Exceeding the Limit

John L. Lewis's miners got another expensive lesson in manners last week. In Richmond, Va., the Laburnum Construction Co. brought suit against the U.M.W. for using gun-toting goon squads to stop the construction of a Kentucky coal-processing plant. The miners denied any violence. They had merely picketed the job, they said, to win bargaining rights for their affiliated United Construction Workers. But after hearing witnesses testify that they had been threatened and forced off the job, a circuit court jury found the miners guilty of exceeding "the limits of peaceful picketing," awarded the contractor $275,437 in damages.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen also drew a stinging and costly rebuke this week. In Washington, Federal Judge Edward A. Tamm slapped a $75,000 fine on the brotherhood after it pleaded guilty to contempt of court for pulling its paralyzing "sick" strike (TIME, Feb. 19) in defiance of a federal injunction. Said Judge Tamm: "If unions are to continue to grow and prosper they must accept their responsibilities as well as their rights."

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