Court Opinion

ID: 9687953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:54:57.974344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:33.675630
License: Public Domain

*289Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting in part). The majority here holds that a management decision to replace its pickle picking employees with pickle picking machines did not relate to the “terms and conditions of employment of such employees,” 1 and was, therefore, not bargainable, although the “effects” of such decision did and are. It relies on the Fibreboard Case 2 in so doing. Fibreboard held that a management decision to replace employees with those of an independent contractor to do the same work, did relate to “terms and conditions of employment” and was subject to the duty to bargain collectively. So the majority of our court makes a distinction between the replacement of a worker by another person and his replacement by a machine. The writer sees no basis for such distinction. In both cases the worker is out of his job, and a someone or something else has taken his place. The impact upon his wages, hours and working conditions is exactly the same in both situations. They are gone.
While the majority opinion in Fibreboard does not reach nor discuss what difference it would have made if the Fibreboard employees had been replaced by machines, instead of by employees of independent contractors, the writer does not see why the definition of “terms and conditions of employment” should vary according to the nature of the replacement. Whether the jobs are lost to men or machines should not change the recognition of the fact that the conditions and terms of employment are affected by the very fact of the replacement.
The majority here appears to take from the concurring, not the majority, opinion in Fibreboard the conclusion that “The test is . . . whether the decision was one which changed the basic direction of the company’s ac*290tivities.” If so, the meaning, as well as the emphasis, changed in the paraphrasing. The three concurring justices in Fibreboard stated it this way: “. . . those management decisions which are fundamental to the basic direction of a corporate enterprise or which impinge only indirectly upon employment security should be excluded from that area [of collective bargaining].” This writer would accept the “fundamental to the basic direction . . . or impinging only indirectly upon employment security” test as suggested in the Fibreboard concurring opinion in determining whether management decisions to replace present employees by either machines or other workers affect the terms and conditions of employment so as to be subject to collective bargaining.

 See. 111.02 (5), Stats.

 Fibreboard Corp. v. Labor Board (1964), 379 U. S. 203, 85 Sup. Ct. 398, 13 L. Ed. 2d 233.