Court Opinion

ID: 9550558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:37:07.307232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:46.358585
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring).
Claimants are not entitled to compensation benefits if they fall under either of the disqualifications set out in Sec. 42-2a-5, U. C. A. 1948:
“(d) If “* * * his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a strike involving his grade, class, or group *540of workers at the factory or establishment at which he is or was last employed.”
or under Subd. (1) : If he is a member of the same grade, class, or group of workers of any employer, any member of which was a party to the plan or agreement to foment the strike.
Under the facts as stated in the main opinion claimants contend that they were unemployed, not because of a
“stoppage of work which exist [ed] because of a strike involving his grade, class, or group of workers”
but they say, on the contrary, they were the victims of a lockout. If the real cause of their unemployment was a lockout, they are entitled to compensation; if it was a strike, they are not. That is the crux of the controversy: Labor contending that the real and immediate cause of the unemployment was the lockout; the employers contending that it was the strike.
The particular problem here involved has never been heretofore presented to the courts of this state. New problems are continually arising in this comparatively new field of the law: labor-management relations. Viewed superficially, this controversy may seem to present an easy solution. Actually, both sides make arguments which seem logically to resolve the matter in their favor. As Mr. Justice Schauer said in the case of McKinley v. Calif. Emp. Stabilization Comm., 34 Cal. 2d 238, 209 P. 2d 602, at page 606:
“Were it not for the majority holding in Bunny’s Waffle Shop v. Cal. Employment Commission, 24 Cal. 2d 735, 151 P. 2d 224, a different result might consistently he reached. It may be arguable that a simple and literal interpretation and application * * * might he preferable * * *. But to me the important thing, judicially, is not so much how we interpret section 56 as that, having interpreted it, we shall apply that interpretation fairly and consistently.”
*541After reading numerous cases cited by counsel bearing on the question here, it seems to me that it is essential to go below the surface to the roots of the situation, both to give effect to the intent and purposes of the Employment Security Act, and in order not only to solve the matter at hand but to establish a foundation which will.come as close as possible to providing a satisfactory basis for the solution of future controversies of like character, whether the responsibility for work stoppage is upon labor or on management.
The public policy underlying the Employment Security Act as declared by the Legislature is that
“* * * economic insecurity due to unemployment is a serious menace to the health, morals, and welfare of the people * * *”
and that it is a subject
“* * * which requires appropriate action * * * to prevent its spread and to lighten its burden”.
The immediate purpose is to assist the worker and his family in times of unemployment; the secondary and larger purpose is to provide stability for the general economy by assuring constancy of purchasing power. The economic and social welfare of the parties immediately concerned and of society in general are best served by the continuance of employment and the peaceable adjustment of differences in order to keep the wheels of industry moving and to maintain the integrity of the unemployment compensation system.
Labor creates economic wealth by transforming materials into useful forms. If a group of workers produce a given number of units in a given time, whether it be hub caps, chairs or washing machines, the stoppage of their work so that these goods are not made is equivalent to the destruction of the items not so created. Work stoppage is economically the equivalent of the destruction of goods. *542Such wasteful and destructive methods of settling disputes are obviously anti-social and undesirable.
In most areas of our social relationships, it has been centuries since men resorted to violence and destruction of each other’s property as a means of resolving controversies. It seems manifest that eventually labor disputes will pass beyond the phase of resorting to such destructive procedures as the strike and the lockout, and disagreements will be settled by some properly constituted authority which the adverse contenders recognize and submit to. When disagreements exist between labor and management, the thing to be encouraged is negotiation and agreement; the economic waste of work stoppage is to be avoided.
It cannot be doubted that the Legislature wanted to prevent strikes in every possible way. Undoubtedly one of the considerations prompting the prohibition against labor receiving benefits for unemployment resulting from a strike it was responsible for is the fact that it would be unfair to use funds built up by labor and management jointly to support labor in a contest wherein it was exerting economic pressure against management by striking. Even more basic is the fact that if such were not the rule, the existence of the system would be hazarded. To permit an employee to become voluntarily unemployed and draw benefits would have these bad effects: It would tend to encourage work stoppage and thus bring about economic waste; and it would put it within his power to voluntarily drain off the Unemployment Compensation Fund and thus hazard its soundness and the accomplishment of its purposes. If it is bad for one worker to be able to voluntarily become unemployed and draw benefits, a fortiori, it is proportionately worse for greater numbers and groups to be able to do so. Accordingly, the Legislature has expressed its intent that, when conflicts arise in connection with negotiations between labor and management, unemployment compensation should not be available to support labor *543when there is work stoppage, the responsibility for which is chargeable to a strike initiated by labor.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, well established and unquestioned are the rights of labor to organize into unions; to strike; and to maintain picket lines for the purposes sanctioned by law; and by use of the foregoing to use the economic pressures of their collective action in bargaining with management. A necessary corrolary to this is the right of management to organize into multi-unit associations for the purpose of using the economic pressure of their collective action for the purpose of bargaining with labor. See McKinley v. Calif. Emp. Comm., supra; Betts, Cadillac, Olds, et al. v. Intl. Ass’n of Machinists, CCH, NLRB — Decisions 1950-51, par. 11, 109. It should be borne in mind that the decision in the instant case would have no application where the dispute or disagreement is with only one employer of a group. Therefore, defendants’ apprehension of its encouraging or causing spread of work stoppage throughout whole industries is not justified. This would not occur unless one side or the other, for pressure, reprisal or other purpose, broadened the dispute to the extent it could properly be considered as involving the whole industry. Here the whole industry was already involved from the beginning and at all times.
In these controversies where we have workers represented by their unions arrayed on one side against management in multi-union bargaining organizations on the other, if we are to give effect to the legislative purpose and intent, the problem simmers down to: Whose conduct is really responsible for the work stoppage? Answering this question may have its difficulties but it seems to be the only logical means of getting at the heart of the matter and resolving the conflict.
Any such rule must be uniformly applied. It cannot be so used as to favor either labor or management, not only because justice requires the application of the rules fairly *544and impartially to both sides, but also because, in recurring disputes, labor and management find themselves on opposite sides of this same controversy. Fortunately for our guidance, experience in our sister state of California, has preceded ours.
In the case of Bunny’s Waffle Shop v. Cal. Emp. Com., 24 Cal. 2d 735, 151 P. 2d 224, the employers had demanded. collective bargaining with their newly formed association; this was refused by the unions; there was not literal shutdown or lockout, but the employers reduced wages 25%, ordered split shifts, and a six-day week instead of five to force the unions to bargain with them collectively. The employees refused to accede to these demands and collectively withheld their services, which conduct would have fallen within the literal definition of the word “strike”. And it was plausibly argued that it was such. The Commission went below the surface of this collective withholding of services which had the semblance of a strike and recognized that the employers were the first to use their economic pressure in the controversy, saying:
“The economic weapon * * * was created by the employers * * * and it alone, rather than the trade dispute that occasioned it, was the cause of the leaving- of work. * * *”
The California Supreme Court affirmed the Commission’s holding, basing it upon the fact that the employers were primarily responsible for the work stoppage by initiating the use of the economic weapon in the controversy, because of which fact the employees could not be properly charged with being on strike, and allowed them unemployment compensation benefits.
The reverse of that situation then occurred later in the case of McKinley v. Cal. Emp. Com., supra, as discussed in the main opinion. When the dispute arose, the unions struck only one bakery of the employer group. The employers retaliated by using their collective economic pressure, shutting down all the other bakeries. The employees *545contended that they were ready and willing to work in the plants until they were locked out and were thus entitled to compensation. As in the instant case, there was no dispute or difficulty with that plant solely, but the dispute was with all of the employers, and the strike was obviously for the purpose of obtaining a new contract with all of them favorable to the entire group of employees. The majority of the California Supreme Court held, in accordance with the principle of the Bunny’s Waffle Shop case above referred to, that the party to first use the weapon of its economic pressure against the other side was the one chargeable with the responsibility for the work stoppage. The court said at page 605 of 209 P. 2d:
“It seems clear that under such industry-wide, single contract negotiation, economic action by either side, whether strike or lockout, would be considered by each of the parties as action against the entire group struck or locked out.”
Consideration of these two California cases emphasizes the fact that where a multi-unit employer group is bound together to bargain collectively with labor unions, if a work stoppage is brought about by action of the employers in putting economic pressure on the employees, the latter are eligible for unemployment compensation benefits; if a work stoppage occurs as a result of a strike by any of the employees for the benefit of all, aimed at all of the employers, then all of the employees are ineligible.
I think that principle is sound and should be squarely approved by us so that both labor and management will know that he who first resorts to the use of work stoppage as a means of putting on economic pressure to settle a dispute will be chargeable with the responsibility of having done so.
Thus, the critical fact to be determined is whether the conduct of labor or management is the primary and initiating cause of the work stoppage, or as phrased by Mr. Justice Schauer in the McKinley case:
*546“* * * it was proper to relate responsibility for the work stoppage to the party who created its actual and directly impelling cause.”
That brings us down to the “brass tacks” of the situation in this case. There is no dispute about the fact that claimants were all members of the Six Basic Craft Unions and that the Building Trades Council was their collective bargaining representative; that they all belonged to the “grade, class, or group” of workers whose wages were being bargained for. We thus have the Building Trades Council, representing the entire group of workers of all of these employers, aligned on one side of the controversy, and on the other side were all 75 members of A. G. C. who were also bound together as a collective bargaining unit; the Unions and the Association had established a long practice of bargaining as a unit; the 1949 contract between them was still in force at the time of the strike; by its terms the employees as a group had agreed to bargain collectively with the A. G. C. representing all of the employers. The only dispute and the only negotiation between the parties was in regard to the wage scale for the entire group of workers and against the entire group of employers. There was no separate demand made, no dispute existed, and no separate negotiation was carried on or proposed with the Barker and Paul firms (the ones picketed). Even after the strike was called, negotiations were continued between the Building Trades Council and the A. G. C. as a group.
Under the circumstances here shown, it is indisputable that, although this strike and picketing was actually carried on against two firms only, it was authorized by the Union as an economic weapon to put pressure on all of the employers for the benefit of all of the employees with respect to negotiation of the master contract.
Mr. Roberts, Secretary of the Building Trades Council, testified:
“Q. Did any of the business agents * * * advise the workers —other than the Barker and Paul workers not to report to work after *547June 1st? A. On the contrary, they were definitely instructed to keep the men working — outside of those two jobs — until the strategy committees recommended further action.”
And he further answered:
«* * * j think it was their [the Union’s] intention to go on to and picket other jobs if they thought .the occasion would warrant it to get the contractors lined up.” (Empasis added.)
In accordance with the foregoing candid statement is the argument of the A. F. of L. to this court that although the action was by the unions collectively and against all of the employers, the claimants are not disqualified. Its position, as stated in its brief in their behalf, is that they are entitled to compensation even if the unions:
“* * * intended to assess the members of their respective unions, remaining at work and thus contribute supplementary benefits to the unemployment compensation benefit to the strikers; * * * or may have intended to pick off one employer at a time; or may have intended to divide the employers; or may have intended to soften the demands on their treasuries^ * * *.”
Claimants stress the contention that they are disqualified only if the
“* * * unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a strike involving his grade, class, or group of workers at the factory or establishment at which he is or was last employed.” (Italics added.)
The words “at the factory or establishment” were used in the statute before, and undoubtedly without any contemplation of industry wide bargaining, for the purpose of tying: the disqualification down to the group of workers actually involved in the strike.
This court has said in Members of Iron Workers Union v. Ind. Comm., 104 Utah 242, 139 P. 2d 208, 213:
“It is not only those who foment the strike or bring it about who. are ineligible, but the group to which such persons belong — however inclusive — the group for whose benefit the strike is called.”
*548Once the entire group of employers, A. G. C., became bound in a contract for collective bargaining with the entire group of employees (Six Basic Crafts), then these two groups, insofar as their relationship to each other concerning bargaining for wages, hours and work conditions under the master contract was concerned, became as single units, one group to deal collectively with the other group. That is the negotiation which was being carried on and with respect to which the dispute arose which gave rise to the work stoppage we are concerned with. It is clear beyond doubt that the Union was the collective bargaining representative of these claimants; that it authorized and ordered this strike against the two employers as an economic weapon against all of the employers to force a wage increase for all of the workmen in the Six Basic Crafts; that the claimants were members of the “grade, class or group” for whom the strike was called; that the strike was attended by success and that the claimants benefited therefrom along with the striking employees and all other workmen employed by the A. G. C.
Inasmuch as claimants were members of the “grade, class or group” for whose benefits the strike was called: they were involved in the strike, and being so, they were involved wherever they were situated, including in their own plants or establishments; and are, therefore, ineligible for benefits.
I concur in reversing the order of the Commission.