Opinion
7-5-1951
28 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2468, 20 Lab.Cas. P 66,495 VOELTZ v. BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF AMERICA, LOCAL UNION NO. 37, etc. et al. Civ. 18110.
Gilbert, Nissen & Irvin, Los Angeles, Clarence E. Todd, San Francisco, for appellants. Hyman Smith, Los Angeles, Howard R. Harris, Los Angeles, of counsel, for respondent.
VOELTZ
v.
BAKERY AND CONFECTIONERY WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF AMERICA, LOCAL UNION NO. 37, etc. et al.
July 5, 1951.
Rehearing Denied July 23, 1951.
Hearing Granted Aug. 30, 1951. *
Gilbert, Nissen & Irvin, Los Angeles, Clarence E. Todd, San Francisco, for appellants.
Hyman Smith, Los Angeles, Howard R. Harris, Los Angeles, of counsel, for respondent.
DRAPEAU, Justice.
This case has been held for decision until completion of the opinion in Seven Up Bottling Company of Los Angeles Incorporated v. Grocery Drivers Union, Local 848, et al., Cal.App., 233 P.2d 617.
The law to be applied is the same as in the Seven Up case.
The complaint in this case also alleges facts sufficient to charge defendants with violation of the jurisdictional strike act, Labor Code, § 1115 et seq., of California. Defendant's answer also puts in issue the material allegations of the complaint, and asserts a constitutional right to do the acts complained of.
The complaint in this case alleges, in addition, that defendants conspired and agreed among themselves to destroy plaintiff's business, in retaliation for his refusal to require his employees to join defendant unions, and that the picketing and other acts described in the complaint were for that added purpose.
The course of the litigation here was different from that in the Seven Up case.
In his case the trial court ordered a preliminary injunction, commanding defendants to refrain from picketing plaintiff's premises, from representing that plaintiff's employees were unorganized, and from representing that plaintiff's products were made by unorganized labor. Thereafter the trial court denied a motion to vacate the preliminary injunction. From these orders certain defendants appeal.
In view of the able briefing and argument by counsel in this case, this Court would not have them think that their presentation of the important matters here involved has been cursorily disposed of entirely in the light of the Seven Up case.
It is, of course, unnecessary to repeat in this opinion, the cases, or all of the reasoning, which brought this Court to the judgment therein expressed, and which affects the decision in this case.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to capture in any formula all of the elements in grave constitutional questions, as presented in these two cases.
In the light of the earnest and able presentation of the contentions of defendants, may this at least be said:
Viewing the jurisdictional strike act as an expression of the policy of the State of California by a coordinate branch of that government under its Constitution, this Court is of the opinion that a valid dispute between employer and employee is an indispensable prerequisite to picketing; and that when the law of California forbids an employer to have anything to do with what labor organization, if any, shall be formed in his shop, or what labor organizations shall be the bargaining agent for his employees, or ot which of two or more contending labor organizations his employees shall belong, then there can be no valid dispute between any employer and any labor organization when that organization attempts to compel the employer to do any of these forbidden things.
Such matters, under the expressed public policy of the State of California, are not for the interference, restraint, or coercion of the employer. He is prohibited from having anything to do with them.
Such being the policy of the state, no picketing, or other method of persuasion used in labor disputes, which will injure an employer's business may be directed against him to compel him to influence the determination of his employees in these matters. The cases in the Supreme Court of the United States and in the Supreme Court of the State of California support the conclusion that it is within the power and the province of the Legislature to declare such conduct to be for an unlawful purpose, and as such to prohibit it.
Defendants argue that one of the purposes of the acts complained of was 'to protest and redress the unlawful discriminatory discharge of a union member and supporter.' This was, of course, in addition to the attempt, as pleaded in the complaint, to secure recognition of defendants as the bargaining representative of plaintiff's employees.
The rule is that 'when workers engage in concerted action against an employer, having more than one object, and one or more of the objects are improper, their action is not for a proper object so long as they insist on the improper objects.' Am. Law Inst., Rest. of Torts, Sec. 796.
For the reasons stated herein, and in the opinion in the Seven Up case, the orders in this case are affirmed.
DORAN, J., concurs.
WHITE, Presiding Justice.
I dissent.
The strike, picketing and other economic pressure with which we are here concerned commenced some eleven months prior to the formation of the so-called company union. This is not a jurisdictional strike as encompassed within the legislation outlawing concerted action, when the only issue is which of two or more unions shall have the exclusive right to collective bargaining for employees or to have its members alone perform work for an employer. In no sense was the controversy now before us a labor dispute 'arising out of a controversy between two or more labor organizations' Labor Code, § 1118, as set forth in the jurisdictional strike act. It is without contradiction in the record that the controversy here in question arose out of a dispute between the employer and the American Federation of Labor union which continued unabated for some eleven months when the company union was allegedly organized.
There is nothing in the jurisdictional strike act which authorizes an employer to thwart the constitutional guarantees attached to publicizing labor disputes by setting up an employee organization to forestall the unionization of his plant by an independent labor organization upon the theory that what started as a bona fide labor dispute has become a jurisdictional strike. As was said in McKay v. Retail Auto S. L. Union No. 1067, 16 Cal.2d 311, 330, 106 P.2d 373, 383, 'If the legislative policy is to be made effective courts cannot close their eyes to the subtle realities of industrial strifs.'
The act now under consideration does not directly impose criminal penalties, but it does provide for injunctive relief in event of its violation, and disobedience of an injunction is punishable as a contempt of court. Therefore, proceedings under the act should be held to the strict terms of the law, In re Blaney, 30 Cal.2d 643, 653, 654, 184 P.2d 892. Courts are without authority, under the guise of judicial interpretation, to add to or detract from the legislative intent as expressed in the words of a statute, and that is particularly true of a statute which provides penalties for violation of injunctions issued pursuant thereto.
Had the legislature intended that the provisions of the act should be applicable to a controversy between two labor unions which arises during the course of a pending dispute and strike between an employer and an independent labor organization, appropriate language could, and no doubt would have been used. The act speaks only of 'concerted interference * * * arising out of a controversy between two or more labor organizations'. It does not refer to a dispute which has arisen between labor organizations during the course of a previously existing and continuing labor dispute between an employer and a single independent labor union.
For the foregoing reasons I would reverse the orders appealed from.
Rehearing denied; WHITE, P. J., dissents. --------------- * Subsequent opinion 254 P.2d 553.