Kenmike Theatre, Inc. v. Moving Picture Operators, Local 304
Kenmike Theatre, Inc. v. Moving Picture Operators, Local 304
Opinion of the Court
The question to be decided is whether the court had the power to enjoin peaceful picketing by the defendants of the plaintiff’s theater to force unionization of its employees. The facts found can be briefly stated. The plaintiff operates a neighborhood motion picture theater in Waferbury and employs seven persons. Two of them are projectionists. There has been no dispute between the plaintiff and its employees concerning hours, wages or conditions of employment. None of the employees are members of a union. The defendants are a union and its officers. They will be referred to as the union. It has contracts covering terms and conditions of employment with most of the theaters in the Waterbury area. The union demanded that the plaintiff enter into a contract requiring, among other things, that the plaintiff hire as projectionists only members of the union on terms prescribed by it and that the two projectionists employed at the theater become members of the union or lose their employment. When the plaintiff refused to enter into such a contract the union caused the plaintiff’s theater to be peacefully picketed on July 22, 1950. The picketing continued to the date of trial, December 6 and 7, 1950. People have been annoyed and made uncomfortable thereby and have refused to patronize the plaintiff’s theater because of it. The defendants did not pursue in their brief their attack on the finding. There was no reason for printing the evidence.
The only relevant Connecticut statutory limitation on the jurisdiction of the court to issue the injunction is contained in the so-called “Little NorrisLaGuardia Act,” General Statutes, chapter 372. Our Labor Relations Act, chapter 370, must also be considered in this connection. Section 7391 guarantees to employees the right of self organization free from actual interference, restraint or coercion by employers. Section 7392 outlines unfair labor practices on the part of employers and in subsection 10 specifically prohibits acts which restrain, coerce or interfere with employees in the exercise of their rights of self organization as they are set forth in § 7391. Section 7411 provides: “No court shall have jurisdiction to issue a temporary or permanent injunction in any case involving or growing out of a labor dispute, as defined in section 7408, except after hearing . . . and except after a finding of facts by the court, to the effect: (a) That unlawful acts have been threatened and will be committed by a person or
The court found that the purpose of the picketing was to force the plaintiff to employ only union members. It was thus an attempt to force the plaintiff to violate the statute ensuring to its employees freedom from interference by their employer. § 7391. Loew’s Enterprises, Inc. v. International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, 125 Conn. 391, 395, 6 A.2d 321, held that even peaceful picketing may be unlawful if it is for an unlawful purpose. The following cases from other states having similar anti-injunctive legislation hold that picketing to force employers who have no dispute with their employees to require the latter to join the picketing union is unlawful and may be enjoined. Roth v. Local Union of Retail Clerks Union, 216 Ind. 363, 371, 24 N.E.2d
G-eneral Statutes, § 7392 (5) permits closed shop agreements. Such agreements can only be negotiated, however, when “such labor organization is the representative of employees as provided in section 7393.” As has been stated, the plaintiff’s employees were members of no union. This section does not apply.
Many apposite quotations are available from the cases cited. The following is typical. It is taken from Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Retail Clerks’ Union, 184 Wash. 322, 338, 51 P.2d 372, and is quoted with approval in Gazzam v. Building Service Employees International Union, 29 Wash. 2d 488, 497, 188 P.2d 97, 11 A.L.R.2d 1330, and note, 1338, 1340. “The vital, controlling question at issue here is plain and easy of solution. It in no way pertains to the relations between the appellant, a merchant, and its employees. For aught that appears, they are content and satisfied, among themselves. On the contrary, this is a lawsuit between appellant and a third party —a labor union that does not include in its membership any employee of the appellant. What right have the respondents to insist or demand, at the threat or cost of the destruction of appellant’s business, or at all, that appellant ask, urge or coerce, directly or indirectly, its employees, who are at
The numerous cases cited by the defendants have been examined, but it would serve no useful purpose to analyze them in detail. They establish the fact, admitted in the briefs, that there is a sharp conflict of authority on the principal question, although the recent trend of the authorities supports the conclusion we have reached. Most of the federal cases are decided on the principle that the federal courts accept the interpretation of state law adopted by the highest court of the state in question. See, for example, Senn v. Tile Layers Protective Union, 222 Wis. 383, 268 N.W. 270, aff’d, 301 U.S. 468, 477, 57 S. Ct. 857, 81 L. Ed. 1229.
The union has advanced the claim in its brief that the restraining of peaceful picketing is a deprivation of its constitutional right of free speech, as set forth above. No such issue is raised by the pleadings, nor was the claim made at the trial. “It is an entirely familiar rule, requiring no citation of authorities, that in so grave a matter as a constitutional question, it should be lodged in the case at the earliest moment that good pleading and orderly procedure will admit under the circumstances of the given case, and must thereafter be kept alive by appropriate steps; otherwise, it will be waived.” State v. Williams, 337 Mo. 987, 988, 87 S.W.2d 423; Aetna Ins. Co. v. Hyde, 275 U.S. 440, 447, 48 S. Ct. 174, 72 L.
As is indicated in many of the cases cited, the discussion could be prolonged almost indefinitely. We have tried to keep it within reasonable bounds. We hold that the subordinate facts justify the conclusions of the trial court that the picketing was unlawful and that the plaintiff was entitled to injunctive relief.
There is no error.
In this opinion Brown, C. J., and Inglis, J., concurred.
Concurring Opinion
(concurring). I concur in the result. I am not satisfied, however, that the opinion makes clear the extent of its operation. Peaceful picketing for an illegal purpose should be enjoined. The illegality found in the case at bar stems solely from the statute. It lay in the effort of the defendants to coerce the plaintiff, contrary to the provisions of §§7391 and 7392 (10), into compelling its employees to join a union against their will. As the opinion aptly states: “It was thus an attempt to force the plaintiff to violate the statute ensuring to its employees freedom from interference by their employer.” If the object of the defendants had not been to coerce the plaintiff into an interference with that freedom, the statute would not have been vio
In this opinion Baldwin, J., concurred.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Kenmike Theatre, Inc. v. Moving Picture Operators, Local 304, American Federation of Labor, Et Al.
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- 18 cases
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