Court Opinion

ID: 9696572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:51:47.082403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:23.538608
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent on narrow grounds raised by the unique facts of this ease.
The employee was employed by the Metropolitan Medical Center (MMC) as a nurse’s aide, a classification covered by a collective bargaining agreement between MMC and Hospital and Nursing Home Employees Union, Local 113, AFL-CIO. The agreement provided that a covered employee must become and remain a member of the union in good standing by the payment of a standard initiation fee and standard regular monthly dues (or if the employee elected not to join the union, to pay an agency fee equivalent to the same initiation fee and monthly dues), a requirement enforceable by termination of employment upon failure to do so. The employee did join the union and pay the initiation fees but became delinquent in the payment of monthly dues. She terminated her employment for personal reasons, leaving unpaid a balance of $81.25 due the union.
Seventeen months later, the employee was again hired by MMC. She again joined the union, paying the initiation fee required of new employees, and during the time of this employment, regularly paid the monthly dues, this time by means of a check-off authorization under which the employer deducted the amount of the dues and remitted them to the union. The union demanded that she pay the dues owing from her prior employment and, upon her failure to comply, the union requested that the employer discharge her, which was done. She then filed her claim for unemployment compensation.
The commissioner, affirming a like decision of the Appeal Tribunal, said:
[T]he attorney for the claimant argues that the union had no right to demand payment of the dues in question insofar as they covered a prior period of employment and the union had waived any right it had to payment of the dues. The employer’s attorney [who is also the attorney for Local 113] argues that this matter is covered by the constructive voluntary quit rationale which the Minnesota Supreme Court has enunciated in a series of cases including Anson v. Fisher Amusement Corp., 254 Minn. 93, 93 NW 2d 815 (1958). Bergseth v. Zinsmaster Baking Co., 252 Minn. 63, 89 NW 2d 172 (1958) and most recently, Jansen v. Peoples Electric, 317 NW 2d 879 (Minn.1982). Those cases essentially establish the premise that if the act of employment separation was performed by an individual indirectly, by the act of vesting in another discretionary authority to act in his behalf, the ultimate resulting act is a voluntary one which disqualifies the individual from unemployment compensation. * * * Under the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement the employer was required to terminate the claimant within three days of written notice to do so from the union. In our opinion, the claimant had, under the rationale set forth in Bergseth, Anson, and Jansen, vested in the union, authority to act on her behalf, and the separation must be construed as a constructive voluntary separation. No good cause attributable to the employer has been shown for the same, therefore, the disqualification contained in Minnesota Statute § 268.09, Subdivision 1 must be applied.
The unique and critical factor of this case is that the discharge for non-payment of dues did not relate to the period of employment from which the employee was discharged but, rather, to a prior and distinct period of employment. The union undoubtedly has a proper claim for the $81.25 based upon her own membership contract with the union, but it is not enforceable under the independent labor contract between her union and the employer. Although we have *28had no occasion to adjudicate this issue ourselves, we may, as we so frequently have done in such situations, draw on the precedents of the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts under the national labor relations statutes comparable to our state labor relations statutes. It appears well settled under the federal precedents that when employees terminate their relationship with an employer and are subsequently hired by the same employer, they are treated as new employees for purposes of determining their obligations under the union security clause of the collective bargaining agreements between the union and the employer. Idarado Mining Company, 77 NLRB 392 (1948); Yellow Cab Company, 148 NLRB 620 (1964). See also Teamsters Local Union No. 174 (Consolidated Fruit and Produce Company), 149 NLRB 1570 (1964); Local Union No. 38, Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association (Mid-Hudson Sheet Metal, Inc.), 183 NLRB 110, 117 (1970); Local Union 399, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 200 NLRB 1050 (1972), enf’d, 499 F.2d 56 (7th Cir.1974); Brotherhood of Railway, Airline and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express and Station Employees (Yellow Cab Company of Tampa, Inc.), 205 NLRB 890 (1973), enf’d, 498 F.2d 1105 (5th Cir.1974); Industrial Towel and Uniform Service, a Division of Cavalier Industries, 195 NLRB 1121 (1972), enforcement denied, 473 F.2d 1258 (6th Cir.1973); Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers (Fibreboard Paper Products Corp.), 170 NLRB 49, 51 (1968), enf’d, 431 F.2d 1206 (9th Cir.1970).
The issue before us is neither whether the union and the employer made a good faith construction of these agreements nor whether the employer or the union has committed an unfair labor practice under state or federal law. There is no question, of course, about the propriety of the maintenance of membership provision of the collective bargaining agreement itself, for it is a common and lawful provision in labor-management relations. The only question is whether the application of that collective bargaining agreement to these particular facts may disqualify this employee for unemployment compensation. It is my view that the commissioner in applying the agreement as he did, under the facts presented, proceeded on an erroneous theory of law, reviewable by this court.