Court Opinion

ID: 9685954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:10:51.889057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:11.848864
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, J.
(dissenting). I can agree with the majority that forcing the claimant to make a choice between his religion and his job ought not to be countenanced. He was a trusted and responsible employee for the past 27 years. He was a union member for many years before he changed his religious affiliation. No one questions the sincerity of his objections to union membership based on *126his religious convictions. The claimant has a right to the free exercise of his religion which has been infringed upon, under the facts of this case. But the remedy available to him is not a claim for unemployment compensation against his employer.
The majority holds that the claimant did not voluntarily quit his employment because he had a good excuse —his religious objection to paying union dues. Others might have the same objection for other reasons. Would the majority deny compensation to a member of a religion which did not prohibit the payment of union dues as a tenent of the faith, notwithstanding that his conviction was just as firm and as sincere as the claimant’s? I see no difference in principle. In fact, to allow compensation in the first case and to deny it in the other would amount to an establishment of a religion, prohibited by the same provisions of our state and federal constitutions which grant the right of free exercise of our religious beliefs.
The claimant’s reason for terminating his employment was personal to him. Therefore, he voluntarily quit when he chose to follow the mandate of his conscience rather than honor the union security clause of the collective bargaining contract, as the union insisted he should.
Perhaps the majority means to hold that the claimant terminated his employment with good cause attributable to his employing unit. But it was the union, not the company, which insisted on enforcing the union security clause. What else could the employer do? The company suggested alternatives and the union would not agree. Does the majority want the company to repudiate a valid collective bargaining agreement by refusing to honor one of its terms? Must the company expose itself to an unfair labor practice charge? Is it required to represent the claimant in a dispute with the union, which is organized to assert his interests as to pay and conditions of employment against the company? Such a course *127would hardly be conducive to labor peace in which there is a compelling state interest.
In Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977), the United States Supreme Court held that enforcement of a seniority provision did not violate the Federal Civil Rights Act, even though it had the effect of forcing a worker to choose between his job and his religious beliefs which prohibited him from working on Saturdays. The court noted that national labor policy favored collective bargaining agreements. Our state policy is just as strongly in favor of collective bargaining. The claimant objects to collective bargaining on religious grounds. That is his right, but he is not entitled to unemployment compensation when he leaves his employment because he refuses to be a part of a collective bargaining unit.
The majority refuses to recognize the expertise of the commission because the commission did not consider the Federal Civil Rights Act. Understandably so, because the federal act has no application to the payment of unemployment compensation benefits under Wisconsin law. The remedy for a violation of the federal act is a federal action brought in federal court, as the claimant has done. According to the majority, the claimant has recovered judgment in his federal action. The majority apparently wants to grant him a double recovery by allowing unemployment compensation benefits in addition to the federal court judgment. I can discover nothing in the federal act or the cases cited to us which show congressional intent to require the states to enforce this law as part of their unemployment compensation proceedings.
The purpose of unemployment compensation is not to exact a penalty from an employer whose good-faith dealings with a union result in hardship to an employee who can be compensated under federal law. The commission correctly applied the policy of our state law which *128was the only relevant policy to be applied. A claimant who has terminated his employment because of his religious convictions should not have a claim for unemployment compensation unless he can show that his employer, for no legitimate reason, forced him to choose between his conscience and his job. In this case the employer was not at fault. I would affirm. I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Beilfuss and Mr. Justice Connor T. Hansen join in this dissent.