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Show IMPORTANT DECISION. The following decision .by the Court of Appeals of. New York will prove of Interest to employer and employee i - alike. It la exhaustive and far-reaching and as a precedent, at least Is destined des-tined to have an effect upon future cases of a similar character. -, It would be well for those Interested In, . capital and labor to preserve the de-' de-' clslon for future reference. . On account ac-count of its length. It cannot be given In full at this time. The remainder will be published next week.- The Court- .of Appeals of New York in the case of Jacob vs. Cohen, decided that an employer can enter Jnto a voluntary agreement to employ union men exclusively. The. majority opinion- of ,the court, written by Judge Gray, is concurred' in by Chief Judge Cullen,' and Judges Halght and Werner, Wer-ner, ... Judge Gray, inhls majority opinion, opin-ion, says: . . , ' "Whatever else may be said of it, this is the case of an agreement voluntarily volun-tarily made by an employer with his workmen which bound the latter to give, their skilled services for a certain cer-tain period of time upon certain con-AHinnm con-AHinnm rerulatlnc the . nerformanee of -the-work, to be done, and restricting restrict-ing the. class of workmen who should be engaged upon-It to such persons as were in affiliation with an association organized by the employers workmen with reference to the carrying on of the very work. . "It .would seem as though an em-ployer em-ployer should be unquestionably free ry to enter into such a contract with his "irorkmen fr tn conduct of the busi- ness without its being obnoxious upon any ground of public policy. , ,If it might operate to prevent some person from being employed by the firm. or. possibly, from remaining in the firm' employment that is but an incidental feature. Its restrictions were not of an oppressive nature, operating generally gen-erally in the community to prevent , such craftsmen from obtaining employment em-ployment and from earning a llvell-i llvell-i hood. , ' "It is but a private agreement between be-tween an employer and his employees concerning the conduct of the bueinee for a year., and securing to the .latter an absolute right to limit the class of their fellow-wprkmen to those , persons per-sons who- should be In Affiliation with an organization entered into with tha design of protecting their interests in ' carrying on the work; as. indeed the agreement recites." |