Baker v. General Motors Corp.
| Citation | 297 N.W.2d 387,409 Mich. 639 |
| Decision Date | 16 October 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 8,Docket Nos. 59861-59863,8 |
| Parties | A. G. BAKER, Jr., and L. R. Fondren et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendants-Appellees. Kenneth R. COLLIER and Johnny S. Robinson et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendants-Appellees. Robert J. SEIDELL and John F. Schaeffer et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, and Michigan Employment Security Commission, Defendants-Appellees. Calendar |
| Court | Supreme Court of Michigan |
John A. Fillion, Jordan Rossen, M. Jay Whitman, by; Jordan Rossen, Detroit, Marston, Sachs, Nunn, Kates, Kadushin & O'Hare, P.C. by; Charles Looman, Flint, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Otis M. Smith Gen. Counsel, Detroit by, J. R. Wheatley, Detroit, for defendant-appellee, General Motors Corp.; E. L. Hartwig, E. J. Dilworth, J. R. Wheatley, W. B. Rogers, W. R. Tucker, M. J. Connolly, M. Alice McCann, Detroit, of counsel.
Rudolph L. Milasich, Jr., Carl B. Frankel, Pittsburgh, Pa., Irwin J. Kasoff, Kasoff, Young, Gottesman, Kovinsky & Walkon, Southfield, for amicus curiae, United Steelworkers of America; Bernard Kleiman, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
The issue in this case is whether the payment by union members of temporarily increased "emergency dues," authorized by an amendment to the union constitution, required as a condition of union membership and collected in designated amounts as part of the members' monthly dues, into a union strike fund during an ongoing national strike against another employer, disqualifies those members from receiving unemployment compensation benefits when they subsequently become unemployed because local issues strikes in other establishments operated by their employer result in layoffs at the members' own establishments, and when the local issue strikers at the other establishments receive strike benefits from the fund into which the "emergency dues" were paid.
Plaintiffs are members of a national union representing workers in the automobile industry and were employed at General Motors plants in Michigan in early 1968. When plaintiffs were laid off in the wake of local strikes at other GM plants, their eligibility for unemployment benefits was contested because of certain dues payments they had made to their union strike fund several months before, in the midst of a national strike against Ford Motor Company.
This controversy arises under the labor dispute disqualification provision of the Michigan Employment Security Act, 1 subsection 29(8), 2 which, at the time, provided in pertinent part:
1967 PA. 254. 3 The application of subsection 29(8) to the facts of this case potentially raises three connected questions:
(1) Was plaintiffs' unemployment "due to" labor disputes in active progress at other establishments operated within the United States by the same employing unit and functionally integrated with the establishments where plaintiffs were employed?
(2) If so, were plaintiffs' emergency dues payments to the strike fund sufficiently connected with the labor disputes which caused their unemployment to constitute "financing" of those labor disputes unless excepted by the terms of subparagraph 29(8)(a)(II)?
(3) If so, are plaintiffs' temporary emergency dues payments excepted from the category of "financing" because they were "regular union dues (in amounts and for purposes established prior to the inception of such labor dispute)"?
We conclude that plaintiffs' unemployment was due to labor disputes in active progress at functionally integrated domestic GM plants. The basic disqualification provision of subsection 29(8) disqualifies an individual whose unemployment is claimed to result from a labor dispute if that labor dispute is shown to be a substantial contributing cause of his or her unemployment. While the Legislature did not intend to withhold benefits from individuals who would have been unemployed even if an apparently related labor dispute had not occurred, the dispute need not be the sole cause of the unemployment.
Before considering whether the emergency dues payments may be regarded as having financed the labor disputes that caused plaintiffs' unemployment, we seek to determine whether those payments are specifically exempted from treatment as financing by the second sentence of subparagraph 29(8)(a)(II). We agree with the Court of Appeals, 74 Mich.App. 237, 254 N.W.2d 45, that that provision requires union dues to satisfy two conditions in order to be exempted as a matter of law from possible classification as financing a labor dispute: the dues must be (1) regular and (2) in amounts and for purposes established prior to the inception of the labor dispute that caused the claimant's unemployment.
We further agree with the Court of Appeals that the temporary emergency dues paid by UAW members in October and November, 1967 were not "regular" but extraordinary. The Legislature chose the term "regular" to exclude from possible treatment as financing those dues payments required uniformly of union members and collected on a continuing basis without fluctuations prompted by the exigencies of a particular labor dispute or disputes. The payments in question, enacted as a temporary emergency measure to build the union strike fund in the midst of a national strike against Ford Motor Company, cannot properly be described as "regular." We therefore need not decide whether the emergency dues were established "prior to the inception of (the) labor dispute."
The referee, the appeal board and the Court of Appeals all implicitly assumed that unless the emergency dues payments fell within the specific exemption for "regular union dues (in amounts and for purposes established prior to the inception of such labor dispute)" the payments would constitute financing because the union strike fund had paid strike benefits to workers involved in the labor disputes that caused plaintiffs' unemployment.
The determination that the emergency dues payments are not exempted from treatment as financing by the second sentence of subparagraph 29(8)(a)(II) does not, however, require the conclusion that plaintiffs financed the local labor disputes which caused their unemployment.
Since the appeal board, the tribunal with the most experience and expertise in the application of the act, did not discuss the meaning of "financing", we remand this matter to the board's successor for further explication of the term "financing."
In supplemental briefs filed after oral argument, the parties have addressed the question whether federal labor policy prohibits a state from disqualifying union members for unemployment compensation benefits because they have made required payments into a union's general strike fund. We do not decide whether the federal labor law preempts the application of the "financing" disqualification of the Employment Security Act because the construction given the term "financing" after remand may make it unnecessary to address the federal preemption issues.
We retain jurisdiction.
Every three years the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America and the three major automakers (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) negotiate new national collective bargaining agreements. This case has its roots in events contemporaneous with and subsequent to the 1967 automobile industry contract negotiations.
In June, 1967, the UAW notified each of the three major automakers by letter of its intent to terminate all national and local collective bargaining agreements when they expired on September 6, 1967. GM and the UAW began negotiations toward a new national agreement on July 15, 1967.
In a vote taken during the latter part of August, the UAW's GM membership authorized strikes, if necessary, on national and local issues. However, the expiration of the agreements did not immediately result in strikes at GM plants because Ford, not GM, was selected as the strike target for that year.
On October 8, 1967, while a nationwide UAW strike against Ford was in progress, a special UAW convention amended article 16 of the union's constitution to provide for "emergency dues." 4 The new dues, effective immediately and continuing "during the current collective bargaining emergency as determined by the International Executive Board and thereafter, if necessary, until the International Union Strike Insurance Fund has reached the sum of Twenty-Five Million Dollars ($25,000,000)," increased each member's monthly contribution to the union Strike Insurance Fund from $1.25 to $11.25 or $21.25, depending upon...
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