United Electric Coal Companies v. Rice, 4655.

• Decision Date: 22 January 1935
• Docket Number: No. 4655.,4655.
• Citation: 9 F. Supp. 635
• Parties: UNITED ELECTRIC COAL COMPANIES v. RICE et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Illinois

9 F. Supp. 635

UNITED ELECTRIC COAL COMPANIES v. RICE et al.

No. 4655.

District Court, E. D. Illinois.

December 21, 1934.

Rehearing Denied January 22, 1935.

Wm. Acton, of Danville, Ill., and Baker & Lesemann, of East St. Louis, Ill., for plaintiff.

D. W. Johnston, of Taylorville, Ill., P. K. Johnson, of Belleville, Ill., Noble Y. Dowell, of East Peoria, Ill., George W. Dowell, of Du Quoin, Ill., Arthur Fitzgerald, of Springfield, Ill., C. C. Dreman, of Belleville, Ill., and Leal Reece, of Taylorville, Ill., for defendants.

WHAM, District Judge.

By its bill the plaintiff, a nonresident coal mining corporation, seeks an injunction against a large number of individual members and several local unions of District No. 1 of the Progressive Miners of America, and against said District No. 1, enjoining said defendants from interfering with the operation of the plaintiff's strip mine located near Freeburg, St. Clair county, Ill., and from damaging plaintiff's property at said mine by violent and unlawful acts. The bill alleges, and the evidence establishes, facts sufficient to give this court jurisdiction of the case on ground of diversity of citizenship.

No temporary restraining order was sought, and, when the case came on for hearing upon plaintiff's petition for a temporary injunction, after due notice to all the defendants and to the sheriff of St. Clair county, the defendants, after filing and presenting their motion to dismiss, which motion was denied, filed answer, and by stipulation of counsel for all parties final hearing was had upon the bill and answer.

The case is one involving and growing out of a labor dispute within the meaning of the Act of Congress enacted March 23, 1932, commonly referred to as the Norris-La Guardia Act (29 USCA c. 6, § 101 et seq.), hereinafter referred to as the Norris Act, and the jurisdiction of this court to issue an injunction in the suit is defined and limited by the provisions of that law. From the allegations of the bill and the evidence, it would appear that each of the defendants is a person or association participating or interested in a labor dispute as defined in section 13 of the Norris Act (29 USCA § 113), and therefore entitled to the benefits of any defense to this suit that may be found in said law.

While the evidence was voluminous and often sharply conflicting, many of the issues essential to the plaintiff's case seem so clearly established that it will not be necessary to discuss the evidence relating thereto. The evidence shows clearly that plaintiff's Freeburg mine was picketed on different occasions by several thousand pickets consisting principally of the individual defendants and other members of defendant local unions of the Progressive Miners of America, who by their threatening conduct and by many acts of violence, particularly on August 13, September 7, and September 8, 1934, so terrorized and intimidated both miners and managing officers of plaintiff's said mine that they would not try to work in and operate the mine, and made it impossible for the mine to operate without imminent danger of serious violent injury to the persons of plaintiff's employees as well as destruction of plaintiff's property. It is obvious from the evidence that, if the plaintiff attempts again to operate its mine without a settlement of its dispute with the defendants, the same situation will arise. It is further obvious that the sheriff of St. Clair county and his deputies were both unwilling and unable to furnish adequate protection to plaintiff's property, and, although a new sheriff took office during the trial of this case, he and his deputies are, and will be, unable to afford such protection. It is further apparent from the evidence that, unless restrained, substantial and irreparable injury to plaintiff's property will follow, that plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law, and that greater injury will be inflicted upon the plaintiff by the denial of relief than upon the defendant by the granting of relief.

The evidence not only shows official action on the part of many of the defendant local unions authorizing the said unlawful picketing to be engaged in by all their members, but the solidarity of the movement to the picket line from each of the defendant locals makes inescapable the conclusion that each was a participant as an organization. The unlawful picketing was repeatedly instigated and conducted under the personal leadership of S. L. Jones, an executive board member of the defendant First District of the Progressive Miners of America, and the movement was repeatedly of such magnitude in the number of individual members and local unions participating, accompanied each time with such widespread publicity in the public press, including "The Progressive Miner," the official newspaper of the organization, that a finding that said First District was neither a participant in, nor authorized and ratified, the unlawful picketing, would require the clear inferences arising from the facts and circumstances shown by the evidence to be ignored.

Though the facts disclosed by the evidence be as above indicated, this court is without jurisdiction to enjoin the defendants from pursuing their said unlawful conduct, for the reason that the evidence compels two further findings:

First. That the policy followed by plaintiff in dealing with its employees at the Freeburg mine which gave rise to the particular labor dispute here involved has been and is in conflict with the public policy declared in the said Norris Act, in that it has in effect denied to its striking employees at said mine, including many of the defendants in this case, freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment as well as freedom from interference, restraint, or coercion in the designation of such representatives and in self-organization and in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining. 29 USCA §§ 101, 102, and 103.

Second. That the plaintiff has failed to make every reasonable effort to settle the dispute here involved by negotiation. 29 USCA § 108.

The two findings set forth in the preceding paragraph, depriving this court as they do of jurisdiction to enjoin acts and conduct on the part of the defendants which are not only destructive but legally indefensible, are of such consequence as to demand a somewhat detailed statement of the factual situation shown by the evidence and the applicable principles of law.

The evidence shows that at the time the dispute arose the plaintiff owned and operated the strip coal mine here in question near Freeburg, Ill., another near Du Quoin, Perry county, Ill., another near Cuba, Fulton county, Ill., and other mines at Danville, Vermilion county, Ill.; that plaintiff has at all times employed union labor; that throughout Illinois, for many years preceding August 10, 1932, with minor exceptions not affecting the issues here, the coal-mining industry had been conducted on a closed shop basis under a state-wide contract between the operators, including plaintiff, and the United Mine Workers of America, which was during the period preceding the inception of this dispute the only miners' union, as far as the court is advised, in Illinois; that the 1928 contract with said organization, including the strip-working agreement of February 13, 1927, expired March 31, 1932, and a temporary agreement was entered into on April 4, 1932, between the plaintiff and District 12, United Mine Workers of America; that said District 12 comprised all of Illinois, and all of plaintiff's union employees were members therein; that by the temporary agreement said former contracts were continued in force pending negotiation and ratification of a new state-wide contract; that a new state-wide contract to be effective from August 10, 1932, to March 31, 1933, providing a lower wage scale than formerly, was executed by the officials of the Illinois Coal Operators' Association for the mine owners and operators who were members of that association, including the plaintiff, and by the officials of said District No. 12 and by the president of the International Union, United Mine Workers of America, for the members of the United Mine Workers of America, District No. 12; that on December 22, 1932, a supplemental agreement in writing extending the said contract of August 10, 1932, from March 31, 1933, to and including March 31, 1935, was similarly executed by the officials of the Operators' Association and said District No. 12; that said contract, as originally executed and as amended and extended, has constituted the working agreement between the members of the Illinois Coal Operators' Association and District No. 12, United Mine Workers of America, since August 10, 1932. Among other provisions, the contract contains the following: "Change Clause 13, paragraph (f) by adding after the word `right' in its fifth line the following: `with the understanding that the operators will employ members of the United Mine Workers of America when available, and when in the judgment of the operator the applicant is competent.'"

The evidence further shows that great dissatisfaction immediately arose among the members of the United Mine Workers of America in Illinois over the terms of the said contract of August 10, 1932, and the action of the union officials in executing it, as a result of which on or about September 1, 1932, a new union known as Progressive Miners of America was organized by dissatisfied members of the United Mine Workers, District No. 12, and during the months immediately following a substantial portion of the membership of said District No. 12, including the entire membership of many of its locals, left the old union and joined the new; that 90 per cent. or more of the union miners of St. Clair county, in which county plaintiff's Freeburg mine is located,...