Strike

A combined effort by workmen to obtain higher wages or other concessions from their employers, by stopping work at a preconcerted time. Where this is peaceably effected without positive breach of contract, it is not unlawful; Irving v. Dist. Council, 180 Fed. 896; but it sometimes amounts to conspiracy. Most of the decisions bear upon questions arising more or less indirectly from the strike. The word “strike” is used to describe various kinds of conduct quite distinct from each other; 20 H. L. R. 254. A sympathetic strike is one wherein the strikers have no demands or grievances of their own, but strike for the purpose of indirectly aiding other employes or organizations; 1 Eddy. Comb. Sec. 520. They have not been directly held illegal, and are considered justifiable, though only to be resorted to in extreme cases; Mitchell, Org. Labor 304. It is no answer to a suit against a common carrier for failure to deliver goods with reasonable promptness, that a strike among their employes prevented; Blackstock v. R. Co., 20 N. Y. 48, 75 Am. Dec. 372; Galena & C. U. R. Co. v. Rae, 18 111.

488, 68 Am. Dec. 574.

But otherwise if the employes are discharged and afterwards interfere unlawfully with the business of the road; Cooley, Torts 640, n. Where a railroad company receives freight for shipment, it is not liable for delay in its delivery which is caused by a strike of its employes, accompanied by violence and intimidation of such a character as cannot be overcome by the company or controlled by the civil authorities when called upon; Haas v. R. Co., 81 Ga. 792, 7 S. E. 629; In- Ft W. & C. R. Co. v. Hazen, 84 111.

36, 25 Am. Rep. 422.

Id L. R. 6 Eq. 555, the president and secretary of a trades-union, and a printer employed by them, were restrained by injunction from posting placards and publishing advertisements, urging workmen to keep away from plaintiff’s factory, wligre a strike against the reduction of wages was in progress; but in L. R. 10 Ch. 142, this case was overruled. An attempt has been made to derive some of the authority for the use of an injunction in such cases to an extent not before recognized in the settled principles of equity jurisprudence from the English Judicature Act of 1873 as a consequence of the union of law and equity procedure. In 20 Ch. Div. 501, it is said that “the courts have interpreted this act as giving them power to restrain one man from persuading another to break his contract with a third person, when the object of such persuasion is the malicious injury to the third person,” Where a trades-union ordered a strike and posted pickets to persuade workmen from entering the employ of the plaintiff, such conduct was held to come within the terms of the act prescribing a penalty against every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing, or to do any act which such other person has a legal right to do cr abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority... watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach td such house or place.” [1S9G] 1 Ch. 811. The circuit court of the United States has jurisdiction to restrain the unlawful acts of persons engaged in a strike where they interfere with the operations of interstate commerce or with the transmission of the mails, and may enforce its injunction by proceedings in contempt which are not open to review oil habeas corpus in the supreme court or any other court; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 15 Sup. Ct. 900, 39 L. Ed. 1092. A display of force by strikers against laborers who wish to work, such as surrounding them in large numbers, applying opprobrious epithets to them, and urging them in a hostile manner not to go to work, though no force be actually used, is as much intimidation as violence itself. Such conduct will be restrained by injunction, and the actors will be liable in damages to the employer of the laborers. Where new men employed to take the place of strikers are on their way to work, their time cannot be lawfully taken up and their progress interfered with by the strikers on any pretence or under any claim of right to argue or persuade them to break their contracts. Where a bill has been filed against strikers for an injunction and for with the case after the strike is ovar, for the purpose of recovering damages, and it is improper for a judge to express from the bench an opinion that the case should have been dropped; O’Neil v. Behanna, 182 Pa. 236, 37 Atl. 843, 38 L. R. A. 382, 61 Am. St. Rep. 702. Strikes of laborers to raise wages or lockouts by employers are lawful; 10 Cox, Cr. Ca. 592; Aluminum Castings Co. v. Local No. 84, 197 Fed. 221; Irving v. Dist. Council, 180 Fed. 896. Strikers who seek a legitimate end may not be enjoined from pursuing that end in a legitimate way merely because they may have overstepped the line and trespassed on the rights of their adversary, but a decree fixing a barrier at such Jline and subjecting them to punishment and damages for having crossed it isras far as the court can go; Iron Moulders’ Union v. Allis-Chalmers Co., 166 Fed. 45, 91 C. C. A. 631, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 315. Workmen may seek, take or follow the advice of officers of their union as to the advisability of a strike; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Switchmen’s Union, 158 Fed. 541; a union may order a strike; Aluminum Castings Co. v. Local No. 84, 197 Fed. 223; workmen may peaceably persuade their fellow-workmen to leave their employer’s service in order to compel an advance in wages; Rogers v. Evarts, 17 N. Y. Supp. 264. An injunction against strikers should not prohibit either persuasion or picketing as such, but, when carried beyond their legitimate limits, they become duress or intimidation and as such may be enjoined; Iron Moulders’ Union v. Allis-Chalmers Co., 166 Fed. 45, 91 C. C. A. 631, 20 L. R. A. (N. S.) 315; but the action of leaders of a strike, conducted primarily for the purpose of compelling recognition of a labor organization, in paying money to non-union employes of a complainant to induce them to leave its service, was held not within the limits of lawful persuasion and was enjoined; Tunstall v. Coal Co., 192 Fed. 808, 113 C. C. A. 132, 41