Court Opinion

ID: 9695409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:18:56.269606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:12.085155
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). The minority opinion of Chrysler Corporation v. Smith, 297 Mich 438, 135 ALR, 900), later to become law (Park v. Employment Security Commission, 355 Mich 103), agreed with then Circuit Judge Carr (p 469) : 1
“It is our conclusion from the foregoing that the several plants of appellant Chrysler Corporation must be held to be separate establishments within the meaning of our statute, and in this determination we concur with the conclusion of the referee, the appeal board, and Judge Carr, who affirmed their decisions.”
The essence of Judge Carr’s Chrysler Case opinion appears on page 118 of Park’s report. The conclusion finally reached by that eminent jurist was that “plaintiff’s [Chrysler] different plants must be regarded as separate establishments insofar as the application of section 29, subd (d)  is concerned."  *144As in Park (140 and again a't 151), I agree unreservedly with Judge Carr’s view and application of said section 29(d), and therefore look upon Park as precedentially controlling of this appeal.
I gather from my Brother Dethmers’ opinion that he would agree with such controlling application of Park were it not for paragraph (118) of the national contract4 which had been agreed upon between the plaintiff employer and the union representing CMC employees. Justice Dethmers concludes, that provision considered, that it controls to exclusion of Park’s rule. At this point our membership parts melodious company.
If appellants Stinson et al were otherwise possessed of right to unemployment benefits as claimed, and they were as all directly or tacitly concede, they did not waive that right. They could not. The first paragraph of section 31 of the statute, in effect when the currently considered rights of appellants Stinson et al accrued, read as follows (CL 1948, § 421.31 [Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.533]):
“Sec. 31. * * * No agreement by an individual to waive, release, or commute his rights to benefits or any other rights under this act from an employer shall be valid. No agreements by an individual in the employ of any person or concern to pay all or any portion of the contributions of an employer, required under this act from such employer, shall be valid. No employer shall directly or indirectly make or require or accept any deduction from the remuneration of any individual in his employ to finance the contributions of the employer required from him, or re*145quire or accept any waiver of any right hereunder by any individual in his employ.”
As against this statutory provision paragraph (118) cannot prevail in bar of benefits as claimed. See General Motors Corporation v. Mulquin, 134 Conn 118 (55 A2d 732), where the same contractual stipulation (designated in that case as section 131) was tendered by General Motors, as against a statutory provision corresponding fully with section 31 above, in support of an affirmative answer to the second question considered by the court. Such second question was (p 124):
“2. Did the commissioners err in holding that section 131 of the agreement of April 16, 1945, between General Motors Corporation and the International is void as contrary to and prohibited by section 1346 e (a) of the 1939 cumulative supplement?" 
The court concluded (p 133):
“As to the second [question], our answer is that if it was within the contemplation of the parties that section 131 of their agreement would prevent the award of unemployment benefits to the employees, the section is, to that extent at least, void and ineffective.”
Since I find myself in agreement with the cited Connecticut case, it is due the circuit judge below to say that he reached judgment relying partly upon the majority opinion of I. M. Dach Underwear Company v. Employment Security Commission, 347 Mich 465, 479, 480. 6 Dach, however, never fully accepted *146here, has come to express overrulement. See Michigan Employment Security Commission v. Vulcan Forging Co., 375 Mich 374.
The final question is stated appropriately by the attorney general:
“Does the supremacy clause of article 6 of the Federal Constitution validate a provision of a collective bargaining agreement which is illegal under a State unemployment compensation law?”
The attorney general, opposing plaintiff-appellee as regards such question, stands for a negative answer. He alleges a commonplace, that “the State alone may allow or deny unemployment compensation benefits, and may do so only in accordance with the State law establishing and governing the same”, and proceeds to distinguish Local 24 of I. B. of T. C., W. & H. v. Oliver, 358 US 283 (79 S Ct 297, 3 L ed 2d 312) (the foremost authority cited by plaintiffappellee to the point of overriding Federal supremacy  ) on ground that the goal of Federal labor policy, as expressed in the National labor relations act  (see Oliver at 295, 296), is in no manner inconsistent with that uniform policy of the States which prohibits agreement “by an individual” to waive or commute payment of unemployment compensation in any instance where such compensation is otherwise lawfully payable to such individual. 9 With his reasoning I agree.
*147By the broadly purposed social security act of 1935,  Congress induced the States to enact their unemployment compensation laws. See footnote 2, Unemployment Compensation Commission of Alaska v. Aragon, 329 US 143, 145 (67 S Ct 245, 91 L ed 136). The policy of social security is as strong if not stronger than that of promotion—by congressional legislation—of collective bargaining and the ordering of industrial relations to minimize industrial strife. The two are consistent as well as socially beneficial. Both may be enforced, compatibly in today’s context, by any State which, utilizing the specific likeness of said section 31, has prohibited agreements to waive unemployment benefits.
Since as applied here the Federal policies of social security, effected in part by State-enacted unemployment insurance, and of enforced collective bargaining to reduce industrial strife, are concordant rather than collusive, both stand without offense to the supremacy clause. The Oliver Case, as I read it, applies only when a State law, if given effect in a specific situation, “would wholly defeat the full realization of the congressional purpose.” (Oliver at 295, 296). No such defeat of congressional purpose, by section 31’s outlawing of the construction General Motors claims for paragraph (118), has been made to appear.11
*148No other question calls for discussion. The circuit court’s judgment, entered upon certiorari to the appeal board, should be reversed with remand for entry of order upholding these claims as filed. Appellants should have costs of both courts.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., concurred with Black, J.
Souris, Smith, and Adams, JJ., did not sit.

 Judge Carr subsequently became an Associate and thereafter Chief Justice of this Court. See 312 Mich iii and 372 Mich iii.

 “(118) The union has requested this national agreement in place of independent agreements for each bargaining unit covered thereby. Accordingly an authorized strike in one bargaining unit under this agreement which results in an interruption of the flow of material or services to operations in any other bargaining unit under this agreement, will be considered an authorized strike in any such affected bargaining unit.”

 Judge Anderson said, in his opinion:
“It lias been determined that an agreement, voluntarily entered into between employer and employee, covering a lawful subject of collective bargaining, is not an agreement to waive benefits even *146though the agreement may have a collateral effect on the employment status of the individual and result in disqualifying from benefits certain employees who otherwise would be entitled thereto. This court finds no rational basis for distinction between the present case and that of I. M. Dach Underwear Company v. Employment Security Commission, 347 Mich 465. The referee and the appeal board both found that the agreement was not void under section 31 of the act. Their finding was correct in faet and in law, and there is no basis for reversing such finding.”

 All 50 of the States, and Puerto Rico, have included in their *147respective unemployment compensation laws nonwaiver provisions which either duplicate section 31 or are set forth in the same specific essence. This information appears in the Unemployment Insurance Reporter, Vols. 1B through 10, published by Commerce Clearing House.

 This view of the Oliver Case finds support in the Supreme Court’s most reeent reference thereto. See this concluding passage, written in the corresponding tenor of United Mine Workers of America v. Pennington, 381 US 657, at 665 (85 S Ct 1585, 1591; 14 L ed 2d 626, 633):
“But there are limits to what a union or an employer may offer or extract in the name of wages, and because they must bargain does not mean that the agreement reached may disregard other laws. Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 US 283, 296 (79 S Ct 297, 3 L ed 2d 347). *148Brotherhood of Carpenters v. United States, 330 US 395, 399, 400 (67 S Ct 775, 91 L ed 973).”