Cite as: 509 U. S. 764 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
seeking better contract terms is a "refusal to deal"—i. e., union members refuse to sell their labor until the employer capitulates to their contract demands. But no one would call this a boycott, because the conditions of the "refusal to deal" relate directly to the terms of the refused transaction (the employment contract). A refusal to work changes from strike to boycott only when it seeks to obtain action from the employer unrelated to the employment contract. This distinction is well illustrated by the famous boycott of Pullman cars by Eugene Debs' American Railway Union in 1894. The incident began when workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company called a strike, but the "boycott" occurred only when other members of the American Railway Union, not Pullman employees, supported the strikers by refusing to work on any train drawing a Pullman car. See In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 566-567 (1895) (statement of the case); H. Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle 100-108 (1968). The refusal to handle Pullman cars had nothing to do with Pullman cars themselves (working on Pullman cars was no more difficult or dangerous than working on other cars); rather, it was in furtherance of the collateral objective of obtaining better employment terms for the Pullman workers. In other labor cases as well, the term "boycott" invariably holds the meaning that we ascribe to it: Its goal is to alter, not the terms of the refused transaction, but the terms of workers' employment.5
5 See, e. g., Bedford Cut Stone Co. v. Stone Cutters, 274 U. S. 37, 47, 49 (1927) (refusal to work on stone received from nonunion quarries); Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 462-463 (1921) (boycott of target's product until it agreed to union's employment demands); Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418 (1911) (boycott of company's products because of allegedly unfair labor practices); Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U. S. 274 (1908) (boycott of fur hats made by a company that would not allow its workers to be unionized). See also Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 503-505 (1940) (distinguishing between ordinary strikes and boycotts).
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