Labor Law: Enforcing One Injunction, at Least

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"The defendant union, powerful though it may be, is nevertheless insufficiently powerful to disdain with impunity the law and the court. Ironic indeed is the fact that this basic lesson in elementary civics must be taught anew to, of all pupils, the very persons to whom we daily entrust our offspring for training and development as the leaders of tomorrow." So wrote New York Supreme Court Justice Emilio Nunez last week as he ruled against the United Federation of Teachers for ignoring a court injunction and striking New York City's public schools. U.F.T. President Albert Shanker was given a $250 fine and a 15-day jail sentence. The union itself was fined $150,000.

The ruling marked the first enforcement of the state's new Taylor Law. Last month it replaced the Condon-Wadlin Act, which had required such harsh punishment that it was rarely enforced. (Transport Workers President Mike Quill was jailed during an illegal strike in 1966, but the penalty was for contempt of court, not violation of Condon-Wadlin.) The Taylor Law is an attempt to deal with a growing tendency among public-employee unions to ignore injunctions and strike anyway (TIME, Sept. 29). It holds unions responsible, where Condon-Wadlin used to be aimed against the individual employee. When the U.F.T. ignored Judge Nunez's injunction, the result was inevitable, at least in Nunez's mind.

The union's argument, he said, "is specious and sham." The son of Spanish immigrants who learned his respect for the law while working in the fish markets by day and law school by night, Nunez concluded his lecture to the teachers with a stern stricture: "Law means nothing unless it means the same law for all. This strike against the public was a rebellion against the Government; if permitted to succeed, it could eventually destroy Government with resultant anarchy and chaos."

Shanker so far has neither paid the fine nor gone to jail; his lawyer announced that he and his union plan to appeal, thus providing the new law with its first real test.