Much has happened in the field of labor law since our decision in the Park & Tilford case, especially in regard to the relation between state and federal law. In the Park & Tilford case we felt it necessary indirectly to enforce federal law through our own rule prohibiting concerted activity for an unlawful purpose, since there appeared to be no other way to protect federal policy from union encroachment. The federal act prohibited an employer from signing a closed shop agreement with a union that did not represent a majority of his employees, but the Board had no authority to proceed against a union bringing pressure on an employer to do what the act prohibited. This reason for our intervention in support of federal policy was removed by the enactment of the Labor Management Relations Act. That statute makes the union conduct itself an unfair labor practice subject to Board control: section 8(b)(2) makes it an unfair labor practice to attempt to force an employer to violate section 8(a)(3). Thus the Board is now fully able to assess the impact of union conduct on the federal policy embodied in 8(a)(3), and to vindicate that policy by proceeding directly against the union.
Furthermore, decisions of the United States Supreme Court since the Park & Tilford case, notably Garner v. Teamsters, etc., Union, have made it clear that the definition and vindication of rights created by the federal act rest exclusively with the National Labor Relations Board. As Mr. Justice Carter pointed out in the earlier dissent in the present case, the Board is an integral part of the federal law, and that law is not intended to apply when the Board is not present. Congress has not created abstract rights to be free from unfair labor practices; it has created rights whose scope and nature depend on Board definition. Federal policy does not require vindication in state tribunals. On the contrary, it requires that they not conflict with Board action by attempting to enforce federal rights either directly, or indirectly by purporting to incorporate them into state law. Thus the very reasons that preclude us from giving injunctive relief for the violation of federal rights indicate that, assuming we could give damages, we should not do so if we are intelligently to apply our own unlawful purpose doctrine. In no meaningful sense is the purpose unlawful.
The object of defendants' conduct in the present case is unlawful only if we look to federal law to characterize it as such. From what has been said, it is clear that there is no reason to do so. The policy establishing the lawfulness of the purpose under state law is as valid now as it was when this court decided the McKay, Shafer, and C. S. Smith cases. They should not be overruled.