the prosecution of that effort, is a subject over which neither State officials nor State courts have any inherent jurisdiction; and, as there exists no statute, either State or Federal, vesting such jurisdiction there, the power to determine such matters must lie where Congress, acting under the Federal Constitution, has placed it--in the Federal Government. The Constitution of the United States vests in the President and in the Congress full power to declare and wage war. This vestiture of power carries with it all those implied powers necessary to fully effectuate this express enumerated power. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 4 L.Ed. 579. The Federal power to wage war being absolute, it must necessarily be exclusive. See Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 18 L.Ed. 281.

This express grant of power, says the Supreme Court of the United States in Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States of America, 320 U.S. 81, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 1382...