McKAY v. RETAIL AUTOMOBILE SALESMEN LOCAL UNION NO 1067 (1939)

The plaintiffs have appealed from a judgment denying their application for an injunction following an order sustaining defendants' demurrer to their complaint. The plaintiffs are thirty-two salesmen employed by the Howard Automobile Company. The defendants are several organized labor unions and their local officers, the San Francisco Labor Council and its officers, and the Howard Automobile Company. The allegations of the complaint, which are all taken as admitted in this proceeding, are that in May, 1937, the plaintiffs formed a voluntary labor organization among themselves and designated three of their members as their bargaining representatives to negotiate with their employer rates of pay, wages, hours, and all conditions of their employment. The corporation-employer thereupon recognized said committee as bargaining agents for the entire sales force, to-wit, all the plaintiffs. No labor dispute of any kind, and no controversy concerning terms or conditions of employment exists between any of the plaintiffs and their employer. None of the plaintiffs is a member of any of the labor unions named as defendants, and none of the plaintiffs, nor said employer, has at any time requested any of said defendants to act for plaintiffs as their collective bargaining agency. The defendant salesmen's union has placed a picket line around the employer's place of business which it threatens to maintain “until the said company compels plaintiffs to join said union or discharges said plaintiffs.” The co-defendants of said union (other than the corporation-employer) have joined said union in maintaining such picket lines and in boycotting the plant of plaintiffs' employer to the effect of closing the plant, stopping all work therein, and destroying the business, “and the said company intends to, and, unless the co-defendants of said company are restrained by this court, will discharge all the plaintiffs from their said employment, or demand that plaintiffs and each of them join the said union”. None of said pickets has been or is an employee of said company, on strike or otherwise. The co-defendants of the Salesmen's Union (other than the corporation-employer) have joined with it in a concerted plan to force the employer to execute the contract demanded and have endorsed the picket line and have maintained a boycott, or secondary boycott, on the business of the employer by advertising it to be unfair to the union labor.

Injunctive relief is sought on the ground that all these activities are designed to compel the employer to enter into an agreement denounced as unlawful by the State Labor Code. As we will rest our decision upon these provisions of the Labor Code, it is well to quote them here somewhat at length.

Section 921, enacted in 1937 (St.1937, p. 208), and based on the special labor statute of 1933 (Gen.Laws Supp.1933, Act 4104) provides in part: “Every promise made after August 21, 1933, between any employee or prospective employee and his employer, prospective employer or any other person is contrary to public policy if either party thereto promises any of the following:

“(a) To join or to remain a member of a labor organization or to join or remain a member of an employer organization,

“(b) Not to join or not to remain a member of a labor organization or of an employer organization,

“(c) To withdraw from an employment relation in the event that he joins or remains a member of a labor organization or of an employer organization. *”

The section contains the further provision that such a contract shall not afford any basis for legal or equitable relief against a party thereto, which is another way of saying that the contract would be void as against public policy and unenforceable in law or equity.

Section 923 provides that: “the public policy of this State is declared as follows: Negotiation of terms and conditions of labor should result from voluntary agreement between employer and employees. * Therefore it is necessary that the individual workman have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment. *” (Italics ours.)

Section 922, enacted at the same time, and based on section 679 of the Penal Code, reads: “Any person or agent or officer thereof who coerces or compels any person to enter into an agreement, written or verbal, not to join or become a member of any labor organization, as a condition of securing employment or continuing in the employment of any such person is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

The parties concede that these sections were enacted to prohibit the “yellow dog” contract, a contract whereby the employer compels his employee, upon penalty of dismissal, either to join a labor organization fostered and dominated by the employer, or not to join any labor organization of any character. It is commonly known that the “yellow dog” contract has been a source of bitter complaint by the labor organizations for many years, but where the parties to this litigation differ is this: the respondent labor unions contend that those who fostered the legislation had no other purpose in view than to prohibit the “yellow dog” contract, and that we should interpret the statutes accordingly; the appellants contend that, though subdivisions (b) and (c) of section 921 fully cover the subject of the “yellow dog” contract, subdivision (a) is much broader and blankets the entire controversy in this litigation. It is the policy of this court to take the law as it finds it. We will not, therefore, indulge in conjecture as to what some legislator, or some group of legislators, had in mind when voting for the statute. We will take the enacted legislation as it reads and leave to the proper body the function of amendment.

Little need be said in reply to the mass of material found in the briefs and in the oral argument relative to the constitutional rights of the parties—the right of free speech and of free assembly, the right to picket and to boycott, and the right to be protected in one's business, property, and employment. All these may be assumed, subject to the qualifications hereinafter noted, with the observation that those who would assert them must be prepared to concede them to others. In an opinion rendered by Judge Emmet Wilson in C.S. Smith Metropolitan Market Co. v. Lyons et al., Cal.App., 89 P.2d 425, which has been called to our notice, this principle is stated as follows:

“The most elementary principle of bills of rights is that men possessed rights before government was formed. Human rights existed prior to the establishment of government or state. Human rights and property rights are inseparable, and unless government protects both alike it fails in the fulfillment of its functions. If the law—the government—is unable or unwilling to give complete protection to property, its protection of human rights will be deficient in the same measure.

“* Included in the constitutionally protected inalienable rights is the right of every man to make contracts for the purchase and sale of property, and contracts for personal services which amount to the purchase and sale of labor as a means of acquiring property, and it makes but little difference whether this right is designated as a personal right or as a property right. Brennan v. United Hatters, 1906, 73 N.J.L. [44 Vroom] 729, 65 A. 165, 9 L.R.A.,N.S., 254, 118 Am.St.Rep. 727, 9 Ann.Cas. 698. * To deprive the laborer and the employer of this right to contract with one another is to violate both state and federal Constitutions in that they would be deprived of their liberty and of their property without due process of law. Mathews v. People, 1903, 202 Ill. 389, 401, 67 N.E. 28, 63 L.R.A. 73, 95 Am.St.Rep. 241. A person's occupation or calling, by means of which he earns a livelihood and endeavors to better his condition, and to provide for and to support himself and those dependant upon him, is property within the meaning of the law, and is entitled to protection as such. Gray v. Building Trades Council, 1903, 91 Minn. 171, 182, 97 N.W. 663, 63 L.R.A. 753, 103 Am.St.Rep. 477, 1 Ann.Cas. 172; Blanchard v. Golden Age Brewing Co., 1936, 188 Wash. 396, 63 P.2d 397; State v. Stewart, 187, 59 Vt. 273, 9 A. 559, 59 Am.Rep. 710.”

We may take all these inalienable rights for granted and concede to respondents the right to peacefully picket an employer in a bona fide labor dispute so long as such acts are for a lawful purpose. But there is no legal principle more firmly settled than the principle that all rights of the individual are subordinate to governmental control in the exercise of its police power for the protection of the health, safety, and general welfare of the public at large. It is upon this ground only that the congress and the legislature have been permitted to declare that the so-called “yellow dog” contracts are void as against public policy and these enactments have been sustained upon the sound principle that, in thus abridging the right of the individual to contract, the general welfare of those engaged in labor and of the public at large is thus protected.

Upon this basis and this alone can the provisions of section 921 of the Labor Code, prohibiting contracts with “company unions” be sustained. But upon the same basis the legislature is authorized to proscribe contracts which destroy the right of the “individual workman” to enjoy the “full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment.” Section 923. This declaration of the public policy of the state in relation to the conditions of employment is a matter which belongs exclusively to the legislature within constitutional limits. It is not contended by any of the parties that the legislation offends any provision of Constitution. Respondents argue that those who fostered the law in behalf of organized labor had in mind the prohibition relative to the “yellow-dog” contract only; that the partisans of “organized labor” did not intend that the statute should have the broad application to all contracts. But we must take the statute as we find it. Laws are not to be interpreted on the basis of what some interested parties intended the legislature should enact. They are to be “construed” by judicial decree when the language used is plain and unambiguous. When a statute in plain and in simple English declares that no such contract shall be valid the courts may not, under the guise of judicial interpretation, declare that the statute means that some of such contracts may be valid if it appears to judicial minds that such exception would be a reasonable economic policy to follow. Plain words used in a statute according to their known and accepted meaning do not call for judicial construction.

The respondent employer argues that this is but a “jurisdictional” dispute. The respondent local union bittterly assails this position and argues that a“jurisdictional” dispute can arise only between “permanently organized groups which bargain with employers through the implement of non-employee representation” such as the American Federation of Labor and the Congress for Industrial Organization. Both parties are indulging in a fruitless by-play. Jurisdiction is the legal power, right, or authority to hear and administer the law in the premises; the authority of the sovereign power to govern, legislate, and adjudicate. No government concedes to any individual or group of individuals, organized or unorganized, the independent power or authority to exercise any of these three essential governmental functions. And no group of individuals, no matter by what name they may assume to act, can, independently of the forces of the government, legislate upon or adjudicate between the inalienable rights of the individual which the government is designed to protect. We accordingly concede no power to any individual or group of individuals to determine by rule or decree what the constitutional rights of others shall be or to adjudicate between individuals as to how, when, or where these inalienable rights shall be enjoyed.

In deciding the question before us we fully accede to the argument of respondents that their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly ordinarily accord them the right to peacefully picket and boycott an employer charged with unfair labor practice, but we do not concede that, in the exercise of these rights, they may deny or destroy the inalienable rights of any other individual which he enjoys under the very same constitutional grant. The issues of this case cannot rest upon the mystification of organized power over the human rights of the individual, nor upon the Draconian theory of rule by force and coercion. They must rest squarely upon the assumption that when governmental forces, legislating within constitutional limits, declare certain acts to be unlawful, no individual or group of individuals has “jurisdiction” to adjudge that such laws should not be obeyed. In determining these issues we must yield to the legislature the exclusive power of declaring the economic policy of the state for the benefit and general welfare of the public at large. And when this policy has been so declared, within constitutional limits, the courts will protect the individual in his substantive rights arising under it from aggression by those who do not concur in the wisdom of the legislation or who, for their own ends, reject the legislation as economically unreasonable.

Turning to the statutes involved in this controversy, we find that the legislature has declared in plain and simple language that the economic policy of this state requires that “the individual workman have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment” (section 923), and that any contract by which the employer compels the individual workman “to join or to remain a member of a labor organization” (section 921) is contrary to such public policy, and hence void. It should be here repeated that no one of the parties to this litigation questions the constitutional power of the legislature to enact these statutes. The statutes do not admit of any interpretation which does not give full weight to every word used in its common and accepted meaning. In banning all such contracts obligating any employee to join or remain a member of “a labor organization” section 921 becomes general in its terms and of uniform operation, and it may be doubted whether it would not have been subject to the constitutional objection of discrimination if it had been made to apply to but one type of such organization. In this connection it should be borne in mind that this policy is not alone the policy of the State of California. It has been adopted by the national congress and by the legislatures of many other states. In section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 157, it is provided: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities, for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” (Italic ours.) In section 8, 29 U.S.C.A. § 158, it is declared to be an unfair labor practice for an employer “To interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157”, or “To dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization.” Since the legislature in enacting these sections of the Labor Code in 1937 copied much of the language of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., it is pertinent to note the definition of “labor organization” found in section 2 of the federal act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 152, “The term ‘labor organization’ means any organization of any kind, or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work.” (Italics ours.) It should also be noted that a similar policy was declared in the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (U.S.C., Title 45, § 151 et seq., 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.) wherein section 2, subdivision 3, provided: “Representatives, for the purposes of this Act, shall be designated by the respective parties in such manner as may be provided in their corporate organization or unincorporated association, or by other means of collective action, without interference, influence, or coercion exercised by either party over the self-organization or designation of representatives by the other.” These provisions of the act were sustained in Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Brotherhood Ry. & S.S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 50 S.Ct. 427, 432, 74 L.Ed. 1034, 1044–1046, where the Supreme Court said: “It is thus apparent that Congress, in the legislation of 1926, while elaborating a plan for amicable adjustments and voluntary arbitration of disputes between common carriers and their employees, thought it necessary to impose, and did impose, certain definite obligations enforceable by judicial proceedings. The question before us is whether a legal obligation of this sort is also to be found in the provisions of subdivision third of section 2 of the act (45 U.S.C.A. § 152, subd. Third) providing that, ‘Representatives, for the purposes of this act, shall be designated by the respective parties * without interference, influence, or coercion exercised by either party over the self-organization or designation of representatives by the other.’

“It is at once to be observed that Congress was not content with the general declaration of the duty of carriers and employees to make every reasonable effort to enter into and maintain agreements concerning rates of pay, rules and working conditions, and to settle disputes with all expedition in conference between authorized representatives, but added this distinct prohibition against coercive measures. This addition cannot be treated as superfluous or insignificant, or as intended to be without effect. *

“* Freedom of choice in the selection of representatives on each side of the dispute is the essential foundation of the statutory scheme. All the proceedings looking to amicable adjustments and to agreements for arbitration of disputes, the entire policy of the act, must depend for success on the uncoerced action of each party through its own representatives to the end that agreements satisfactory to both may be reached and the peace essential to the uninterrupted service of the instrumentalities of interstate commerce may be maintained. There is no impairment of the voluntary character of arrangements for the adjustment of disputes in the imposition of a legal obligation not to interfere with the free choice of those who are to make such adjustments. On the contrary, it is of the essence of a voluntary scheme, if it is to accomplish its purpose, that this liberty should be safeguarded. The definite prohibition which Congress inserted in the act can not therefore be overridden in the view that Congress intended it to be ignored. As the prohibition was appropriate to the aim of Congress, and is capable of enforcement, the conclusion must be that enforcement was contemplated. *

“* Such collective action would be a mockery if representation were made futile by interferences with freedom of choice. Thus the prohibition by Congress of interference with the selection of representatives for the purpose of negotiation and conference between employers and employees, instead of being an invasion of the constitutional right of either, was based on the recognition of the rights of both.” (Italics ours.)

In a case involving a statute of the State of Wisconsin similar to our labor code the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Seventh Circuit analysed and applied the statute in this language: “The pertinent provisions of the Wisconsin Labor Code (St.Wis.1933, § 268.18 et seq.) are not materially different from the provisions of the Norris–La Guardia Act. In substantially the same manner they seek to carry out the declared public policy of that State with respect to employees. That policy is substantially the same as the national policy and states that an employee shall have ‘full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, * and that he shall be free from the interference, restraint or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.’ Section 268.18, Wis.Stats.1933.

“* The controversy, rather, seems to be a unilateral one with the sole object of coercing appellee to compel its employees to join the appellant union, in order that it may represent the employees in their dealings with the employer. Appellants seek to accomplish that result by picketing and damaging the employer's business. But, under the Norris–La Guardia Act and the Wisconsin Labor Code, it would amount to a violation of both the federal and state law if appellee complied with appellants' demands, for under those laws the employer is specifically enjoined from influencing his employees in their choice of a union or their representative. The employees have refused to join the appellant union, they have organized their own union and have selected their own representative without interference or participation of their employer, and their rights in these respects are as fully protected by the laws as are those of appellants.

“The declared public policy of both the nation and State of Wisconsin establishes the substantive rights of appellee's employees which the courts will protect by injunction, though no specific provision therefor be contained in either Act. (Citing authority.) It being unlawful for appellee to dictate to its employees what organization they should join, or what representative they should select, and likewise unlawful to refuse to recognize the agency which they had selected, and recognize another representative which they had rejected, it follows that appellants' demand upon appellee was unlawful.” Lauf et al. v. E.G. Shinner & Co., Inc., 82 F.2d 68, 71, 72. (Italics ours.)

It is true that the Lauf case was taken over by the Supreme Court, 303 U.S. 323, 58 S.Ct. 578, 82 L.Ed. 872, which held that the facts there did constitute a “labor dispute” within the meaning of the Norris–La Guardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 101 et seq. The case was reversed upon the ground that an injunction would not lie, but the reasoning of the Circuit Court of Appeals upon the purposes of the Wisconsin Act was not disapproved.

The policy of self-organization and freedom of choice upon which the first decision in the Lauf case relied was followed by the Supreme Court in National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin S. Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 622, 81 L.Ed. 893, 909, 910, 108 A.L.R. 1352, where the court said: “Thus, in its present application, the statute goes no further than to safeguard the right of employees to self-organization and to select representatives of their own choosing for collective bargaining or other mutual protection without restraint or coercion by their employer. That is a fundamental right. Employees have as clear a right to organize and select their representatives for lawful purposes as the respondent has to organize its business and select its own officers and agents. Discrimination and coercion to prevent the free exercise of the right of employees to self-organization and representation is a proper subject for condemnation by competent legislative authority. * Fully recognizing the legality of collective action on the part of employees in order to safeguard their proper interests, we said that Congress was not required to ignore this right but could safeguard it. Congress could seek to make appropriate collective action of employees an instrument of peace rather than of strife. We said that such collective action would be a mockery if representation were made futile by interference with freedom of choice. Hence the prohibition by Congress of interference with the selection of representatives for the purpose of negotiation and conference between employers and employees, ‘instead of being an invasion of the constitutional right of either, was based on the recognition of the rights of both.’ Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of R. & S.S. Clerks, 281 U.S. 548, 50 S.Ct. 427, 74 L.Ed. 1034, supra.” (Italics ours.)

Those cases cited by respondents wherein the courts expressed their respective opinions as to what the public policy should be are of no value in this controversy where such policy has been expressly declared by the legislature. There being no constitutional objection to the legislation this court follows the statute as it is written. When, therefore, we observe that in section 922 of the Labor Code it is declared to be a misdemeanor for any person to coerce another “to enter into an agreement, written or verbal, not to join or become a member of any labor organization, as a condition of securing employment or continuing in the employment”, and that the complaint here alleges that the purpose of the picketing is to compel the employer to sign a contract whereby it will force the plaintiffs to agree not to join or to remain a member of a labor organization of their own choosing, we see that the acts complained of are acts designed to force the employer to commit a crime denounced by the statute. It should not be necessary to add that such acts of the defendants would also be unlawful.

This leaves for consideration the single question of remedy. There is no law in this state prohibiting an injunction in labor disputes. Herein lies the distinction between this case and those arising under the federal statutes and in those state jurisdictions having provisions similar to the Norris–La Guardia Act. Our courts of equity are clothed with power to grant injunctive relief against the unlawful injury or interference with the property or contracts of another. In J.F. Parkinson Co. v. Bldg. Trades Council, 154 Cal. 581, 603, 604, 98 P. 1027, 1036, 21 L.R.A.,N.S., 550, 16 Ann.Cas. 1165, the Supreme Court said: “Any injury to a lawful business, whether the result of a conspiracy or not, is prima facie actionable, but may be defended upon the ground that it was merely the result of a lawful effort of the defendants to promote their own welfare.” Prior to the enactment of the Labor Code (St.1937, p. 185) many cases were written holding that peaceful picketing and the boycott were permissible if conducted for a lawful purpose and in a lawful manner. The learned trial judge herein upon sustaining the demurrer emphasized these principles in a written opinion from which we quote: “The courts will not tolerate physical violence, or threats of violence, physical intimidation or misrepresentation of the facts, and where these exist they must be unhesitatingly enjoined. * It (picketing) is an appeal to as much of the public as may be influenced by the facts to withhold its patronage.

“So carried on the picketing must be both peaceful and truthful. No facts must be presented to the public that are not true. No steps must be taken that are not peaceful. The utterance or publication of what is false, the resort to any violence or physical intimidation directed toward the employer, his employees or any member of the public, can not and will not be tolerated by the courts. Upon so much all courts and all right thinking people must be agreed.” (Italics ours.)

It is one thing to say that “peaceful picketing is lawful” and another to say that “picketing must be for a lawful purpose”. The first statement is not a rule of law, but a mere catch phrase used loosely in argument. Peaceful picketing is not lawful if it is expressly prohibited by law or is conducted for an unlawful purpose. To illustrate: if a competitor of one of the counsel for the respondent unions should picket his place of business and should falsely advertise through the public press and the mail that such counsel was “unfair to organized labor”, the unlawfulness of the purpose would be obvious. Illustrations of unlawful purposes which may form the basis for injunctive relief are advertising the employer to be unfair to organized labor because he refuses to commit an act declared to be unlawful, advertising one to be unfair to organized labor where there is no labor dispute or controversy, advertising one to be unfair to organized labor when the sole controversy is between conflicting factions of labor organizations in which the employer takes no part. Here the complaint alleges, and the demurrer admits, that the sole purpose of the picket and boycott is to compel the employer to sign a contract whereby he will either force the plaintiffs to join a designated labor union or discharge them from their employment. There is no constitutional or statutory right or power in any person or group of persons to compel another to execute a contract against his will. From the early Roman law a contract has been known as a meeting of minds, the first essential element of which is assent, and there can be no true agreement without the capacity and freedom to accept or reject the thing proposed. A strike or picket conducted solely to compel an employer to sign a particular contract or a contract declared to be unlawful is for an unlawful purpose and, under the rule of all the cases cited herein, is a proper basis for injunctive relief. For these reasons we must read the Parkinson case and all other decisions coming before the enactment of the Labor Code, as well as those from other jurisdictions not having these statutory limitations, as qualified by the express provisions of the code which declare the enumerated activities to be unlawful.

It would be difficult to enumerate all the acts which may or may not be done legally in relation to a labor controversy. It is sufficient to state generally, by way of illustration, that, in the absence of prohibitory statutes or local ordinances, picketing is lawful in those cases where a bona fide labor dispute exists between an employer and his employees, where the employer fails to abide by a valid contract with his employees relating to terms and conditions of employment, where he refuses to bargain with them in relation to any of the conditions of their employment, where his conduct is in truth and fact “unfair to organized labor” as for instance when he refuses to employ or discharges from his employment those affiliated with a labor organization upon that ground alone, or carries on a course of conduct of unreasonable or unjustified discrimination against such employees because of their union affiliation.

From the foregoing these conclusions follow:

The state policy declared in the Labor Code renders unlawful every contract between an employer and employee wherein the latter agrees to join or remain a member of any labor organization.

The same policy declares that the individual workman shall have “full freedom” of association and self-organization. This is an individual right not subject to the control of the majority of all the employees of a particular plant, nor of the majority of any group not of his own free and voluntary choosing. When the “individual workman” exercises this self-organization and voluntarily chooses bargaining agencies to represent him, such agencies alone may act as his representatives. Thus, any individual workman may join with one or more other employees of the same employer and form their own “labor organization”, either on the basis of the respective crafts represented in the employment, or on the basis of race, color, or religion, or upon no basis other than that it is of their “own choosing”. Thus, when several distinct crafts are represented in one employment, each may, irrespective of their number, select “representatives of (their) own choosing” and such representatives become the bargaining agency with the employer “to negotiate the terms and conditions of employment” of all those employees who have voluntarily chosen them for that purpose. This policy is based upon the sound principle that no one may act as the agent of another without the principal's choice or consent.

When acting thus under the statute any “individual workman” or group of individual workmen has the right to bargain with his employer “free from the interference, restraint, or coercion” of the employer, directly or indirectly. The statute having fixed the duty of the employer in such matters, no “individual workman” and no group of employees or others may force the employer to breach that duty by picket, boycott, secondary boycott, or any other means. The privilege of “freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing” is the meat of the declared state policy, and this is a substantial right which may be protected by injunction. To this end the State has declared that it is for the greatest benefit of the employer and the employee, and the general public at large, that controversies over conditions of employment should be settled by negotiation, arbitration, and conciliation, rather than by force or intimidation on the part of either employer or employee. We should add that we are not expressing herein our own philosophy in relation to the many controversies arising between employers and employees, nor to those arising between certain groups of employee organizations. We are merely stating the policy the legislature has adopted as the law controlling such relations.

Since all the activities complained of are alleged to have been conducted for the purpose of forcing the employer to breach his duty to these plaintiffs, the complaint states a cause of action, and the demurrer should be overruled.

The judgment is reversed.

NOURSE, Presiding Justice.

We concur: STURTEVANT, J.; SPENCE, J.