The Courts and Labor Unions
Much newspaper comment has been occasioned by the recent English court decision awarding heavy damages to the Taff-Vale railway of Wales against an English railway union, for loss sustained by a strike, in which there was violation of contracts, together with the use of violence and intimidation, on the part of the railway union. It is believed that this decision will constitute a precedent to be followed in the United States. If in case of a strike the corporation affected can get at the financial resources of the labor unions through a suit for damages, the latter will of course be rendered powerless to carry on protracted strikes, and the corporations will be given the upper hand in every contest. It "will render the union harmless as an antagonist, and stop the ability to pay strike benefits, by which strikes are prolonged," says a Milwaukee Social-Democratic journal. Quoting from Justice, of London, the same paper says of the English decision that "it ties the unions hand and foot. The inevitable result will be that the unions will now take up the ballot as their chiefest weapon." But supposing the ballot fails, then what? The unions have failed to oppose successfully their financial resources to the wealth of the corporations; what if they should also fail at the polls? There are many ways in which wealth can be used to win victory in an election. Will the unions submit to the power of capital because the courts and the ballot have gone against them? No one who has studied the situation will affirm that the labor unions have any thought of submitting to the forces of wealth under any circumstances. They are in the field to win their demands by the force of organization, if that will suffice. And if this will not, and courts interpret the law against them, then they are in the field to make and annul law and dictate the selection of judges. And if they fail in this, if they cannot win at the polls, then they are in the field to get what they demand by the only means which remains to them, and it is quite unnecessary to state what this court of last resort is.