Court Opinion

ID: 9663567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:42:53.912968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:51.984556
License: Public Domain

Murphy, Justice
(dissenting).
In Nordling v. Ford Motor Co. 231 Minn. 68, 42 N. W. (2d) 576, 28 A. L. R. (2d) 272, we held that whether a unit of employment is a separate establishment within the meaning of the disqualifying provision of the employment security law must be determined on the basis of all the facts relating to the relationship of the employee to the unit of employment. In the case before us the relator operated 25 supermarkets in the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nine of these were in the city of Minneapolis, and 16 in the city of St. Paul. While the employees of the Minneapolis stores had authority to go on strike, the fact remains that the employees of only two of the stores, by their voluntary action, did strike. The employees of the *510remaining stores remained at work. After the employees of the two stores struck, the relator locked out the employees of the remaining seven stores in the Minneapolis area. It seems to me that the record supports the finding of the appeal tribunal that the strike at the two supermarkets in question did not interfere with or impair the operation of the relator at its other places of business.
While there was an integration of the employer’s organization and operations with respect to upper-level executive supervision of the various supermarkets, as well as the purchasing of merchandise, advertising, accounting, and certain other operational matters, this integration of the overall operation did not reach down to the separate supermarkets at which the claimants were employed so as to interfere or prevent the continuous operation of the stores at which the strike was not in progress. It appears that the seven supermarkets in Minneapolis which were closed by lockout derived their top-level supervision and general merchandise from the merchandising department in St. Paul, the same .source from which the 16 supermarkets operating in the St. Paul area received their general supervision and merchandise. Furthermore, it appears that the nine supermarkets in Minneapolis were located anywhere from several blocks to several miles apart, and the operation of any one of the seven supermarkets closed because of the lockout was in no way dependent upon the continuous operation of either of the struck markets, as each supermarket in the Minneapolis area was operated independently of the others. It seems to me that in the case before us the record supports the finding of the appeal tribunal that each supermarket was substantially operated as a separate business unit and was not so “functionally integrated” or “synchronized” with the other supermarkets as to require that they all be considered part of the same establishment. The term “establishment” as applied to the facts in this case should mean the premises where the claimant was last employed and where his labor was performed and does not refer to each place of business which the employer conducts in its operations.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Loevinger, Justice (dissenting).
I concur in the dissent of Mr. Justice Murphy.