Baldassaris v. Egan

• Decision Date: 02 August 1949
• Citation: 68 A.2d 120,135 Conn. 695
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BALDASSARIS et al. v. EGAN et al.

135 Conn. 695

68 A.2d 120

BALDASSARIS et al.

v.EGAN et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Aug. 2, 1949.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Mellitz, Judge.

Claims by Charles Baldassaris and others, for unemployment compensation, filed with John J. Egan, administrator, Unemployment Compensation Act, and others. From judgment dismissing appeal brought to Superior Court, and tried to court, from decision of a panel of three unemployment compensation commissioners in the First District, that plaintiffs were not entitled to unemployment compensation, and affirming decision of commissioners, plaintiffs appeal.

No error.

Frank R. Odlum, Hartford, for appellants (plaintiffs).

Wallace W. Brown, Hartford, for appellee (defendant Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Electric Co.)

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and BROWN, JENNINGS, ELLS and DICKENSON, JJ.

BROWN, Judge.

This is an appeal from the denial, by a panel of three unemployment commissioners functioning under statutes now incorporated in General Statutes, Rev.1949, § 7514, of the plaintiffs' claims for unemployment compensation. The Superior Court sustained the commissioners and the plaintiffs have appealed to this court. We shall refer to the Arrow-Hart & Hegeman Electric Company, which was the plaintiffs' employer, as the defendant. In the view which we take of the case, the question decisive of the appeal is whether upon the facts found the refusal of the plaintiffs to continue their employment in the defendant's factories because they declined to cross a picket line maintained by other employees as members of a union to which the plaintiffs did not belong rendered them ineligible for benefits under General Statutes, Cum.Sup.1939, § 1339e(b)(3)(A), Rev.1949, § 7508(3)(a).

Upon the record, the facts found by the commissioners stand undisputed. The defendant claims that certain of these facts established conduct by the plaintiffs which, though not constituting a strike, was designed to enforce demands for increased wages and paralleled activities undertaken for a similar purpose by the employees belonging to the striking union. We summarize only the facts material to the question stated above. The defendant manufactures electrical equipment in its plants in Hartford and is an employer under the Unemployment Compensation Act. For some years an electrical workers' union had bargained with the defendant for all production employees, and a machinists' union for the toolroom employees and machinists. As the result of an election in 1945 supervised by the national labor relations board, the former union became the duly certified bargaining agent for the approximately 1,200 production workers of the defendant, whether members of the union or not. Included among, these were the plaintiffs. The machinists' union held a bargaining position with the defendant for approximately 130 machinists and toolroom employees, all of whom belonged to that union. From September until early November, 1945, it had been negotiating with the defendant in connection with its demands for increased wages and changes in conditions of employment for its members. The defendant failed to accede to its demands and on November 12, 1945, the employees represented by the union left their work and established picket lines around the defendant's plants.

The next day a substantial number of the 1,200 production employees upon arriving for work found that picket lines were being maintained. No attempt was made by any of them to enter the plants that morning. The picketing at that time was very orderly, consisting of a daily total of about 45 pickets from the 130 members of the machinists' union. Four or five pickets were stationed at each of the entrances. The machinists and toolroom employees, most of whom were between fifty and fifty-five years old, continued to maintain similar or smaller picket lines during the balance of the strike, which ended January 12, 1946. At no time were they disorderly or hostile. Throughout the strike the office force, maintenance workers and eighteen of the thirty engineering department employees crossed the picket line daily, and after the first two weeks the other twelve engineering department employees did also. There was no hostility, violence or injury to any of those who crossed the picket lines and worked during the strike. When the electrical workers' union inquired of the defendant's officials regarding police protection in the event production workers crossed the picket lines, they stated that because of the limited size of the picket lines and the orderly nature of the picketing they felt that such protection was unnecessary, but that it could be furnished if production workers crossed the picket lines. However, the production workers who reported to the plants between November 13, 1945, and January 12, 1946, made no attempt to enter, though they outnumbered the striking employees by about ten to one. The refusal to enter was due primarily to their unwillingness to violate the union principle against crossing a picket line, and secondly, as stated in the commissioners' finding, ‘to an expressed subjective fear of violence if an attempt were made to cross the lines and enter the plants,’ though their union representatives told the defendant upon the termination of the strike that they had ‘remained away only because there were picket lines around the plants.’ The plants were heated and kept open while the picket lines were maintained, and employment could and would have been furnished for production workers, although there would have been some interference with the manufacture of certain products. The plaintiffs, while unemployed subsequent to November 12, 1945, filed a series of claims for umemployment compensation. The commissioners concluded that the plaintiffs were...