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 va rious 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 direct ly 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 rea sonable 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 III. 488, 68 Am. Dec. 574. But otherwise if the employes are discharg ed 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 de lay in its delivery which is caused by a strike I of its employes, accompanied by violence and intimidation of such a character as can not be overcome by the company or control led by the civil authorities when called upon; Haas v. IL Co., 81 Ga. 792, 7 S. E. 629 ; In ternational Sr G. N. R. Co. v. Tisdale, 74 Tex. 8, 11 S. W. 900, 4 L. R. A. 545 ; Pittsburgh, Ft. W. & C. R. Co. 'v. Hazen, 84 III. 36, 25 Am. Rep. 422.
In L. R. 6 Eq. 555, the president and sec retary of a trades-union, and a printer em ployed by them, were restrained by injunc tion from posting placards and publishing advertisements,. urging workmen to keep away from plaintiff's factory, where a strike against the reduction of wages was in prog ress ; 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 recog nized in the settled principles of equity ju risprudence 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 ob ject of such persuasion is the malicious in jury to the third person." Where a trades-union ordered a strike and posted pickets to persuade workmen from en tering the employ of the plaintiff, such con duct 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 or 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 to such house or place." [1896] 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 in terfere with the operations of interstate com merce or with the transmission of the mails, and may enforce its injunction by proceedings in contempt which are not open to review on 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 la borers who wish to work, such as surrounding them in large numbers, applying opprobrious epithets to them, and urging them in a hos tile manner not to go to work, though no force be actually used, is as much intimida tion 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 damages for injuries caused by their illegal conduct, the ,plaintift has a right. to proceed with the case after the strike is over, for the purpose of recovering damages, and it is im proper 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.