Secondary Picketing

All kosher meat products sold in New York City are union-made--except W. & I. Blumenthal's "Ukor" brand. Among methods used by the Butchers' Union to bring pressure on the company was picketing of retailers handling Ukor products. Among the retailers picketed was an East Side delicatessen shop owned by one Isaac Goldfinger. Mr. Goldfinger's staff consisted solely of Mr. Goldfinger. and after pickets with English and Yiddish placards had cut his trade by an estimated $100 per week he hied himself to court, won an injunction. The union promptly took the case to the New York State Court of Appeals.

Last week in a nationally noted decision the court ruled against Isaac Goldfinger. Though confirming the injunction as it applied to obstreperous picketing tactics, the court held that secondary picketing was perfectly legal provided: 1) it was peaceful, and 2) it was directed not against Mr. Goldfinger but against the Ukor products he insisted on handling. Said the opinion: "Where the manufacturer disposes of the product through retailers in unity of interest with it, unless the union may follow the product to the place where it is sold and peacefully ask the public to refrain from purchasing it, the union would be deprived of a fair and proper means of bringing its plea to the attention of the public."

Secondary picketing is no new labor weapon like the Sit-Down but its legality is by no means generally conceded. A few States forbid picketing in any form, some that allow direct picketing forbid secondary, many have no picketing statutes at all. Generally conceded, however, is the illegality of the "secondary boycott" which applies indiscriminate pressure on a third and disinterested party. In its decision last week the New York State Court of Appeals drew the line between seconds rv picketing and secondary boycott by order-ing the Butchers' Union to confine its pressure to the non-union products instead of to Mr. Goldfinger's whole business.

Another form of secondary picketing upon which the courts have not yet had a final say is American Newspaper Guild pressure on advertisers to withdraw their patronage from struck newspapers. In its current strike against the Brooklyn Eagle the Guild found this technique highly effective. Legally, the matter is a draw with one judge condoning and one condemning.

The Guild's victory was won when Davega-City Radio, Inc., electrical and sporting goods chain, applied for an injunction against Guild picketing, was refused by Judge Leander B. Faber. Davega then discontinued its advertising in the Eagle. In another virtually identical case, the Guild lost. One Mile Reif's beauty parlor which advertised in the Eagle was picketed. One of the picketers dressed as a monkey and went through simian antics as he marched back & forth carrying a sign "I was once a beautiful woman." Another picketer shouted: "Don't patronize Mademoiselle

Reif. This is what happens if you patronize this place." Mile Reif, vexed by this reflection on her art, applied for an injunction. Her application was heard by Justice Meier Steinbrink, at one time attorney for the Eagle. He held that the union, "not only misrepresented the situation but attempted by intimidation to injure or destroy the plaintiff's business," thereupon granted an injunction against the picketing.

In New York State, at least, the ultimate settlement of these contradictory rulings will rest on the interpretation placed by higher courts on the relationship between a publication and its advertising client. If the Guild can establish a "unity of interest" between a newspaper & its advertisers analogous to that between a manufacturer & a retailer, it will probably win. Union aim now is to picket in a manner which falls within the definition of secondary picketing, not secondary boycott.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.