Court Opinion

ID: 9689984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:51:00.722508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.082089
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
(concurring). I join in the majority decision and its analysis. I also agree with the dissent that the actions of the Patrick Cudahy management on December 25, 1986 were not in the Christmas spirit. That, however, is not the issue before this court. The issue before this court is whether Trinwith and his coworkers were kept from working because of a “lockout.” The legislature has defined “lockout” to mean “the barring of one or more employes from their employment in an establishment as part of a labor dispute_” Sec. 108.04(10)(d), Stats. The reduction of wages, as odious as it was to Trinwith and his coworkers, was not a “barring.”
As the majority decision notes, the Minnesota case upon which the dissent relies interpreted a statute that *647defines “lockout” differently than does the Wisconsin statute. "Majority opinion at 643-44. The Minnesota statute defines "lockout" as "the refusal of the employer to furnish work to employees as a result of a labor dispute." Minn. Stat. sec. 179.01, subd. 9 (1980). The Supreme Court of Minnesota held that under this definition a "unilateral imposition by an employer of employment terms so unreasonable that the employees have no alternative but to leave constitutes a lockout." Sunstar Foods, Inc. v. Uhlendorf, 310 N.W.2d 80, 83 (Minn. 1981). The Minnesota Supreme Court recognized that whether there was a lockout was "a question of fact" to be decided by the Commissioner of the Department of Economic Security from all of the facts of record. Id. at 83. The Commissioner's finding would be upheld if it was "supported by substantial evidence" in the record, and it was not "affected by an error of law" or "arbitrary and capricious." Id. at 84. Applying that standard of review, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the Commissioner "could have determined on this record that wage cuts of 21-26 percent unilaterally imposed by the employer were such an unreasonable condition of employment that the employees had no alternative but to leave...." Id. at 85.
Unemployment compensation is a creation of the legislature and not the courts. The Wisconsin legislature has determined the prerequisites to receipt of unemployment compensation in this state. The dissent would have the Wisconsin statute mean the same as Minnesota’s differently worded statute has been interpreted by the Minnesota Supreme Court. In effect, the dissent would rewrite the Wisconsin statute to provide unemployment compensation where a wage reduction is "harsh and unreasonable," dissent at pages 651-54, regardless of whether it is economically justified (an *648issue the dissent does not address). The legislature, however, has established a different standard, which we must obey.
Courts do the law a significant injustice when they assume the legislative prerogative. As Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, then Chief Judge of New York, warned almost sixty years ago:
A community whose judges would be willing to give it whatever law might gratify the impulse of the moment would find in the end that it had paid too high a price for relieving itself of the bother of awaiting a session of the Legislature and the enactment of a statute in accordance with established forms.
Doyle v. Hofstader, 177 N.E. 489, 498 (N.Y. 1931).
The issue of whether the wage rate reduction was an unfair labor practice is currently pending before the National Labor Relations Board. If the NLRB determines that Patrick Cudahy is guilty of an unfair labor practice, it is empowered to fashion an appropriate remedy. The reduction of wages, however, is not a “barring” and, accordingly, by statute, is not a “lockout.” See Sec. 108.04(10)(d), Stats.