## Facts

- Eight employees of the Chicago Railways Company had been members of a local labor union and paid dues and assessments set by union by-laws.
- Union funds were used in part for political campaign activity; the employees objected to this expenditure.
- The employees resigned their union membership effective February 1, 1908, and thereafter were nonmembers.
- Union officials appointed a committee to seek the employees’ discharge from the company because of their nonmembership.
- The committee approached a company officer with discharge authority and stated that union members would refuse to work with the former members and that the union would call a strike unless the company discharged them.
- The employees’ work was not alleged to be under fixed-term employment contracts; their employment was terminable at will.

## Issues

1. Whether former union members employed at will may obtain an injunction preventing a union from inducing their discharge by threatening a strike and a refusal to work with them.
2. Whether a union’s peaceful threat of strike and concerted refusal to work with certain employees constitutes an unlawful conspiracy or other actionable wrong warranting equitable relief.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court and affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the complaint for want of equity.
- The court held the allegations did not show any crime, actionable tort, or breach of contract supporting an injunction.
- The court treated the pleaded conduct as economic pressure (refusal to work and threat to strike), not unlawful intimidation or other independently wrongful acts.
- Because the employees had no contractual right to continued employment, the court found no protectable interest justifying equitable intervention.

## Legal Principles

- Concerted employee action to quit work, refuse to work with particular persons, or threaten a strike is not unlawful in itself when unaccompanied by violence, illegal intimidation, or other independent tortious conduct.
- General allegations of “conspiracy,” “coercion,” or “intimidation” do not state a claim in equity when the specific facts pleaded show only a threatened peaceful strike or refusal to work.
- In the absence of a fixed-term employment contract, an employee has no enforceable right to continued employment that equity will protect by enjoining third-party pressure on the employer.
- Injunctive relief in labor disputes requires a showing of an independently actionable wrong (such as a crime, tort, or contract breach), not merely economic leverage.

## Conclusion

The court denied injunctive relief to at-will employees seeking to stop a union from pressuring their employer to discharge them, holding that a threatened strike and refusal to work with nonmembers—without violence, unlawful intimidation, or interference with contractual rights—does not supply the legal wrong required for equity to intervene.


Kemp v. Div. No. 241, Amalgamated Ass’n of St. & Elec. Ry. Emps. of Am., 255 Ill. 213, 99 N.E. 389 (Ill. 1912)