City of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles Building & Construction Trade Council

DORAN, J. The present appeal is from a judgment making permanent a temporary injunction prohibiting. the appellants from

“Striking, or calling or inducing a strike against the department of Water and Power of the City of Los Angeles at any of the projects hereinafter enumerated, or picketing any of said projects, or giving any notice stating or implying that a strike exists ... or threatening to strike or picket any of said projects or hindering, delaying or interfering with, in any manner or by any means or device, the work upon any of said projects, for the purpose of intimidating or coercing the City of Los Angeles, the Department of Water and Power, the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, the Board of Civil Service Commissioners or any officer of said City in the performance of their or his lawful duties; and coercing, compelling, inducing or encouraging the employees of said Department of Water and Power, who are employed on said projects, to hinder, delay or interfere with the work on said projects, by strike, walk-out, cessation of work, or otherwise.”

On a previous appeal from an order granting a preliminary injunction, the reviewing court in City of Los Angeles v. Los Angeles Bldg. & Const. T. Council, 94 Cal.App.2d 36, 46 [210 P.2d 305] affirmed the order, holding that “no legitimate reason can be found for drawing any distinction, within the framework of the present ease, between the governmental and proprietary functions of the city.” The opinion further states: “we think it self evident that defendants may not, consistently with the public policy expressed in the Los Angeles City Charter, lawfully either strike or picket for the purpose of enforcing demands as to conditions of employment in respect to which neither the city nor the department of water and power is obliged to bargain collec[83]tively. To hold to the contrary would be to sanction government by contract instead of government by law.”

It is argued in appellants’ brief that “The decision on the appeal from the temporary injunction is not the law of the case”; that the decision and judgment “are completely unrealistic”; that the injunction is too broad, is invalid and unconstitutional; that defendants had the right to make demands upon their employer for improvement in wages, hours and working conditions; and that “defendants had a right to designate the project carried on by the Department of Water and Power as unfair.”