Bethlehem Steel Co. v. Board of Appeals, Dept. of Employment Sec., 140

• Citation: 219 Md. 146,148 A.2d 403
• Decision Date: 17 February 1959
• Docket Number: No. 140,140
• Parties: BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY v. BOARD OF APPEALS, DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 146

219 Md. 146

148 A.2d 403

BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY v. BOARD OF APPEALS, DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY et al.

No. 140.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 17, 1959.

Franklin G. Allen, Baltimore (Charles T. Albert, Piper & Marbury, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Bernard S. Melnicove, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., and Gen. Counsel for Maryland Dept. of Employment Security, J. Robert Brown, Baltimore (C. Ferdinand Sybert, Atty. Gen., and J. N. Phillips, Gen. Counsel for Board of Appeals, Maryland Dept. of Employment Security, Baltimore, on the brief), for Board of Appeals et al., part of appellees.

William J. Yarworth, Baltimore (Yarworth & Link, Baltimore, on the brief), for Panagiotes Baxivanos et al., other appellees.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ., and W. LAIRD HENRY, Jr., J., specially assigned.

HORNEY, Judge.

This is another case concerning unemployment benefits, in which the claims of unemployed workers are determined only after traveling a long (and often 'rocky') legal road with stopovers at the seat of the Claims Examiner, Referee, Board of Appeals and the Superior Court of Baltimore City. The issue is now before us to decide whether the lower court was right in affirming the determination of the Board that the claimants were entitled to benefits, notwithstanding the provisions of Code (1957) Art. 95A § 6(e). The employer appealed from the decision of the court, contending that the claimants were disqualified because they were members of the same 'grade or class' as their fellow employees who participated in a labor dispute.

A portion of the steel produced at the Bethlehem Steel Company (the company) at Sparrows Point is processed into tin plate at the 'BJ42" Mill.' In this part of the plant rolls of steel are fabricated into finished tin plate, cut to the sizes required by buyers and packaged for shipment. The work done in this mill is a continuous operation analogous to the work performed in an assembly line. Due to the nature of the operation, if there is a slowdown or work stoppage at any point, it will be reflected in a reduction of the flow of materials to a later stage.

The claimants, twenty-eight in number--one fourth of whom were female employees--were employed in the later stages of this process. Their functions consisted of finishing, shipping and warehousing the tin plate produced in the earlier stages of the process. In two of the earlier stages--the 'skin-passing' and 'rotary-shearing' sections--the workers were more skilled than the claimants and consequently demand and receive a higher rate of pay.

The workers employed by the company are all members of Local Union 2609 of the United Steel Workers of America (the union). The union is the exclusive bargaining agent for the employees of the company pursuant to a contract entered into in 1956 and which remains in effect until July of 1959.

Despite the terms of the contract, some of the skin-passers and rotary-shearers became dissatisfied with the incentive pay provisions of the contract. These employees, in addition to an hourly rate, also received incentive bonuses depending on the volume of production. In January of 1957 the union undertook to negotiate with the company in an effort to increase the bonus system rates. Such negotiations later evolved into formal grievance proceedings.

The production figures for the period from mid-February of 1957 to mid-May of 1957 showed a decided decline, which was traced to the employees in the skin-passing and rotary-shearing sections. The Board found as a fact that the reduction occurred because of a deliberate slowdown of production by those employees for the purpose of forcing the company to grant more favorable terms of employment.

The company wrote letters of protest to the union requesting it to exert its influence with the employees since the collective-bargaining contract prohibited the slowdown. The union president denied that the union was involved in the slowdown and attributed the decline in production to other factors, and did not respond to further demands that steps be taken to correct the situation. In a letter of March 7, 1957, the company pointed out to the union that a continuation of the slowdown would result in the reduction of materials moving to subsequent stages in the production line with the consequential result that less work would be available to workers employed in the later stages.

According to the employment contract, if other factors such as ability and physical fitness were equal, employees would be laid off in the inverse order of the length of continuous service. Therefore, when the flow of materials declined and there was less work available in the sections in which the claimants worked, they, being younger and less experienced workers, were laid off first. The lay-offs were caused by the slowing down of the older and more skilled employees in the employment 'chain.' The claimants had not participated in the slowdown.

None of the claimants was employed in the sections engaged in the slowdown. They were employed in the section which dealt with the final stages of the product produced in the mill. They were, for the most part, unskilled workers and were paid a fixed hourly rate without any incentive to produce more. Neither they, nor the other employees in their section, were in any manner concerned with the incentive pay issue raised by the more skilled and better paid skin-passers and rotary-shearers, although they were all members of the same union.

The question as to whether the claimants are eligible for unemployment benefits depends on the provisions of § 6(e), supra, which provides that a claimant shall be disqualified for benefits:

'For any week with respect to which the Executive Director finds that his unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which he is or was last employed, provided that this subsection shall not apply if it is shown to the satisfaction of the Executive Director that----

'(1) He is not participating in or financing or directly interested in the labor dispute which caused the stoppage of work; and

'(2) He does not belong to a grade or class of workers of which, immediately before the commencement of the stoppage, there were members employed at the premises at which the stoppage occurs, any of whom are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute; * * *.' (Emphasis added.)

In employment compensation cases we have consistently held, as is required by § 7(h) of Article 95A, that the findings of the Board as to the facts are conclusive, if there is any substantial evidence to support such findings. The jurisdiction of the court, in such cases, is specifically limited to questions of law. But, if the facts and the inferences to be drawn therefrom are undisputed, then a construction of the statute as applied to such undisputed facts is a question of law. Emp. Security Board v. LeCates, 1958, 218 Md. 202, 145 A.2d 840, and the cases therein cited.

It is conceded that none of the claimants participated in or was financing or directly interested in the labor dispute, but since there was a labor dispute, the burden was on each of the claimants to show he did not belong to the grade or class of the workers who engaged in the slowdown. Mitchell, Inc. v. Maryland Employment Security Board, 1956, 209 Md. 237, 121 A.2d 198. The company concedes the accuracy of the findings of the Board, but the record fails to show the exact duties of the claimants. The Board found that the claimants were employed in those sections or departments which handled the warehousing and shipping of the tin plate produced in the mill. The record shows that the referee had also found that this included the finishing operation. But, because there is no evidence of the specific duties of each claimant, it is presumed that all of the workers in those sections engaged in finishing, warehousing and shipping. Therefore, their rights in this controversy must stand or fall together. Since, as stated above, the facts are virtually undisputed, the question is clearly one of law.

The real question, as we see it, is: Whether these claimants are of the same grade or class of workers as those who participated in the labor dispute when they worked in the same line of production on the same material, are in the same collective-bargaining unit, and are represented by the same local union, but are less skilled and trained, and are paid on a different and lower wage scale.

So...