Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1904 — RIGHTS OF LABOR [ARTICLE]

RIGHTS OF LABOR

Several Important Cases In Which Judge Parker Stood Consistently For Labor’s Rights. r A number of important laws affecting labor were before the courts of New York for adjudication while Judge Parker was on the bench, and all of bis opinions asserted the right-of the state to legislate for better conditions among its wage earning classes. The Republican press has criticised some of those decisions and has intimated that they were made for partisan effect, but the independent legal thought of the country has indorsed them, both on account of their consistency and their just and equitable conclusions. One of the first and most important cases t.;at came before Judge Parker’s court was in relation to the law which required- that contractors on public work should pay their employes not less than the prevailing rate of wages. A street improvement contractor In the city of New York had failed to comply with this provision of his contract and the comptroller refused to Issue a warrant for the amount due, bolding that he had not complied with bis contract. The court of appeals held the law, so far as it related to such a case, unconstitutional, but a dissenting opinion was written by Judge Parker in which he defended the law as a proper exercise of legislative power. In 1896 the so-called “convict-made goods label act” was passed. It required all goods made by convict labor In any penal institution to be labeled “convict made’’ belore being sold or exposed for sale within the state. The law was undoubtedly aimed at convictmade goods of other states, since the products of convict labor of New York could not under the constitutional provision be placed upon the market. This law was held by the court of appeals to be unconstitutional, because It was an attempt to regulate interstate commerce and thus violative of the commerce clause of the federal constitution. Judges Bartlett and Parker wrote dissenting opinions, insisting that the act was a proper exercise of legislative power. The true purpose of the law was tersely stated by Judge Parker in the following language: , “This statute neither prohibits nor attempts to prohibit other states or citizens of other states from putting prison-made goods upon our markets, nor does it prohibit our own citizens from buying or selling them; if it did, then, concededly, the statute would be in violation of the commerce clause of the federal constitution and void; It simply requires that prison-made merchandise shall be so branded that our citizens shall know- where the goods they are buying were made.” Another case before the court grew out of rivalry between two labor organizations' and has led to much comment. Charles McQueed, a member of the National Protective Association of Steam Fitters and Helpers, a corporation organized under the laws of New York, brought an action on behalf of himself and his fellow-members to restrain the board of delegates and certain individuals, members of the board of delegates and of the Enterprise Association of Steam Fitters and of the Progress Association of Steam Fitters and Helpers, from preventing the employment of the plaintiffs, and from coercing their discharge by any employer, through threats, strikes, or otherwise, and to recover damages. Judge Parker wrote the prevailing opinion of the court and in it he lays down in the most comprehensive terms the rule that members of a labor union have not only the right to refuse to work with others, but that it does not affect their right because the reason given does not seem adequate to other people so long as the object to be attained is a legal one. He says; “Stated in other words, the propositions quoted recognize the right of one man to refuse to work for another on any ground that he may regard as sufficient, and the employer has no right to demand a reason for it. But there is, I take it, no legal objection to the employee’s giving a reason, if he has one, and thaf fact that the reason given is that he refuses to work ■with another who is not a member of his organization, whether stated to his employer or not, does not affect his right to stop work, nor does it give a cause of action to the workmen to whom he objects because the employer sees fit to discharge the man objected to ratner than lose the services of the objector.”