Court Opinion

ID: 9551980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:02:52.697067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:17.806682
License: Public Domain

SCHWAB, C. J.,
dissenting.
The referee found the strike was settled on December 2, 1974, and the Appeals Board, one member dissenting, adopted the referee’s decision *276making no independent findings of fact on this issue. As the majority opinion points out, the referee and the Appeals Board were wrong.
On August 26 the employer made an offer to the union. The union turned it down. In November, the strike apparently having not gone well from the union’s standpoint, the union tried to accept the employer’s August proposal. The employer in effect said, "No, conditions have changed and we will now not settle on the terms we offered in August.” As the majority also points out, an agreement was actually reached on January 10 and it contained provisions that were not in the August proposal.
The majority states, "It was * * * the determination of the employer to not rehire the striking employes that was the cause of their unemployment.” I find no such finding of fact in the referee’s or the Board’s decision.
I am of the opinion that the only reasonable construction that can be placed on the evidence taken as a whole is that the claimants had not abandoned the union and had not abandoned the strike. In purportedly reporting for work on December 2, they were in effect acting as agents of the union in an attempt to maneuver the employer into treating its August 26 proposal as still outstanding and subject to acceptance by the union at that late date. I would reverse.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.