Badgett v. Department of Industrial Relations

• Decision Date: 07 April 1942
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 672.
• Citation: 30 Ala.App. 457,10 So.2d 872
• Parties: BADGETT v. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

10 So.2d 872

30 Ala.App. 457

BADGETT v. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS.

7 Div. 672.

Alabama Court of Appeals

April 7, 1942

Rehearing Denied April 21, 1942.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Calhoun County; Lamar Field Judge.

Certiorari denied by Supreme Court in Badgett v. Department of Industrial Relations, 10 So.2d 880.

RICE Judge, dissenting.

Ling & Bains and Edw. A. Ling, all of Bessemer, and Isadore Katz and David Jaffe, both of New York City, for appellant.

Knox Liles, Jones & Blackmon, of Anniston, and Frank R Broadway and J. Eugene Foster, both of Montgomery, for appellee.

BRICKEN Presiding Judge.

For the reasons stated in the respective opinions by the writer, and by Associate Judge Simpson, the judgment of the lower court from which this appeal was taken is affirmed.

Associate Judge Rice dissents and expresses his views in his opinion attached hereto.

For convenience reference will be had to the two labor organizations involved in this case, as the C. I. O. and the A. F. of L.

As appears of record Utica Knitting Mills, is a textile industry, the only textile industry of its kind in Calhoun County, Alabama. It employs some 400 employees.

On September 24, 1938, the National Labor Relations Board certified the C. I. O. as the collective bargaining agency for all employees at said mill, and it continued as such bargaining agency until the controversy hereinafter referred to. On December 31, 1940, the C. I. O. and Utica Knitting Mills entered into a "closed shop" agreement, which required all employees of the Mill to be members of the C. I. O. and pay their dues regularly, when the same were due.

The appellant, Mrs. Lillie Mae Badgett, a member of the C. I. O. voted for the closed shop contract when it was presented to the C. I. O.

Shortly after the closed shop contract was entered into the A. F. of L. protested against the closed shop agreement, claiming that it was unfair to the A. F. of L. To give emphasis to its protest, it called a strike because of that contract and established a picket line around the Mill and by force, or display of force, kept appellant, and other employees from entering the Mill. This resulted in appellant and others being unable to work for a period of time. The members of the C. I. O. who were prevented from performing work for said period, filed claims for unemployment insurance benefits. The claims were denied.

It was agreed that appellant was entitled to recover, unless she was disqualified under Section 214, subd. A, Title 26, Alabama Code 1940, which reads as follows:

"A. For any week in which his total or partial unemployment is directly due to a labor dispute still in active progress in the establishment in which he is or was last employed; for the purposes of this section only, the term 'labor dispute' includes any controversy concerning terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. This definition shall not relate to a dispute between an individual worker and his employer."

This is a test case of all other claims filed. The appeal in this case, is from the judgment of the trial court that heard the matter de novo, in which the ruling was that appellant could not recover because her unemployment for the period stated was directly due to a labor dispute.

Appellant insists that this case is ruled by the Drummond case, Department of Industrial Relations v. Drummond, Ala. App., 1 So.2d 395, 398, certiorari denied 241 Ala. 142, 1 So.2d 402, wherein this court said: "The Legislature never intended that one, who has purchased his protection against involuntary unemployment, should be denied those benefits because of a 'labor dispute' in which he was in no way involved and the causes of which unemployment he, his agents or organization were powerless to avert."

Appellee insists that the case is within the rule laid down in the Pesnell case, Department of Industrial Relations v. Pesnell, 29 Ala.App. 528, 199 So. 720; in which we held in substance, that if the individual or the organization to which he belonged was responsible for the enforced idleness, the individual was not entitled to benefits under the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Law, and that the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Act was amended after the facts in the Drummond case, supra, arose, in express language, excludes the appellant from unemployment benefits.

As stated, it is conceded that appellant is not entitled to recover if her unemployment was directly due to a labor dispute. By reference to the Statute quoted, we find a "labor dispute" includes "any controversy concerning terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee." The appellant insists, "there can be no escape from the proposition, therefore, that disqualification under the labor dispute provision obtains only when the dispute is brought about by the claimant or his union. If the claimant or his union are in no disagreement with the employer, and engaged in no concerted action to leave work, then insurance is payable no matter what may have been the cause of the unemployment."

We think able counsel for the appellant overlooked the fact that the Drummond case arose prior to the 1939 amendment of the Alabama Unemployment Compensation Act. Prior to September 21, 1939, our Unemployment Compensation Act did not give a definition of a labor dispute; however, on September 21, 1939, the Legislature enacted a Statute defining a labor dispute. This Statute was carried forward into the Code of 1940. It is plausibly argued or suggested that the Statute was enacted to overturn the rule announced in the Drummond case. We do not find that the Legislature so intended. What we do find is that plain, unambiguous language of the Statute, which needs no interpretation and furnishes no field for the operation of rules of construction, says that an individual shall be disqualified for benefits, if the unemployment was directly due to a labor dispute, and in defining a labor dispute, in most comprehensive terms, the Legislature did not exclude a dispute of the kind in question. It is not believed that this court has any authority to do so.

The record in this case discloses that the appellant and her Union voted for the closed shop agreement with the management of Utica Knitting Mills. The appellant's Union passed out cards in the Mill, following the execution of the closed shop contract, to all workers who were nonmembers of appellant's Union, informing them that each would have to pay dues of $1.00 per month to the C. I. O., whether they wanted to or not. The purpose or intention of the closed shop contract was to exclude all persons from employment at the Mill who failed or refused to pay the $1.00 a month dues to the C. I. O. It is clear that the C. I. O. and the management were under the impression that they had a right to enter into a contract of that kind, and that the C. I. O. was insisting on its enforcement to the letter. It was endeavoring to rid the Mill of every employee who would not contribute $1.00 per month to its treasury, and to bar every one from employment at the Mill until the monthly dues were paid.

It is likewise convincingly clear that the appellant voted for this arrangement, and that her bargaining agent was insisting upon full compliance with the contract on the part of the management, with her knowledge and approval.

In such circumstances, it is difficult for us to reach the conclusion that appellant was unemployed through no fault of her own.

We lay aside, for the present, the contention that she, and her Union were attempting to annihilate the A. F. of L. Union at the Utica Knitting Mills. She and her Union were attempting to do more than that. They were attempting to monopolize the textile labor market in Calhoun County, Alabama.

As was said by Vice-Chancellor Backes, in LeHigh Structural Steel Co. v. Atlantic Smelting & Refining Works, 92 N. J. Eq. 131, 111 A. 376-378: "The principle of the closed shop, i.e., the monopolization of the labor market, has found no judicial sponsor. In whatever form organized labor has asserted it, whether to the injury of employer, or to labor, or to labor unions outside of the fold, the judiciary of the country has responded, uniformly, that it is inimical to the freedom of individual pursuit guaranteed by the fundamental law of the land, and contravenes public policy." Upholsterers' C. & L. M. I. Union, Local No. 76, New Jersey Section, et al. v. Essex Reed & Fibre Co. et al., 174 A. 207, 12 N.J.Misc. 637.

In Polk et al. v. Cleveland R. Co., 20 Ohio App. 317, 151 N.E. 808, 810, decided by the Court of Appeals of Ohio, it appears that Local Union No. 268 of the Amalagamated Association of Street & Electric Railway Employees of America entered into a closed shop contract with the street car company, which was the only operator of city street railway lines in the City of Cleveland. When the validity of that contract was considered, the court said:

"The first question confronting us is as to the legality of the contract involved herein. If it is a contract void against public policy, no court should allow itself to be made the instrument to enforce its obligations or to consummate an end that the policy of our law forbids.

"Contracts that are illegal and against public...