LABOR UNION. A combination or asso ciation of laborers for the purpose of fixing the rate of their wages and hours of work, for their mutual benefit and protection, and for the purpose of righting grievances against their employers.
In England when the rate of wages was fixed by law or by the determination of a magistrate, and when there was a statutory provision against conspiracies and covenants among workmen not to make or do their work except at a certain rate or price, it was held a criminal conspiracy for a com bination of workmen to refuse to work for so much per diem, though the matter about which they conspired might be lawful for one of them or for any of them to do had they not conspired to do it ; the Journeymen Tailors case, 8 Mod. 11; but in the United States, though this decision was followed in the case of the Boot and Shoemakers of Philadelphia ; Pamphlet 1806; the Pittsburg Cordwainers; Pamphlet, 1816 ; and in Peo ple v. Fisher, 14 Wend. (N. Y.) 9, 28 Am. Dec. 501, and People v. Melvin, 2 Wheel. Cr. Cas.• (N. Y.) 262 ; yet they were decided by inferior courts, and in the first case before the supreme court of Pennsylvania (Com. v. Carlisle) that court held that a combina tion of employers to reduce the wages of their employes was not unlawful; Bright. 36. In the case of the Master Stevedores v. Walsh, Daly, J., upheld this principle and denied the authority of the English case; Master Stevedores' Ass'n v. Walsh, 2 Daly (N. Y.) 1; as did Shaw, J., in Cora. v. Hunt, 4 Mete. (Mass.) 111, 38 Am. Dec. 346; and these cases may be considered as having definitely settled the law in this country that a combination of laborers for a lawful pur pose does not amount to a conspiracy.
In England, however, the Journeymen Tailors case, supra, was followed as late as 1855, when it was held that a bond signed by eighteen employers to conduct their business as to rates of wages, time of work, etc., was a combination in restraint of trade and null and void at common law ; 6 El. & Bl. 47; and in 1869 the court was divided as to whether a labor union whose by-laws coun tenanced strikes was not thereby rendered illegal; L. R. 4 Q. B. 602. In 1824 the first act was passed in England which legalized the combination of workmen; 5 Geo. IV. c. 99; but this was repealed the following year, and by the repealing act the combination of workmen was made lawful for the purpose of 'agreeing upon the prices which they might demand and the hours during which they would work, but making punishable any attempt to enforce the laws of the com bining workmen by violence and intimida tion; 6 Geo. IV. c. 129. In 1871 two acts
were passed for the purpose of consolidat ing and settling the law ; 34 & 35 Vict. c. 31; and these were supplemented by the Trades Union Amendment Act of 1876 ; these statutes going so far as to declare such com binations lawful even when acting (peace ably) in restraint of trade, the statute pro viding that no agreement or combination of two or more to do, or procure to be done, any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employer and work men shall be indictable as a conspiracy, if such act would not be criminal if committed by one ; 38 & 39 Vict. c. 86. In this country some states have enacted an exact copy of the English statute; in others the common r law of conspiracy seems to be repealed, and in others it is modified. For legislation on the subject and the course of decisions con cerning it, see Stimson, Lab. Law sec. 55.
The right of entering and leaving the serv ice of an employer is one that every man possesses and is one of the corollaries of per sonal liberty, and it has almost uniformly been held that the same right might be ex ercised by any number of men jointly, if con ducted in a peaceable and orderly manner and attended with no infringement of the rights of others ; Bohn Mfg. Co. v. Hollis, 54 Minn. 223, 55 N. W. 1119, 21 L. R. A. 337, 40 Am. St. Rep. 319; contra, State v. Donald son, 32 N. J. L. 151, 90 Am. Dec. 649. It has been held that such unions have an entire right to seek to compel employers to deal solely with men belonging to their un ion by all proper means, as by persuasion or even by a properly conducted strike; Jacobs v. Cohen, 183 N. Y. 207, 76 N. E. 5, 2 L. It. A. (N. S.) 292, 111 Am. St. Rep. 730, 5 Ann. Cas. 280; they may by their representative pre sent to a concern against which a strike has been declared an agreement for signature em bodying the conditions upon which union men will re-enter its service; Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, 154 Cal. 581, 98 Pac. 1027, 21 L. R. A. (N. S.) 550, 16 Ann. Cas. 1165. They may agree that they will not work for or deal with certain classes of men or work at less than a certain price or without certain conditions ; Carew v. Ruther ford, 106 Mass. 14, 8 Am. Rep. 287; Rogers v. Evarts, 17 N. Y. Supp. 264 ; U. S. v. Moore, 129 Fed. 630; Rohlf v. Kasemeier, 140 Ia. 182, 118 N. W. 276, 23 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1284, 132 Am. St. Rep. 261, 17 Ann. Cas. 750; or arrange for a committee and officer of the union to represent them in conference for adjusting differences ; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Switchmen's Union, 158 Fed. 541.