Opinion ID: 2205705
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: memorandum on reargument

Text: INGLIS, C. J. Reargument in this case was granted but was limited to the first ground stated in the motion. That ground reads: The court in construing the submission did not take into consideration the fact that employees receiving the plant `minimum rate' were paid on a flat hourly basis and received an increase in March, 1951 of only five cents per hour; that those employees receiving the `hiring rate' were paid on a flat hourly basis and received an increase in March, 1951 of only six cents per hour and that, therefore, a reduction of 9.75 cents an hour in the hourly rates paid, which include those receiving the plant minimum rate and the hiring rate would not come to the same as a reversion to the wage structure as it was prior to March 26, 1951. Thus the basic premise on which the court's decision rests is erroneous. In the original opinion, we pointed out that the nub of the question submitted to the arbitrator was whether there should be a reduction of wages in the defendant's plant which would offset the increase which had become effective on March 26, 1951. We concluded that the effect of the award as properly interpreted was to direct a reversion of the wage structure, as it affected all employees except engravers, to what it was prior to March 26, 1951. The award, as corrected, accomplished this by directing that all hourly rates be reduced by 9.75 cents and that piece rates and plant hiring minimum rates be adjusted accordingly. The basic contention of the plaintiff in its motion to reargue is that, as interpreted by us, the award would result in a reduction of 9.75 cents an hour in the wages of the employees of the defendant who receive wages at the plant minimum rate or at the hiring rate. That is not the interpretation we gave to the award. It is obvious that the arbitrator did not consider that the plant minimum rates or the hiring rates were hourly rates as he used that term in ordering a 9.75 cent reduction in them. Had he considered that plant minimum rates or hiring rates were hourly rates, it would not have been necessary or meaningful for him to have added to his order that hourly rates be reduced by 9.75 cents the direction that plant hiring minimum rates should be adjusted accordingly. If he had intended that plant minimum rates or hiring rates should be treated as hourly rates and therefore be reduced by the full 9.75 cents per hour, his added direction that plant hiring minimum rates should be adjusted accordingly would have been superfluous. As was stated in the opinion, the only reasonable interpretation of the award in so far as it pertains to plant minimum rates and hiring rates is that they be reduced proportionately to the ordered reduction in hourly rates. That is, that plant minimum rates and hiring rates should be reduced by the same proportion of 9.75 cents per hour as the increase of them in 1951 was of the then increase of 9.75 cents in the hourly rates. In other words, the award was that, to determine the amount of reduction to be made in plant minimum rates and hiring rates, the parties should apply to them in reverse the same formula whereby the parties had determined in 1951 that an increase of 9.75 cents in the hourly rates called for an increase of 5 and 6 cents per hour in the plant minimum and hiring rates respectively. It follows that the award of the arbitrator meant no more nor less than that the plant minimum wage rate was to be reduced by 5 cents per hour and the hiring rate by 6 cents per hour. The motion to reargue, therefore, is based on an erroneous conception of the interpretation given to the award in the original opinion of the court. In oral argument, counsel for the plaintiff contended that the award is impossible of application to any reduction in the rates for piecework. Although this contention is outside of the grounds set up in the motion to reargue, we have given it careful consideration. In this matter also, as was stated in the original opinion, the award is to be interpreted as directing the parties to arrive at the reduction to be made in piece rates by using in reverse the formula used to determine in 1951 the increase in those rates which would be proportionate to an increase of 9.75 cents in the hourly rates. It is true that the exact method whereby piece rates are determined does not appear in the record. It is apparent, however, that one consideration which is a factor in that determination is the amount the average pieceworker ought to be able to earn per hour. It does appear in the record that, when the wages of the hourly workers were increased by 9.75 cents per hour in 1951, in order to reach an approximate uniformity with that increase for the pieceworkers their base rates were increased in a manner designed to produce an average increase of 8.1 cents an hour. If, in so far as the hourly wages which could be made by pieceworkers was a factor in establishing piece rates, an increase of 8.1 cents an hour was determined as being the equivalent of an increase of 9.75 cents per hour for the hourly workers, a reduction of 8.1 cents per hour in that factor will be the equivalent of a reduction of 9.75 cents per hour for hourly workers. It is an adjustment such as this that is directed in the award, which orders that piece rates be adjusted accordingly. It is, of course, true, as was further argued, that changes in the company's products and in the productivity of the workers which have come about since 1951 will make the fixing of piece rates in accordance with the award complicated and difficult. However, the same complications and difficulties would have been met if there had been no general increase in wages in 1951. By ordering that piece rates shall be adjusted accordingly, i.e., proportionately to the reduction in the hourly rate, the award, in the nature of a declaratory judgment, establishes the principle that piece rates shall now be established by reverting to what they were before March 26, 1951, and, starting at that point, be refigured on the basis of time studies just as they would have been during the period since 1951 if there had been no general increase of wages throughout the plant in that year. We see no occasion to make any change either in the opinion or in the rescript. In this opinion WYNNE and MOLLOY, JS., concurred; O'SULLIVAN and DALY, JS., dissented (DALY, J., having heard the reargument, now desires to be recorded as dissenting from the original opinion and joining in the dissenting opinion).