National Union of Hospital & Health Care Employees v. Lafayette Square Nursing Center, Inc.

Labor disputes resulting in strikes are never pleasant, are ofttimes filled with bitterness and rancor, and are sometimes violent. When the strikers’ jobs are filled by management with strikebreakers or “scabs,” as they are commonly known, emotions may give way to violence. In that event, the labor dispute becomes more than a management-union controversy because the police and the courts then become involved as keepers of the public peace. This appeal is the direct result of such an occurrence.

To comprehend fully the issues herein discussed, we shall briefly set the factual predicate giving…