State Right

Last year 63 employes of Fansteel Metallurgical Corp. seized that concern's plants at North Chicago, Ill. Against police assaults and court commands to vacate, they held fast until Fansteel's lawyer devised a portable _ wooden tower, enabled officers to douse the sit-downers with nauseating gas. Last September, the National Labor Relations Board declined to concede that subsequent conviction of 37 strikers and two C. I. O. leaders on contempt of court charges in any way affected workers' rights under the Wagner Act. By directing Fansteel to re-employ the strikers, recognize their union, the board clearly informed all employers that relief from sit-downs was not to be found in the Wagner Act or NLRB.

Last week, while a U. S. Circuit court was giving NLRB another one in the bread basket (see above), the Second Appellate Court of Illinois upheld the convictions for contempt, clearly informed Illinois employers that State and local law still protected them from illegally conducted sit-downs. Said the Court: "There is nothing in the Wagner Act which deals with the subject of violence or any illegal acts committed by employes in the course of an industrial dispute, and in our opinion Congress did not by this enactment deprive or attempt to deprive the States of their police power to protect property rights or punish illegal acts committed in the course of labor disputes, nor do we think there is any merit in [the] contention that [State courts] cannot have jurisdiction of any phase of the relations between employer and employe in a labor controversy affecting interstate commerce."

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