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lawful strikes must be conducted lawfully.  Celler's

amendment was defeated in the House.  It took the Supreme

Court to effectuate the amendment by judicial fiat.

That led Justice Douglas, joined by Chief Justice

Warren E. Burger and Justices Lewis F. Powell and William

H. Rehnquist, to conclude in his blistering dissent:

At times, the legislative history of a measure

is so clouded or obscure that we must perforce

give some meaning to vague words.  But where, as

here, the consensus of the House is so clear, we

should carry out its purpose. . . . The regime

of violence, whatever its precise objective, is a

common device of extortion and is condemned by

the Act.35

Thomas R. Haggard and Armand J. Thieblot, in their

1983 work on the legal response to union violence, rightly

concluded that the Enmons case "is an affront to American

jurisprudence."36

Proposed Congressional Remedies

Since 1973, a number of bills have been proposed to

overturn Enmons.  The latest effort, the Freedom from

Union Violence Act (FUVA), was introduced by Sen. Strom

Thurmond (R-SC) on January 29, 1997, as S. 230.  FUVA

would impose a prison term of up to 20 years on anyone who

"obstructs, delays or affects commerce, by robbery or

extortion, or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits

or threatens physical violence to any person or proper-

ty."37   That provision is virtually the same as the corre-

sponding provision of the Hobbs Act, but FUVA removes the

modifier "wrongful" from the definition of "extortion."

No longer would the "use of actual or threatened force,

violence or fear" have to be characterized as "wrongful."

Finally, FUVA limits the conduct exempt from prosecution

to "minor" injury or property damage which "is incidental

to otherwise peaceful picketing" and "is not part of a

pattern of violent conduct or coordinated violent activi-

ty."38

On September 3, 1997, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)

chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing on FUVA.  At this

writing, the bill is pending in committee, where it awaits

a vote to bring it to the Senate floor.

Few if any fair-minded observers dispute that union

militants have, on occasion, engaged in extortionate activ-