Court Opinion

ID: 9670432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:20:31.915207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:04.420447
License: Public Domain

*443Spencer, J.,
dissenting.
Section 48-818, R. R. S. 1943, provides the Court of Industrial Relations, in altering the scale of wages, hours of labor, or conditions of employment, shall establish rates of pay and conditions of employment which are comparable to the prevailing wage rates paid and conditions of employment maintained for the same or similar work of workers exhibiting like or similar skills under the same or similar working conditions.
As I interpret the statute, this does not permit the Court of Industrial Relations to establish a hypothetical labor market in order to determine prevalent wage rates and prevalent fringe benefits. Even if the Court of Industrial Relations were to be permitted to construct a hypothetical labor market to reach its determination, that hypothetical labor market must be based upon competent evidence and not on mere assumptions, speculations, or conjectures.
I concede that for purposes of comparison in arriving at comparable and prevalent wage rates, the Court of Industrial Relations may select for comparison cities that are sufficiently similar and have enough like characteristics or qualities to make comparison appropriate. While these determinations are within the field of expertise of the Court of Industrial Relations, as suggested by the majority opinion, I maintain that we have here an arbitrary and unreasonable abuse of that so-called expertise. Nor do I agree that the court was able to make a proper adjustment to achieve similarity.
The union based its testimony for comparison purposes on seven cities: Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, and Dayton, Ohio; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; and Wichita, Kansas. All these cities have a great deal more maufacturing firms, greater industrialization, and unionization, and therefore higher wage rates. The city’s expert, on the other hand, utilized for comparison purposes Lincoln, Des Moines, and Kansas City, which were similar to Omaha because their economies were *444similar. They are geographically close, and they draw upon the same labor supply.
The city’s expert testified that population is not directly related to wages; that population density is, because density is related to the type of construction found in a city and five of the cities employed by the union had greater population density than Omaha. The distance between Omaha and the union’s proposed cities made it unlikely that there would be an interchange of laborers. Based upon population, population density, manufacturing, unionization, geographic location, and common labor supply, Lincoln, Des Moines, Kansas City, and Omaha are similar and can be properly compared to one another.
It should be obvious that if the Court of Industrial Relations is to accept any city selected by the union for comparison purposes, it essentially is permitting the union to dictate the wage scale in Nebraska.
I would reverse this case because the Court of Industrial Relations should not be permitted to construct a hypothetical labor market in order to determine prevalent wage rates and prevalent fringe benefits. However, even if it were conceded to have this right, then I would reverse the case because the hypothetical labor market herein was not based upon competent evidence but was based upon mere assumptions, speculation, or conjecture.
I would also reverse the case because I do not believe the Court of Industrial Relations in establishing wage rates and fringe benefits took into consideration overall compensation. To do so requires consideration of not only wages for time actually worked but also for time not worked, including vacations, holidays, and other excused time and all benefits received, including insurance and pensions. Further, fringe benefits and wage rates must be considered together. The same array of employers should be used to determine prevalent wage rates *445and prevalent fringe benefits. This was not done in this instance.
White, C. J., joins in this dissent.