Green Glass Bottle Blowers' Association

RIGHTS OF STRIKERS.

An Important Decision Rendered by

Vice Chancellor Reed of New Jersey.

A decision which is regarded as of great importance has been rendered by Vice Chancellor Reed of New Jersey. It accompanied an order allowing an injunction against members of the Glass Bottle Blowers' Association of the United States and Canada.

The suit was instituted by the Cumberland Glass Manufacturing company, representing all the manufacturers involved in the strike which tied up the glass blowing district in and about Bridgeton last spring and summer.

The strike was amicably settled long ago, but the case had advanced to such a stage that it could not be recalled. Although the injunction allowed is valueless to those who sought it, the opinion is one that, if not upset, will form a basis for further actions and which settles just how far labor organizations may go in the conduct of a strike.

The opinion holds that under an act of 1883 it shall be lawful for workmen to combine together for the purpose of inducing or persuading other workmen to leave or strike so long as the methods employed are persuasive and not coercive. Under the common law such combinations were conspiracies, but this was changed by the act of 1883.

The vice chancellor says in part:

"Every employee has the right to engage or refuse to engage with whomsoever he chooses, just as every workman has the right to enter or refuse to enter the service of any employer, as he may choose. The freedom of the individual workman to seek employment belongs to every citizen. It has been held that since the passage of the act of 1883 a combination which before that time would have been held to be a conspiracy becomes, by the force of this statute, a lawful combination. The purpose of the act was undoubtedly to legalize strikes — namely, the organization of concerted, simultaneous cessation of work by bodies of workmen.

"The words employed by the statute cover a combination for the purpose of persuading others to combine for the purpose of entering or leaving an employment. The words would seem to intend a legalization of a combination to induce others to join in a strike and are perhaps broad enough to legalize a combination to persuade individual workmen to quit. The methods to induce a workman to quit or refuse to enter an employment must be persuasive and not coercive."

The vice chancellor then reviews the laws and rulings in other states and says:

"Taking the testimony so far as it stands substantially uncontradicted, I conclude that the crowds spoken of in the complainant's affidavit as 'guards,' judged by its size and acts, were designed for coercive as well as persuasive purposes."

Conceding that a number of strikers could remain in the vicinity of the factory yard to see what was going on, yet when the number became a crowd and when the acts of the crowd expanded into occasional attacks upon property and abusive language toward employees and interference with those seeking to enter the yard the 'guard' became a coercive instrument. A permanent guard in a public street in front of citizens' houses or factory is in itself a nuisance."

The court holds that the Glass Blowers' association cannot be enjoined for the reason that it did not know of any violence that it tacitly or expressly approved.

Under the decision it will hereafter be needful for a person or corporation seeking an injunction against strikers to prove coercion against individuals or associations before a writ may be issued