Hugo Black

“ When Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, it must have known, as almost all people do, that in labor disputes both sides are masters of the arts of vilification, invective and exaggeration. In passing this law Congress indicated no purpose to try to purify the language of labor disputes or force the disputants to say nice things about one another. Nor do I believe Congress intended to leave participants free to sue one another for libel for insults they hurl at one another in the heat of battle. ”

“ It is rather strange for this Court to import its novel ideas on libel suits into the area of labor controversies where the effect is bound to abridge the freedom of the parties to discuss their disputes and to settle them through peaceful negotiations. It is strange because one of the hopes of those responsible for modern collective bargaining was that peaceful settlements among the parties working by themselves under the aegis of federal law would be substituted for the old-time labor feuds too frequently accompanied by bitter strife and wasteful, dangerous conflicts verging on private war. ”

“ The object of the National Labor Relations Act was to bring about agreements by collective bargaining, not to add fuel to the fire by encouraging libel suits with their inevitable irritations and disputeprolonging tendencies. Yet it is difficult to conceive of an element more certain to create irritations guaranteed to prevent fruitful collective bargaining discussions than the threat or presence of a large monetary judgment gained in a libel suit generating anger and a desire for vengeance on the part of one or the other of the bargaining parties. ”