Suits Against Labor Unions

Report Outline
Anti-Union Damage Suits By Workers
Federal State Authority Over Unions
Union Problems Under New Court Rulings

Anti-Union Damage Suits By Workers

Threat to Labor in Recent Court Decisions

Two recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court threaten organized labor with greater hardship than any except the most extreme labor legislation offered in the present Congress. The two labor reform measures passed by the Senate at the 1958 session and now awaiting action by the House are designed, in the main, to rid the labor movement of corrupt and unethical practices like those uncovered by the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Fields, headed by Sen. John L. McClellan (D-Ark.). The first of these bills, passed by the Senate on April 28, provides safeguards for employee welfare and pension funds; the second, passed June 17, is designed to keep union internal processes and financial operations free from corrupt influences.

George Meany, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., was able to endorse the welfare fund bill in its entirety; such objections as he had to provisions of the bill to advance internal union democracy he ascribed “for the most part [to] a divergence over means and not over ends.” In contrast, the special counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Arthur T. Goldberg, said on May 27 of the Supreme Court ruling the day before in the Russell case: “It might imperil the very right to strike by making bankruptcy the penalty for engaging in this guaranteed, constitutional right.”

Both labor decisions handed down by the Court on May 26 upheld the power of state courts to award compensatory and punitive damages in suits filed by workers against unions. Hostile action by state courts and state legislatures has long been considered by labor leaders the gravest present threat to growth, even survival, of trade unions. They have campaigned unceasingly for removal of that provision in the Taft-Hartley Act which sanctions enactment of “right-to-work” laws by the states. They have battled for federal jurisdiction over labor-management relations in the courts, in the belief that judgments rendered by federal tribunals are generally fairer than those handed down in some states.