Purvis v. Local No. 500, United Brotherhood of Carpenters

Citations

• 214 Pa. 348
• 63 A. 585
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 661

Syllabus

<p>Master and servant — Strikes—Coercion—Protection of property — Labor unions.</p> <p>An employer of workmen has a right to invoke, for the protection of his property, the bill of rights, against a labor union which seeks to coerce him in such a way that he would be compelled to employ only union workmen, to submit himself to the control of the union, and to put himself within its power to dictate to him the number of hours to constitute a day’s work in his mill, the compensation to be paid therefor, the time of payment thereof, and the selection of his employees. The coercive acts which the courts will enjoin may be without threats or commission of violence or personal injury. Declarations by officers of the union that they intended to drive the employer out of business unless he unionized his mill, followed by notices to customers of the employer not to use the latter’s material under threats of strikes in the customers’ own establishments, are such coercion as will be enjoined by the courts, and there is nothing in the Act of June 16, 1891, P. L. 300, which sanctions it.</p>