The Augusta Courier

Court Classifies Profanity Alongside Of Violence

Federal Tribunal Hands Down Rule In Strike Trouble In North Carolina

United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has placed the use of profane language alongside acts of violence in strikes.

The Court held that profane and insulting epithets hurled at workers on the job by striking employees is as equally obnoxious and unlawful as the use of violence by striking employees.

The case originated in a Hickory, North Carolina plant. The National Labor Relations Board ordered the reinstatement of thirteen striking employees. The case was carried to the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit by the employer and the Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Board to eliminate from its order the names of four women who had used profane and insulting language to employees who remained on the job during the strike.

The National Labor Relations Board had found the Longview Furniture Company of Hickory guilty of certain unfair labor practices and had directed the company to reinstate certain employees. The company contested the validity of the order in the Courts as it opposed the reinstatement of the employees who had been guilty of these acts.

The National Labor Relations Act forbids acts of violence against persons attempting to work during a strike. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit now says that the use of profane language should be placed alongside the acts of violence.

"We agree with the board," wrote Senior Judge John J. Parker of the appeals court, "that reinstatement is not to be denied striking employees because of ordinary incidents or the maintenance of a picket line or for the use of rude language arising out of the feelings thereby aroused.

"We do not think, however, that anything in the act (NLR Act) requires or contemplates the reinstatement of employees who have banded together in hurling profane, obscene and insulting epithets at employees who are attempting to work, in an effort to degrade and humiliate them publicly and prevent their working."

The court eliminated from NLRB's reinstatement list the names of four women because of the part they took in the assault of a woman employee, Mrs. Illa Cannup, as she returned to work. The four were listed as Martha Leatherman, Ollie Craig, Katie Miller and Nancy Harrelson.

The correctness of this ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals is certainly evidenced in the Augusta bus strike.

In Augusta, pickets and striking employees would stand on the street corners and as the new bus drivers would come by or stop, they would call them "scabs" and coupled with the word "scab" all kinds of filthy and insulting epithets.

The new drivers had to go through this all the time.

In addition to this, the strikers would hurl all kinds of epithets at people who were attempting to board the buses and by vile and abusive language kept a lot of people from boarding the buses.

And at times they were aided and abetted in this endeavor by the police since approximately 60% of the Augusta Police Force belong to the union themselves.

Along with the use of brickbats, tear gas, bullets and dynamite, strikers now employ the tactics of hurling every kind of insult at people who do not do their bidding.

So, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has come a long way towards relieving this situation and has established the sound doctrine that the use of these vile, abusive and insulting epithets should be classified along with brickbats, tear gas, bullets and dynamite.

It is one more step that civilized people are making towards the control of these abuses which come about as a result of the control of the unions by trained and expert racketeers.

It is further evidence of the fact that the time has come when civilized people must find a more Christian-like manner of settling labor disputes than the resort to cursing, abuse, intimidation, brickbats, tear gas, bullets and dynamite.

How a so-called Christian nation has stood for such barbaric tactics on the part