STRIKE LOSSES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 160, 2 April 1921, Page 8

STRIKE LOSSES

i * MUST BE MADE UP BY UNIONS

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT RULING The recent trend of United States Supreme Court decisions affecting the liability of organised labour under the Sherman anti-trust law has greatly alarmed labour leaders, states a New York message to- San Franoisco papers.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are involved in pending or contemplated suits 'Ytgainst labour, based on the contention that labour is not protected by the ClavJoii Act from pecuniary liability for damages growing out of strikes that hamper trade and thus come under the Sherman anti-trust law.

AVhen the Supreme Court held that ths International Association of Machinists, in striking at the plant of the Dunlex Printing Press Company at Battle Creek, Mich., and in refusing to set up presses in all parts of the country, had conspired in restraint of inter-State commerce and inviolation of the anti-trust laws, it virtually knocked out exemption from jurisdiction of the anti-trust laws that labour had claimed the Clayton Act had given it. There is no doubt that President Gompers, -of the American Federation of Labour, will sound an alarm in countering the trend of the Court decision. Why he will do so is found in the fact that tlie United States Supreme Court decision is based upon a similar point in a suit which, if it upholds the lower courts, will compel organised labour to pay approximately 625,009 dollars damages. The alarm of labour leaders is due to the fact that their financial foundations already are facing a severe test in combatting tho nation-wide movement for tho open shop. The possibility of facing heavy pecuniary liability for losses caused by strikes that hamper the trade of industries, therefore, hangs increasingly over their heads. It is the more ominous because the Sherman anti-trust law provides that damages shall be collected threefold from those found culpable under its provisions. For example, in the ease now before the Supreme Court, the Coronado Coal Company, a group of companies in the southwest, brought suit Tn 1914 against the United Mine Workers of America for damages resulti'ng from a strike on its properties. Tim trial court awarded 200,0C0 dollars, which under provisions of the Sherman law was tripled to total (KKI.OOO dollars, plus counsel fees of 25,900 dollars. The American Federation of Labour was made a joint defendant, and appealed the case. Tho Court of Appeals, of (he eighth district upheld the judgment of the trial court and the case was again appealed by labour to the United States Supreme Court. Cue of the principal content ions of Charles Evans Hughes, counsel for the American .Federation of Labour teforo the Supreme Court, was that organised labour was exempted by the Clayton Act from liability under the Shi-nnan Antitrust Act. There were other points upon which labour argued on the claim of exemption under the Clayton Act. The outlook would seem to justify the present alarm of labour leaders. 1 hey see in the Court’s decision rei the case of Che International Machinists a terrific blow at the foundation of their nrganisation, namelv. the claimed exemption from laws forbidding combinations in restraint of trade. Should the judgment of 625,990 dollars involved in the Coronado coal case be upheld, it would, they fear, lead to many claims- for pccuniary damages growing out of strikes.