LABOR: Peaceful Picketing

In recent years U.S. Supreme Court rulings have given states more and more power to ban peaceful picketing. Last week the Supreme Court reversed this trend, ruled that states may ban picketing only when there is violence. The court’s ruling came in reviewing a Florida Supreme Court ban on picketing by the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Hotel and Restaurant Employees, which struck 23 Miami and Miami Beach hotels in 1955. seeking bargaining rights. Because the union represented only a few employees, the Florida court barred it from picketing. The Supreme Court held that state courts are without jurisdiction to issue an injunction against picketing if the firm involved is in interstate commerce, is covered by the Taft-Hartley law, and is picketed peacefully. Said the A.F.L.-C.I.O. News: “The decision appears to set ‘peaceful picketing’ as the standard for legitimate picket lines.”