Taft–Hartley Act

“ A non-complying union, such as the petitioner, however vigorously it may assert non-compliance as a matter of principle, is not under condemnation of illegality by the Taft-Hartley Act, or any other federal law, if it employs economic pressure to achieve its goal. ”

“ There is no more elemental cause for discharge of an employee than disloyalty to his employer. It is equally elemental that the Taft-Hartley Act seeks to strengthen, rather than to weaken, that cooperation, continuity of service and cordial contractual relation between employer and employee that is born of loyalty to their common enterprise. ”

“ And the House Committee report on one of the proposals out of which these sections came recognized the necessity of enacting legislation to protect employers from being 'the helpless victims of quarrels that do not concern them at all.' [20]
The Taft-Hartley Act as originally offered contained only a section making jurisdictional strikes an unfair labor practice. ”

“ The practice of 'setting bogus' is old and deeply engrained in trade union practice. But so are other types of 'feather-bedding.' Congress, to be sure, did not outlaw all 'feather-bedding' by the Taft-Hartley Act. That Act leaves unaffected the situation where two men are employed to do one man's work. ”

“ Other provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act make it even clearer than the National Labor Relations Act that the States are left free to pursue their own more restrictive policies in the matter of union-security agreements. Because § 8 (3) of the new Act forbids the closed shop and strictly regulates the conditions under which a union-shop agreement may be entered, § 14 (b) was included to forestall the inference that federal policy was to be exclusive. ”

“ So far as legislative manifestation is concerned, it is sufficient to say that there is not the slightest indication in the history of the Wagner Act or of the Taft-Hartley Act that Congress envisaged any such result under either statute. ”

“ If we want to keep our economy running in high gear, we must be sure that every group has the incentive to make its full contribution to the national welfare. At present, the working men and women of the Nation are unfairly discriminated against by a statute that abridges their rights, curtails their constructive efforts, and hampers our system of free collective bargaining. That statute is the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, sometimes called the Taft-Hartley Act. ”

“ It is urged that an employer may deliberately prevent Board action by going into a state court. For one thing, it has not yet been determined that, if an employer resorts to a state court in relation to conduct that is obviously taken over by the Taft-Hartley Act and outside the bounds of state relief, it may not under appropriate circumstances give ground for a finding of an unfair labor practice. ”

“ However, the Taft-Hartley Act added another right of employees also guaranteed protection, namely, the right to refrain from joining a union, except as that right might be affected by an agreement authorized in § 8 (a) (3) . Thus tension exists between the two rights of employees protected by § 7-their right to form, join or assist labor organizations, and their right to refrain from doing so. This tension is necessarily quite real when a union employs economic weapons to organize employees who do not want to join the union. ”

“ We conclude, therefore, that the Administrative Procedure Act and the Taft-Hartley Act direct that courts must now assume more responsibility for the reasonableness and fairness of Labor Board decisions than some courts have shown in the past. Reviewing courts must be influenced by a feeling that they are not to abdicate the conventional judicial function. Congress has imposed on them responsibility for assuring that the Board keeps within reasonable grounds. ”

“ Congress registered its dissatisfaction with this restricted scope of review by stating the proper test in the Taft-Hartley Act as one of 'substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole.' 61 Stat. ”

“ It is that although of course its seizure was an outrage which the government now regrets, it may study the papers before it returns them, copy them, and then may use the knowledge that it has gained to call upon the owners in a more regular form to produce them; that the protection of the Constitution covers the physical possession but not any advantages that the government can gain over the object of its pursuit by doing the forbidden act. ”

“ The plaintiff in error comes to this court because, as it says, the statute of 1918 of the commonwealth, by which the trustees took over and are now operating the railway, impairs the obligation of the contract of lease of its property in the tunnels and subways to the railway company, and so violates the contract clause of the federal Constitution. It further contends that the imposition of a tax merely to aid a private corporation, as in the act of 1918 complained of, is not for a public purpose, and taxes collected therefor from it is taking its property without due process of law. ”

“ The Supreme Court said of section 38:
'If this language is taken literally, we should be powerless in any case within the jurisdiction of the board to set aside its order if there was any evidence to support it, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary might be. It is needless to say that such a literal construction of section 38 would bring it into conflict with our Constitution. It needs no act of the Legislature to confer on us the power to review the action of an inferior tribunal, and the Legislature cannot limit us in the exercise of our ancient prerogative. ”

“ The first section of the amendment, the one embodying the prohibition, is operative throughout the entire territorial limits of the United States, binds all legislative bodies, courts, public officers and individuals within those limits, and of its own force invalidates every legislative act whether by Congress, by a state Legislature, or by a territorial assembly-which authorizes or sanctions what the section prohibits. ”

“ It is doubtless true that the conformity provision of the act of 1888 (Comp. St. §§ 6909, 6910) does not bind the federal courts to follow the state statute in the matter of interest. But the disposition of federal courts should be to adopt the local rule, if it is a fair one, and, as already indicated, we are not able to say that, with the value fixed as of the date of summons, and the opportunity afforded promptly, thereafter to take possession, interest allowed from the date of the summons is not a provision making for just compensation. ”

“ Trumbull, speaking for the Committee on Judiciary, said that 'they were unwilling after Congress had with such unanimity adopted this law within the last two years, and adopted it upon the principle that some law of this kind was proper to regulate the civil service, to recommend its absolute repeal * * * they thought it better to recommend the suspension of the act until the next session of Congress, and then Congress can either repeal it or adopt some civil-service bill which in its judgment shall be thought to be for the best and permanent interests of the country.' Id., 88. ”

“ Second, it is argued that, as the war ended by joint resolution of July 2, 1921 (42 Stat. 105) , the plaintiff thereby ceased to be an enemy and was entitled to a return of its property without express legislation giving such a right. It is clear from section 12 of the Trading with the Enemy Act, 40 Stat. 411, 424 (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 3115 1/2 ff) , that Congress did not intend that such a right should exist. ”

“ There is here no denial of equal protection. Legislation almost of necessity proceeds subject by subject, with classification as an essential part of the process. In adjusting their laws to the needs of the people, the states have a wide range of discretion about classification; the equal protection clause does not require that all state laws shall be perfect and complete, nor that the entire field of proper legislation shall be covered by a single act ”

“ The demurrer challenged the indictment on various grounds: First, that the facts charged did not constitute a concession given or a discrimination practiced as defined by the Elkins Act; second, that the restrictions imposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission's Service Order No. 23 were beyond the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in that they were an exercise of purely legislative power which could not be delegated ”

“ On November 23, 1921, after the first award in this case, section 5 was amended (chapter 137, 42 Stat. 322) by adding another proviso that all claimants who in response to the request of any government agency mentioned in the act expended money 'in producing or preparing to produce' managnese, and had mailed their claims in time 'if the proof in support of said claims clearly shows them to be based upon action taken in response to such request * * * shall be reimbursed such net losses as they may have incurred and are in justice and equity entitled to from the appropriation in said act. ”

“ It is true that no one has a vested right in any particular rule of the common law, but it is also true that the legislative power of a state can only be exerted in subordination to the fundamental principles of right and justice which the guaranty of due process in the Fourteenth Amendment is intended to preserve, and that a purely arbitrary or capricious exercise of that power whereby a wrongful and highly injurious invasion of property rights, as here, is practically sanctioned and the owner stripped of all real remedy, is wholly at variance with those principles. ”

“ McKey, 249 F. 51, 161 C. C. A. 111; Knox v. Alwood (D. C.) 228 F. 753; Webb v. Buckalew, 82 N. Y. 555. When the case came again to the Supreme Court on the second application for injunction by the tax authorities, it was dismissed for varying reasons of the four judges. Certainly in view of the holding by two of them that the act of 1918 repealed the provision for arbitration, it could not be said to be a judgment binding the parties to the validity of the award. We agree with the District Judge that no estoppel grew out of the injunction suits. ”

“ At common law the public pays no costs; in England the king does not; and the state here. it is said, stands in the place of the king. So it is insisted that, when the state is brought into this court as a defendant in error in a criminal proceeding, and the judgment of the court goes against it, costs cannot be awarded against the state, because it is a sovereign.
That the sovereign is not to be taxed with costs in either civil or criminal cases by rule of court without a statute is undoubtedly true. ”

“ They further alleged that the Industrial Court Act was void because in violation of the federal Constitution and the rights of defendants thereunder, and so the court was without power to issue an injunction, as prayed. ”

“ In other words, states are free since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, as they were before, either to expand or to contract their equity jurisdiction. The denial of the more adequate equitable remedy for private wrongs is in essence an exercise of the police power, by which, in the interest of the public and in order to preserve the liberty and the property of the great majority of the citizens of a state, rights of property and the liberty of the individual must be remolded, from time to time, to meet the changing needs of society. ”

“ United States, 270 U.S. 151, 46 S.C.t. 241, 70 L. Ed. 518, just decided. That the operation of the Act of February 13, 1925, does not change the application of the principle appears clearly from the case of Andrews v. ”

“ Under present conditions the poor man is at a woeful disadavantage in a legal contest with a corporation or a rich opponent. The necessity for the reform exists both in the United States courts and in all State courts. In order to bring it about, however, it naturally falls to the General Government by its example to furnish a model to all States. A legislative commission appointed by joint resolution of Congress to revise the procedure in the United States courts has as yet made no report. ”

“ Justice Field, in elaborating the opinion, said that if the act of cession of exclusive jurisdiction adopted subsequently to the purchase of the land was followed by a failure of the United States to continue to use the land for any purpose for which it was purchased, the exclusive jurisdiction would lapse. ”

“ A law which operates to make lawful such a wrong as is described in plaintiffs' complaint deprives the owner of the business and the premises of his property without due process, and cannot be held valid under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The opinion of the state Supreme Court in this case, if taken alone, seems to show that the statute grants complete immunity from any civil or criminal action to the defendants, for it pronounces their acts lawful. ”

“ The Fourteenth Amendment, as this court said in Barbier v. Connolly, already ready cited, intended--
'Lot only that there should be no arbitrary deprivation of life or liberty, or arbitrary spoliation of property, but that equal protection and security should be given to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their personal and civil rights; that all persons should be equally entitled to pursue their happiness and acquire and enjoy property ”