Charles Evans Hughes

“ There is no ground on which reasonably to hold that refusal by a manufacturer, whose raw materials come from states other than that of his factory and whose products are regularly carried to other states, to bargain collectively with employees in his manufacturing plant, directly affects interstate commerce. In such business, there is not one but who distinct movements or streams in interstate transportation. The first brings in raw material and there ends. Then follows manufacture, a separate and local activity. ”

“ The Constitution does not vest in the Federal Government the power to regulate the relation as such of employer and employee in production or manufacture.
"One who produces or manufactures a commodity, subsequently sold and shipped by him in interstate commerce, whether such sale and shipment were originally intended or not, has engaged in two distinct and separate activities. So far as he produces or manufactures a commodity, his business is purely local. ”

“ The right of a person to sell his labor upon such terms as he deems proper is, in its essence, the same as the right of the purchaser of labor or prescribe the conditions upon which he will accept such labor from the person offering to sell it. So the right of the employee to quit the service of the employer, for whatever reason, is the same as the right of the employer, for whatever reason, to dispense with the services of such employee. ”

“ The Board concluded: 'The men's clothing industry is thus an industry which is nearly entirely dependent in its operations upon purchases and sales in interstate commerce and upon interstate transportation. There is a constant flow of raw wool from the western States and foreign countries to the mills of New England where it is transformed into men's wear fabrics, thence to the sponging and shrinking plants of New York and Philadelphia, then, joined by the other necessary raw materials, to the fabricating factories of the Middle Atlantic States for manufacture into clothing. ”

“ If the commerce clause were construed to reach all enterprises and transactions which could be said to have an indirect effect upon interstate commerce, the federal authority would embrace practically all the activities of the people, and the authority of the state over its domestic concerns would exist only by sufferance of the federal government. ”

“ Nor is it important that the employer imports part of his raw materials in interstate commerce and sells and exports a large part of his product in interstate commerce, which imports and exports would possibly be stopped by a possible strike. The employers' entire business thus connected together does not, as respects federal power, make a case different from that in which importation of materials, manufacture of them, and sale and export of the product are conducted by three persons. ”

“ There is no conspiracy to interfere with commerce unless it can be said to exist among the employees who became members of the union. There is a single plant operated by its own management whose only offense, as alleged, was the discharge of a few employees in the production department because they belonged to a union, coming within the broad definition of 'labor organization' prescribed by section 2 (5) of the act. ”

“ The immediate effect in the factor may be to create discontent among all those employed and a strike may follow, which, in turn, may result in reducing production, which ultimately may reduce the volume of goods moving in interstate commerce. By this chain of indirect and progressively remote events we finally reach the evil with which it is said the legislation under consideration undertakes to deal. A more remote and indirect interference with interstate commerce or a more definite invasion of the powers reserved to the states is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine. ”

“ The latter is a thing apart from the relation of employer and employee, which in all producing occupations is purely local in character. Extraction of coal from the mine is the aim and the completed result of local activities. Commerce in the coal mined is not brought into being by force of these activities, but by negotiations, agreements, and circumstances entirely apart from production. Mining brings the subject matter of commerce into existence. ”

“ The term 'affecting commerce' means in commerce, or burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce, or having led or tending to lead to a labor dispute burdening or obstructing commerce or the free flow of commerce. ”

“ Therefore Congress may inhibit the discharge! Whatever effect any cause of discontent may ultimately have upon commerce is far too indirect to justify congressional regulation. Almost anything marriage, birth, death-may in some fashion affect commerce.
That Congress has power by appropriate means, not prohibited by the Constitution, to prevent direct and material interference with the conduct of interstate commerce is settled doctrine. ”

“ Commerce succeeds to manufacture, and is not a part of it. * * * It is vital that the independence of the commercial power and of the police power, and the delimitation between them, however sometimes perplexing, should always be recognized and observed, for, while the one furnishes the strongest bond of union, the other is essential to the preservation of the autonomy of the states as required by our dual form of government ”

“ The making and fabrication of steel by Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation is production regulable by the state of Pennsylvania, notwithstanding the corporation also engages in interstate commerce regulable by Congress in bringing in its raw materials and again in selling and delivering its products. No specific present intent appears to impede or destroy interstate commerce by means of a strike in a manufacturing plant, or other like direct obstruction to or burden on interstate commerce. ”

“ If closed today, the ultimate effect on commerce in clothing obviously would be negligible. It stands alone, is not seeking to acquire a monopoly or to restrain trade. There is no evidence of a strike by its employees at any time or that one is now threatened, and nothing to indicate the probable result if one should occur.
Some account of the Labor Board's proceedings against this Company will indicate the ambit of the act as presently construed. ”

“ If the production by one man of a single ton of coal intended for interstate sale and shipment, and actually so sold and shipped, affects interstate commerce indirectly, the effect does not become direct by multiplying the tonnage, or increasing the number of men employed, or adding to the expense or complexities of the business, or by all combined.'
Any effect on interstate commerce by the discharge of employees shown here would be indirect and remote in the highest degree, as consideration of the facts will show. In No. 419 ten men out of ten thousand were discharged ”

“ Adair's Case, supra, presented the question-'May Congress make it a criminal offense against the United States-as, by the 10th section of the act of 1898 (30 Stat. 428) , it does-for an agent or officer of an interstate carrier, having full authority in the premises from the carrier, to discharge an employee from service simply because of his membership in a labor organization?' The answer was no. ”

“ Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in or in engaging in any such unfair labor practice, the Board, or any agent or agency designated by the Board for such purposes, shall have power to issue and cause to be served upon such person a complaint stating the charges in that respect, and containing a notice of hearing before the Board or a member thereof, or before a designated agent or agency, at a place therein fixed, not less than five days after the serving of said complaint. ”

“ And further that 'Interference by employers in the men's clothing industry with the activities of employees in joining and assisting labor organizations and their refusal to accept the procedure of collective bargaining has led and tends to lead to strikes and other labor disputes that burden and obstruct commerce and the free flow thereof. ”

“ The Clothing Company is a typical small manufacturing concern which produces less than one-half of one per cent. of the men's clothing produced in the United States and employs 800 of the 150,000 workmen engaged therein. ”

“ After the trailers are manufactured, many of them are shipped to other states for sale and use. The order in question undertakes to regulate and control the Trailer Company's relations and dealings with its employees engaged in the production and manufacture of trailers at the company's plant in Detroit and does not directly affect any of the activities of the Trailer Company in the purchasing and transporting to its plant of materials and parts for the manufacture and production of trailers or in the shipping or selling of such trailers after they are manufactured. ”

“ A labor union sought members among the employees at the plant and obtained some. The Company's management opposed this effort, and in order to discourage it discharged eight who had become members. The business of the Company is so small that to close its factory would have no direct or material effect upon the volume of interstate commerce in clothing. The number of operatives who joined the union is not disclosed; the wishes of other employees is not shown; probability of a strike is not found. ”

“ The respondent, a Virginia corporation, is a manufacturer of men's clothing with its principal office and its factory in Richmond, Va. Practically all the raw materials used are brought from other states into Virginia, where respondent manufactures them into men's clothing. ”

“ In Nos. 422, 423, the respondent is a Virginia corporation engaged in manufacturing and distributing men's clothing. It has a single plant and chief office at Richmond, annual business amounting perhaps to $2,000,000, employs 800, brings in almost all raw material from other states and ships the output in interstate commerce. There are some 3,300 similar plants for manufacturing clothing in the United States, which together employ 150,000 persons and annually put out products worth $800,000,000. ”

“ Of the garments manufactured by respondent, 82.8 per cent. are purchased by customers outside the state, mainly by department stores and men's clothing stores in the larger cities throughout the country. Respondent maintains a sales office and showroom in New York City through which 15 or 20 per cent. ”

“ We conclude that these causes were rightly decided by the three Circuit Courts of Appeals and that their judgments should be affirmed. The opinions there given without dissent are terse, well-considered and sound. ”

“ In those cases where the employees have been permitted to organize freely and the employers have been willing to bargain collectively, strikes and industrial unrest have gradually disappeared, as shown in Finding 19. ”