468 Argument for Appellant. 4. A contractor who carried on a small business of tile setting, performing his contracts partly by the aid of a few non-union workmen but largely by the labor of his own hands with the tools of his trade, and who, not having served an apprenticeship, was ineligible to become a member of the Tile Layers' Union under its rules, was called upon by the union to unionize his shop and was willing to do so but for a clause in the agreement proffered to him, (found important for the protection of union workmen) which would prevent him as a union employer from participating longer in the manual labor. Upon his refusal to sign the contract with this stipulation, the union sent two men to his home, which was also his place of business, and there they patrolled before it in the street carrying two banners with inscriptions, one of which declared that the contractor was "unfair" to the union, while the other appealed to its readers to let the union install their tile work. Held that the rights of the contractor under the Fourteenth Amendment were not infringed by a state law authorizing such picketing. P. 481. 222 Wis. 383, 400; 268 N. W. 270, 872, affirmed. APPEAL from a decree sustaining the dismissal of the bill in a suit against two labor unions and their agents to restrain picketing, etc. Mr. Leon B. Lamfrom for appellant. The Wisconsin Labor Code, in so far as it denies relief against picketing and related activities engaged in for the purpose of compelling an employer to give up his right to work in his own business, contravenes the guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment against deprivation of property without due process. Such activities, when engaged in by labor unions representing none of the employer's employees, cannot be rendered lawful by any statute. The statute bears no relation to the public health or to the safety or good order of the public. So far as it has any effect on safety and good order, the tendency is adverse. The welfare served is not that of the public but that of a particular class to the detriment of other classes. The right of a citizen to work in a lawful business in a lawful manner, the right to follow any of the ordinary Argument for Appellant. 301 U.S. callings of life, is an inalienable right. A state legislature cannot deprive citizens of the United States of this right, and, a fortiori, it cannot be taken away by labor unions under color of a statute. It is the bounden duty of courts to protect this right. A man may not barter away his life or freedom, nor be forced by labor unions to relinquish them. Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312; Butchers' Union v. Crescent City Live Stock Co., 111 U. S. 746; Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell, 245 U. S. 229; Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33; Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161. Appellant was denied a remedy and was refused injunctive relief solely on the ground that the acts which he sought to have restrained were acts carried on in the course of a "labor dispute" within the meaning of the Wisconsin Labor Code. Appellant, under the Constitution of Wisconsin and the statutes promulgated pursuant thereto, but for the Wisconsin Labor Code as construed by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, would have been accorded the relief that he sought. He is denied that relief because of the fact that appellees happen to be labor unions having in their membership employees of others in the same line of business, and because he happens to be an employer. Had the appellees not been labor unions representing workers in the industry and had appellant not been an employer, the activities of the appellees would have been restrained. No dispute was here involved concerning wages, hours or working conditions of any of appellant's employees. The sole dispute was concerning the appellant's right to work in his own business with his own hands. The classification established by the Labor Code, whereby relief is denied against labor unions which would be granted against others, and whereby relief is denied to an employer which would be granted to an individual employing no one, is wholly arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. No classifications can reasonably be made and sustained which will give any group the right to picket, boycott and molest an individual for the purpose of forcing him, against his will, to agree not to work with his own hands in his own business. No statute sanctioning such activity for such a purpose, by a group neither employees nor former employees of the employer and not representing any of them, can be sustained under any theory of the police power. Truax v. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312; Opinion of the Justices, 275 Mass. 580; Opinion of the Justices, 86 N. H. 597. Even if the dispute concerned wages, hours and working conditions of appellant's own employees, the statute, as construed, would nevertheless violate the Fourteenth Amendment if it denied relief against such activities, upon the part of persons who were neither the appellant's employees nor his former employees, nor their representatives. As to there having been a "labor dispute," see American Furniture Co. v. Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers Union, 222 Wis. 338; Lauf v. Skinner & Co., 82 F. (2d) 68; United Electric Coal Cos. v. Rice, 80 F. (2d) 1; Safeway Stores, Inc. v. Retail Clerk's Union, 184 Wash. 322; 218-220 Market Street Corp. v. Delicatessen Union, 118 N. J. Eq. 448. Mr. Joseph A. Padway for appellees. By leave of Court, Messrs. Francis Biddle, Osmond K. Fraenkel, Lloyd K. Garrison, Nathan Greene, and V. Henry Rothschild, 2nd, filed a brief on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Juridical Assn., as amici curiae, urging affirmance of the judgment below. MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether the provisions of the Wisconsin Labor Code which authorize giving publicity to labor disputes, declare peaceful picketing and patrolling lawful and prohibit granting of an injunction against such conduct, violate, as here construed and applied, the due process clause or equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Labor Code occupies §§ 103.51 to 103.63 of the Wisconsin Statutes, 1935 (Wis. Laws, 1931, c. 376; Laws, 1935, c. 551, § 5). But only the following provisions of § 103.53 are directly involved on this appeal: "(1) The following acts, whether performed singly or in concert, shall be legal: "(e) Giving publicity to and obtaining or communicating information regarding the existence of, or the facts involved in, any dispute, whether by advertising, speaking, patrolling any public street or place where any person or persons may lawfully be, without intimidation or coercion, or by any other method not involving fraud, violence, breach of the peace, or threat thereof." "(1) Peaceful picketing or patrolling, whether engaged in singly or in numbers, shall be legal.1 "(2) No court, nor any judge or judges thereof, shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or temporary or permanent injunction which, in specific or general terms, prohibits any person or persons from doing, whether singly or in concert, any of the foregoing acts." 1 Subsections (h), (i) and (k) are likewise relevant to the present issue, as supplementing subsections (e) and (1), but do not require special discussion. On December 28, 1935, Senn brought this suit in the Circuit Court of Milwaukee County, against Tile Layers Protective Union, Local No. 5, Tile Layers Helpers Union, Local No. 47, and their business agents, seeking an injunction to restrain picketing, and particularly "publishing, stating or proclaiming that the plaintiff is unfair to organized labor or to the defendant unions"; and also to restrain some other acts which have since been discontinued, and are not now material. The defendants answered; and the case was heard upon extensive evidence. The trial court found the following facts. The journeymen tile layers at Milwaukee were, to a large extent, members of Tile Layers Protective Union, Local No. 5, and the helpers, members of Tile Layers Helpers Union, Local No. 47. Senn was engaged at Milwaukee in the tile contracting business under the name of "Paul Senn & Co., Tile Contracting." His business was a small one, conducted, in the main, from his residence, with a showroom elsewhere. He employed one or two journeymen tile layers and one or two helpers, depending upon the amount of work he had contracted to do at the time. But, working with his own hands with tools of the trade, he performed personally on the jobs much work of a character commonly done by a tile layer or a helper. Neither Senn, nor any of his employees, was at the time this suit was begun a member of either union, and neither had any contractual relations with them. Indeed, Senn could not become a member of the tile layers union, since its constitution and rules require, among other things, that a journeyman tile setter shall have acquired his practical experience through an apprenticeship of not less than three years, and Senn had not served such an apprenticeship. For some years the tile laying industry had been in a demoralized state because of lack of building operations; and members of the union had been in competition with |