This case was brought in the state courts of Alabama for a declaratory judgment adjudicating the constitutional validity of certain sections of the Bradford Act, No. 298, Alabama Laws of 1943, p. 252 (Code 1940, Tit. 26 § 376 et seq.). The principal question is whether petitioners' contentions are so related to any case or controversy presented by the record that this Court may appropriately pass upon them in a declaratory judgment proceeding.
Petitioners are four affiliated, unincorporated labor organizations, the American Federation of Labor, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which are national labor organizations, and two Alabama labor organizations, and an individual who is a citizen of Alabama and a member of petitioner, Local Union No. 103, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.
Petitioners brought the present suit in the Alabama Circuit Court for Jefferson County against respondents, officers of Jefferson County, charged with the duty of enforcing the Bradford Act. They prayed a declaratory judgment that the Act as a whole and specifically §§ 7, 15, and 16, among others, are unconstitutional and void under federal and state constitutions.
After a trial upon a stipulated statement of facts, certain affidavits and the testimony of witnesses, the circuit court held the Act as a whole, and specifically § 7 of the Act, to be valid and constitutional. It declined as 'inappropriate' to make declarations as to the validity of §§ 15 and 16. On appeal, petitioners assigning as error the circuit court's failure to pass upon the constitutionality of §§ 15 and 16, and to declare those sections and § 7 unconstitutional, the state supreme court held all three sections valid and constitutional. Ala.Sup., 18 So.2d 810. We granted certiorari, 324 U.S. 703, 65 S.Ct. 191, upon a petition which presented the contentions that §§ 7 and 16 impose a prior general restraint on petitioners' freedom of speech and assembly guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and conflict with the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq., by depriving them of rights under it; that §§ 7, 15 and 16 are an arbitrary and unreasonable exercise of the state police power which denies petitioners due process and equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; and that §§ 15 and 16 are so ambiguous and uncertain in their requirements as to deny petitioners due process of law.
The Bradford Act is a comprehensive enactment regulating labor unions having members who are employees working in the State of Alabama. It establishes a Department of Labor under the supervision and control of a director of labor; it sets up mediation machinery for the settlement of labor disputes. It requires all labor organizations within the provisions of the Act to file with the Department various reports and financial statements and to pay filing fees. It regulates some phases of he internal affairs and activities of labor organizations, and various aspects of picketing, boycotting and striking. It imposes civil liability and criminal penalties for violation of its provisions.
Section 7 provides that 'Every labor organization functioning in Alabama shall within sixty days after the effective date of this chapter, and every labor organization hereafter desiring to function in Alabama shall, before doing so, file a copy of its constitution and its by-laws and a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the national or international union, if any, to which the labor organization belongs, with the department of labor * * *. All changes or amendments to the constitution or by-laws, local, national or international, adopted subsequent to their original filing must be filed with the department of labor within thirty days after' their adoption.