Hitchman Coal v. Mitchell: Supreme Court Authorizes Injunctions to Enforce Yellow-Dog Contracts

The Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could issue injunctions against union organizing efforts at workplaces where employees had signed yellow-dog contracts, dramatically expanding the legal weapons available to employers. Justice Mahlon Pitney’s 6-3 majority opinion held that union attempts to persuade workers to break their non-union agreements constituted unlawful interference with contractual relations.

The Hitchman Coal and Coke Company of West Virginia had required employees to sign agreements that they would not belong to the United Mine Workers while employed. When UMWA organizers attempted to recruit workers, the company obtained an injunction prohibiting any union contact with employees. The Supreme Court upheld this injunction, finding that union organizers who knew of the yellow-dog contracts and attempted recruitment anyway were engaged in tortious interference.

Justice Brandeis dissented, joined by Justices Holmes and Clarke, arguing that the decision effectively criminalized all union organizing in non-union workplaces: “If it is coercion to threaten to strike unless plaintiff consents to a closed union shop, it is coercion also to threaten not to give one employment unless the applicant will consent to a closed non-union shop.” The decision combined with Adair and Coppage to create a formidable legal fortress around yellow-dog contracts: they could not be banned by federal or state law, and courts would use injunctions to punish anyone who encouraged workers to break them. This judicial architecture of labor suppression would remain intact until the New Deal era.