Montana Attorney General Opinion 15-636

Opinion No. 636 Labor-Unions-County Employees. HELD: There is no law which pro- hibits a labor union from soliciting county empolyees to become members of it or which prohibits county em- ployees from seeking membership in a labor union. October 31, 1934. Your letter to us of the 15th inst., is as follows: "The question has been presented to our office as to whether or not an employee of the county and particu- larly those men who are employed by the county surveyor's office who work on the roads, can be unionized? "It is our opinion from examination of the statutes that there is nothing prohibiting an employee of the county belonging to the union or is there any provision in the statute prohibiting the union soliciting employees of the county from joining their union. "Would you kindly give us your opinion as to whether or not employees of the county can \)e unionized? In this state and happily in every state of the Union so far as we know, combinations of workmen are lawful. (Empire Theatre Co. v. Cloke, 53 Mont. 183; Martin's Modern Law of Labor Unions, sec. 6; Oakes' Organized Labor and Industrial Conflicts, sec. 2.) This must of necessity be so in Montana be- cause its statute expressly protects the union label against counterfeiting or any unlawful use. (Sections 11204- 11208, Revised Codes 1921; Tracy v. Banker, 170 Mass. 266, 49 N. E. 308, 39 1,. R. A. 508.) It is now well settled that workmen may band themsel \'es together for the pur.pose of bettering their condition, either finanCially or socially, by every legitimate and fair means, and such an association is not a monopoly or in re- straint of trade. (Martin's Modern Law of Labor Unions, sec. 6; Blumauer v. Portland etc. Union Local, 17 Pac. (2d) 1115.) The view prevails everywhere that labor has the same right to 01'- ganize as has capital. It has been said that "organized labor is organized capital consisting of brains and muscle, and has as lawful a right to organize as have the stockholders and officers of corporations, who associate and con- fer together with relation to wages of employees or rules of employment, or to de\'ise other means for making their investments more prOfitable." Labor organizations are no more unlawful than any organization or combination of farmers or manufacturers, doctors or lawyers. The right of laborers to organize unions is an exercise of the common-law right of every citizen to pursue his calling, whether of labor or business, as he, in his judgment, thinks fit. Hence it is that the organization of workingmen is not against any pub- lic policy and that labor unions are not unlawful combinations. They are not only legitimate, but, because their aim and purpose is to better the living con- ditions of a large part of the body politic, they are a necessary part of the social structure. (Oakes' Organized Labor and Industrial Conflicts, sec. 2; Martin's Modern Law of Labor Unions, sec. 6.) It is no exaggeration to say that in many instances labor organiza- tions in the exercise of their rights have made men out of serfs and given them a dignity in the social life of their communities that they did not theretofore possess. Some years ago public school teachers of the city of Cleveland formed an or- ganization known as the Grade Teach- ers' Club, the two main purposes of which were to secure higher wages for the teachers and to correct certain methods of the school system which were claimed to be unnecessarily bur- densome to both pupils and teachers. After unsuccessfully devoting its ef- forts to that field for a time, the cluh adopted a plan to affiliate with the American Jj'ederation of Labor in order to gain the influence of union labor organizations. A controversy there- a fter arose when the superintendent of schools, in obedience to a resolution Vll8sed by the school board, failed to reappoint six teachers who had been acth'e in the club's movement to affili- ate with the American Jj~ederation of l.AJ.bor. In dealing with the question the court of appeals of Cuyahoga Coun- ty in Jj~rederick v. Owens, 35 Ohio, C. C. 508, among other things said: "We have 440 OPINIQI\S OF THE ATTORNEY GENEHAL not here for consideration and deter- mination the question of whether it was wise or unwise for the teachers' club of Cleveland to affiliate with union labor organizations, and we have no opinion to express upon that sub- ject. That they had a perfect right to affiliate with these organizations and the organizations with them, if they saw fit, everybody must concede. That right is guaranteed to both by the constitution." 'Ve know of no law which prohibits a labor union from soliciting county employees to become members of it or which prohibits county employees from seeking membership in a labor union.