Minasian v. Osborne

• Decision Date: 29 November 1911
• Citation: 96 N.E. 1036,210 Mass. 250
• Parties: MINASIAN v. OSBORNE et al. (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

210 Mass. 250

96 N.E. 1036

MINASIAN v. OSBORNE et al. (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

November 29, 1911

COUNSEL

Frederick W. Mansfield, for appellants.

J. J Feely and Roger Clapp, for appellees.

OPINION

RUGG C.J.

The material facts which give rise to this controversy (as found by the superior court) are that the plaintiff Minas, a skilled laster by trade, had a contract for labor as a laster with the Randall Adams Company, terminable at the will of either. With the consent of his employer, he had in turn employed as helper his father, Hampertzoon, the other plaintiff, who was not able to do all the work of a laster and who received no wages from the Randall Adams Company and had no relation as servant to it. The work was piece work and Minas alone received, and was entitled to receive, the compensation for their joint labor. This method of work was known in the craft as 'contract' or 'cross-handed.'

Both of the plaintiffs were, or had been members of the Lasters' Union, an unincorporated association, of which the defendants are representatives and members. The defendant Osborne, who is the business agent of the Lasters' Union No. 1, notified the employer, the Randall Adams Company, that unless the father was discharged the shop's crew would be 'pulled out.' The father did not work for a day on two, but returned to work after the superintendent of the employer told the son, Minas, to get him and put him to work again. The next day all the other lasters went out on an orderly striek, which was indorsed by the Union. As a consequence, both plaintiffs have lost their employment. The Lasters' Union substantially controls the labor market in the manufacture of shoes, for practically all lasters are members of the Union. The effect of the strike, if continued, will be to prevent Randall Adams Company from continuing business unless it discharges Minas or compels him to dispense with the assitance of his father.

Here is a plain and tangible injury to the plaintiffs as the proximate result of the acts of the defendants. This gives a cause of action to the plaintiffs unless the defendants have a sufficient justification for their conduct. If they have acted without good cause or excuse, they are liable. Berry v. Donovan, 188 Mass. 353-356, 74 N.E. 603, 5 L. R. A. (N. S.) 899, 108 Am. St. Rep. 499; Quinn v. Leatham (1901) A. C., 495-510; South Wales Miners' Federation v. Glamorgan Coal Co. (1905) A. C., 239-244, 246-251. As was said in De Minico v. Craig, 207 Mass. 593, 598, 94 N.E. 317, 319: 'Whether the purpose, for which a strike is instituted is or is not a legal justification for it, is a question or law to be decided by the court.'

The inquiry must be directed to the character of the justification pfoffered by the defendants in excuse for their conduct. The purpose of the strike (as found by the superior court) was 'to compel the plaintiff Minas * * * to cease employing his father to help him and to induce the employer of Minas either to discharge the father or to require Minas to cease employing a helper, or failing that, to discharge Minas from its employment.' But it has been found also that the defendants are not actuated by any ill feeling toward either of the plaintiffs, and that the strike is wholly disconnected with any question of membership in the Union. The basis of the strike is objection to the system known as contract labor or cross-hand work. It follows that the real purpose of the strike is to cause the abolition of that system of work in this shop.

It is not of much consequence whether the object of the strike is stated to be the discharge of the father and son without hostility toward them, but for the reason that they practice a certain system of shop labor, or the abolition of the system of shop labor, with the incidental result that one or both of the plaintiffs may be discharged. In its practical effects upon the rights of the parties, the question of law involved is the same whichever way it is put. The question presented for decision is whether the abolition of this particular system of shop work is a legal justification for the interference with the rights of these plaintiffs which arises from an orderly strike by fellow employés.

'The objection to the system is' (as found by the trial court) 'that where two men work together, as Minas and his father were doing, they can do more work in a day or week than any single man working without a helper, and that as a result the men who worked without helpers would not get their fair share of the work that was to be done, and would thus be unable to have a change to earn as much as they could if there were no helpers employed. The custom in the factory was that, when a laster had completed his case of shoes or had nearly completed it so as to be ready for another case, he would put his name upon a list, and it was understood that cases of shoes would be furnished him for his work in the order in which the names stood upon the list. If there was plenty of work so that any laster could have all he could do, the fact that two men working together could do more than he could would not affect the wages he would ordinarily receive; but in case there was a scarcity of work, or not sufficient work to keep all the lasters employed, the laster who had a helper might be able to do more work and other lasters might not be able to obtain work. In that aspect of the case their compensation might be affected by the system of contract labor or cross-hand work.' The controversy as presented upon this record is not between employer and employé, but between rival sets of workmen, both of whom were at work in the same shop upon materials of one manufacturer.

This is not a strike which involves any inquiry as to the plaintiffs' habits, conduct or character which might render them unfit or improper shopmates. It is not for the establishment of any system of shop work or rules directed to the curtailment or limitation of production or interference with reasonable industrial advancement. It is not aimed to prevent the highest efficiency of labor or the use of modern or economical machinery. It was not instituted to promote a closed shop or to compel anybody to join or to leave any union, nor primarily to cause the discharge or employment of any person or class of persons. If this...