Youngdahl v. Rainfair, Inc.

• Decision Date: 19 March 1956
• Docket Number: No. 5-884,5-884
• Parties: , 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2756, 30 Lab.Cas. P 69,874 James E. YOUNGDAHL et al., Appellants, v. RAINFAIR, INC., Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 589

288 S.W.2d 589

226 Ark. 80, 37 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2756,

30 Lab.Cas. P 69,874

James E. YOUNGDAHL et al., Appellants, v. RAINFAIR, INC., Appellee.

No. 5-884.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

March 19, 1956.

Rehearing Denied April 23, 1956.

McMath, Leatherman & Woods, Little Rock, William J. Isaacson, New York City, for appellants.

Shaver & Shaver, Wynne, for appellee.

MILLWEE, Justice.

Appellee, Rainfair, Inc., is engaged in the manufacture of men's slacks in its plant at Wynne, Arkansas, where it employed approximately one hundred women and seven men in April, 1955. None of the employees were members of a labor union at that time but some of them had signed membership application cards with appellant, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, C. I. O., hereinafter called 'Union.' On Monday, May 2, 1955, twenty-nine employees failed to return to work and a picket line was established by the Union. Appellee's plant manager notified said employees by registered mail that it would be assumed that they were quitting their jobs if they did not return to work in three or four days. Three employees returned to work but twenty-six remained on strike and the picketing was continued until May 19, 1955, when the pickets were withdrawn and the strikers applied for reinstatement. In the meantime appellee had hired thirteen new employees and immediate reinstatement of the strikers was declined.

On June 17, 1955, the strikers met with several staff members of the Union at Forrest City, Arkansas, and voted to re-establish the picket line. In the meantime the Union filed alleged unfair labor practice charges against appellee before the National Labor Relations Board which were still pending at the time of the hearing in the instant case. The picket line was re-established about 6:30 a. m. on Monday, June 20, 1955, and on June 24 appellee filed the instant suit against the Union and certain staff members and strikers, as a class, to enjoin them from picketing and the commission of certain acts of intimidation, violence, threats, abuse, insults and breaches of the peace allegedly committed by appellants along the picket line and upon Union premises directly across the street from appellee's plant.

On June 30 appellants filed a motion to vacate a temporary injunction issued on the date suit was filed. At the hearing held on said motion on July 1, it was agreed that the testimony there adduced would be considered on appellee's application for a permanent injunction. A citation for contempt against certain persons for violation of the temporary injunction was dismissed after a hearing on July 27. The chancellor took the case under advisement and this appeal is from a decree entered September 15, 1955, making the temporary injunction permanent.

Appellants contend the decree violates their rights of free speech and assembly under the U. S. and Arkansas Constitutions; that there was no showing that the picketing resulted in violence, breaches of the peace or other unlawful acts; that the language used by the strikers along the picket line is common in all labor disputes; and that the regulation of the subject matter of the suit is exclusively reserved to the National Labor Relations Board. In the light of these and other contentions we proceed to an examination of the evidence which is for the most part undisputed.

While the pleadings and testimony were directed primarily to incidents which occurred during the second picketing, there was evidence that some of them were merely a resumption of the pattern set in the first picketing. The plant manager was followed by strikers every time he left the plant in his car. One of the pickets told him she was going to wipe the sidewalks clean with him and send him back to Wisconsin. He had so many anonymous telephone calls at his home after 9:00 p. m. that he had to have the phone disconnected. Nails and roofing tacks were strewn over the parking area of appellee's plant and the driveways at the homes of the plant manager and twelve of the women employees.

When the picketing was resumed on June 20, 1955, the Union rented a vacant lot directly across Rowena Street from the main entrance to appellee's plant. The street runs north and south and is about twenty feet wide. Appellants placed a tent on the lot in which they installed a telephone, tables, benches and chairs and the lot was used as headquarters for the strikers. One of appellee's employees, Mrs. Jewell Newby, lived in a trailer next to the Union lot and within a few feet of their tent. About 12:30 a. m. on June 20, she observed two women strikers driving up and down Rowena Street who had previously threatened to move her trailer and whip her. The strikers then parked their truck near the trailer and punctured two tires on an automobile belonging to Mrs. Newby's daughter who was visiting her at the time. The two strikers were arrested and convicted on criminal charges preferred by Mrs. Newby. About five o'clock on the same morning a window of appellee's plant was found to have been broken and a black snake about five feet long was found coiled inside the plant under the broken window.

The picketing was resumed about 6:00 a. m. on June 20 with usually one or two carrying signs up and down Rowena Street in front of the plant. Other Union staff members, strikers and their sympathizers would assemble under and around the tent in groups estimated at different times from eight to thirty-seven. As the employees would go to and from work at the plant, or go to lunch, or take a recess, the strikers would congregate along the west edge of their lot and sometimes in Rowena Street and engage in loud and offensive name calling, singing or shouting directed at the workers. They would call the workers 'scabs,' 'dirty scabs,' 'fat scabs,' 'yellow scabs,' 'crazy scabs,' 'cotton patch scabs,' 'pony tailed scabs,' 'fuzzy headed scabs,' 'fools,' 'cotton picking fools,' and other similar names. This took place every time an employee left or entered the plant. It was done by the strikers individually, in couples or by the entire group and in a loud and boisterous manner. One witness described it as 'just bedlam' when more than a dozen joined in the shouting. Particular names or remarks were reserved for individual workers. One pregnant worker was greeted with, 'Get the hot water ready,' or, 'I am coming to make another payment on the baby, call Dr. Beaton,' or, 'Why, you can work another hour until you go to the delivery room.' This worker and another drove to a filling station for gasoline when two of the strikers drove up and told the attendant not to wait on 'these scabs' before he waited on the strikers.

One worker said the strikers always called her 'fat scab,' and that individual pickets and strikers made fun of her clothing and asked her if 'Pete,' the plant manager, still liked her 'low-cut dresses and earrings.' This made the employee so angry she invited the picket to come over and 'make it some of her business.' This worker thought she had a right to work without being molested and insulted because she had two boys to support. On one occasion two strikers drove by a house where two workers were visiting and one of the strikers shouted, 'You gals better check your sheets tonight. There might be a snake in them.'

The strikers sang songs with improvised lyrics to the tune of certain popular ballads and religious and Union songs. 'When the Saints Go Marching In' became 'When the Scabs Go Marching In' and the ballad, 'Davy Crockett,' began, 'Born in a cotton patch in Arkansas, the greenest gals we ever saw * * *'

The women pickets would stand in the street or sit near the plant and shout ugly names, stick our their tongues, hold their noses and make a variety of indecent gestures while pointing at the workers in the plant. Several workers testified the continuous name calling and boisterous conduct of the strikers made them afraid, angry, ill or nervous and had an adverse effect on their ability to properly do their work. Some of the workers would talk back to the strikers while others remained silent. The Chief of Police of Wynne testified there was more tension during the second picketing than the first and that he was fearful there was going to be trouble during the second picketing and so informed Union staff members. One staff member called him once when trouble seemed imminent and wanted to 'go on record' as having requested the presence of the officer.

The Assistant Regional Director of the Union testified that the purpose of the second picketing was to exert 'moral pressure' on the workers and because of...