Because of the danger of conflict in the application of state law with the National Labor Relations Board's application of the federal statute, the trial court was without jurisdiction to issue an injunction. I am of the opinion that for the same reason it was without jurisdiction to award damages.
Furthermore, even if the federal statute does not bar an award of damages, plaintiffs have no cause of action under the established law of this state. For almost fifty years it has been settled that a closed or union shop is a proper objective of concerted labor activity because reasonably related to union welfare and the betterment of working conditions. This problem has been exhaustively considered in numerous decisions of this court, and the balance of values found to weigh in favor of judicial self-restraint in enjoining or penalizing union activities reasonably calculated to achieve these ends. Nevertheless, a majority of this court now in effect overrules these cases and abandons a policy whose wisdom is as clear now as it was when first adopted.
As early as Parkinson Co. v. Building Trades Council, this court held that it was not unlawful for a union to call a strike of employees and order a boycott to bring pressure on an employer who retained a nonunion worker, and thereby to enforce a closed shop. Exclusion of competition from nonunion workers was held a proper objective of concerted labor activity, and the court was unanimous in considering a strike a proper method of attaining this end.
McKay v. Retail Automobile Salesmen's Local Union presented the precise question involved in the present case: Is it lawful for a labor union by peaceful picketing to attempt to induce an employer to employ only persons who are members of the picketing union when there is no strike and the employees of the picketed employer are satisfied with their employment and do not desire to join the union. The court held that the objective was lawful and had a reasonable relation to the betterment of the conditions of labor, thus reaffirming and extending the principle of the Parkinson case. Shafer v. Registered Pharmacists Union, decided at the same time as the McKay case, made it clear that sections 920-923 of the Labor Code do not restrict the right of labor to engage in concerted activity to attain a closed shop. These sections were enacted as a result of the efforts of organized labor, and their purpose was to outlaw the yellow-dog contract, not the closed shop or union activities to obtain a closed shop.