Opinion ID: 2279962
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Employee Discount

Text: The Company offers a discount of 331/3% on base rates to all two thousand of its employees. Having found that the employee discount promotes the consumption of electricity and is, therefore, an unwarranted form of compensation, the PUC ordered the Company to submit . . . a plan to phase out the employee discount by no later than January 1, 1981. Pursuant to 35 M.R.S.A. § 304 and upon motion by the Company, the PUC stayed the above-quoted order pending disposition of this appeal. The employee discount is incorporated in a collective bargaining agreement covering approximately half of the Company's employees. Pointing to the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and the central position of collective bargaining within the framework of federal labor law, the Company asserts, first, that the PUC is constitutionally forbidden to issue an order trenching on an area occupied by the National Labor Relations Act, and, second, that even if not violative of the federal Constitution, the PUC order nevertheless violates Maine law. We conclude that the order to submit a plan phasing out the discount does not violate Maine law. However, we set aside the order and remand this facet of the case to the Commission for the taking out of additional evidence and for Commission consideration and determination in light of the analysis that follows.