The Sympathetic Strike and Boycott
In a recent injunction case in San Francisco, the court drew a marked distinction between a combination of union laborers for self-protection, and a like combination for the purpose of injuring another. The ruling is that "all employees have a right to quit their employment, but no right to combine to quit in order thereby to compel their employer to withdraw from a mutually-profitable relation with a third person, for the purpose of injuring the third person, when the relation thus sought to be broken had no effect whatever upon the character or the reward of their services." This is a judicial blow at the conspiracy principle involved in the so-called "sympathetic strike" and the boycott.