LA Times: Union pickets gain special protections from state justices

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-court-picket-20121228,0,1261255.story

Labor demonstrators may picket outside stores while signature gatherers and protesters may be ejected, high court rules.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-50dd1a73/turbine/la-me-court-picket-20121228-001/600
Clerical workers picket during a strike at the Port of Los Angeles in November. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / November 29, 2012)


By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

December 27, 2012, 8:07 p.m.

Signature gatherers and protesters may be ejected from privately owned walkways outside a store, but labor unions may picket there peacefully, the California Supreme Court decided Thursday.

The state high court unanimously agreed that private walkways in front of stores, unlike public areas in shopping malls, are not open forums accessible to anyone who wants to assemble to express a view. But the justices split, 6 to 1, in upholding two state laws that prevent courts from issuing injunctions against peaceful labor pickets on private property.

The laws protecting labor pickets are justified "by the state's interest in promoting collective bargaining to resolve labor disputes," Justice Joyce L. Kennard wrote for the court

California "may single out labor-related speech for particular protection or regulation" as an exercise in the economic regulation of labor relations, Kennard wrote.

FULL story at link.