O'Dell v. Division of Employment Sec.

• Decision Date: 09 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 1,No. 50193,50193,1
• Parties: Joe O'DELL, Harold D. Varner, Wilburt Purl, et al., Appellants, v. The DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY of the State of Missouri, the Industrial Commission of Missouri and the Members thereof, J. R. Rose, George W. Wise and Charles E. Cates, and General Motors Corporation, Respondents
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 137

376 S.W.2d 137

Joe O'DELL, Harold D. Varner, Wilburt Purl, et al., Appellants, v. The DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY of the State of

Missouri, the Industrial Commission of Missouri and the

Members thereof, J. R. Rose, George W. Wise and Charles E.

Cates, and General Motors Corporation, Respondents.

No. 50193.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

March 9, 1964.

Krings, Whipple, Mauer & Eisler, by C. David Whipple, Kansas City, for appellants.

Lloyd G. Poole, Jefferson City, counsel for respondents, Industrial Commission of Missouri and Members thereof.

Gordon P. Weir, Jefferson City, counsel for respondent, Division of Employment Security of State of Missouri.

John Muphy, of Tucker, Murphy, Wilson, Lane & Kelly, Kansas City, for respondent, General Motors Corp.

HOUSER, Commissioner.

Nine hundred and forty-seven employees of General Motors, Chevrolet Division, Kansas City filed claims for unemployment compensation benefits. Without a hearing a deputy determined that claimants were eligible and that their unemployment was due to lack of work at the premises, not to a stoppage of work resulting from a labor dispute. After a hearing before a referee the Appeals Tribunal reversed the deputy's determination and denied all claims. The Industrial Commission, one member dissenting, denied an application for review, holding that the findings of fact of the tribunal were supported by competent and substantial evidence and that its decision was made in accordance with law. Claimants filed a petition for judicial review in the Circuit Court of Jackson County under Sec. 288.210, ¹ joining Division of Employment Security, Industrial Commission and its members, and General Motors Corporation, hereinafter 'GM,' as parties defendant. After reviewing the transcript and hearing oral arguments the circuit court affirmed the findings of the Industrial Commission and denied the claims for compensation. Following an unavailing motion for new trial plaintiffs appealed to this court. The aggregate amount in dispute totals $218.757, which vests appellate jurisdiction in this court. Flanigan v. City of Springfield, Mo.Sup., 360 S.W.2d 700.

In stating the facts we draw heavily, without the use of quotation marks, on the referee's findings of fact, but have made deletions, rearranged the material, and added undisputed facts from the transcript where deemed appropriate.

GM operates 23 automobile assembly plants in the United States. Thirteen plants, located in Kansas City, St. Louis, and in New York, Georgia, Michigan, California, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, assemble Chevrolet automobiles or Chevrolets and Corvairs. All of then conduct a coordinated operation, identical or substantially identical to that in Kansas City, all under one roof, or substantially so. There are 6 assembly plants for Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac (BOP); 1 for Buick only; 1 for Oldsmobile only; 1 for Pontiac only, and 1 Cadillac assembly plant.

One of GM's Chevrolet and Corvair assembly plants is located in the 6800 block of East 37th Street in Kansas City, Missouri. It is a single building, covering an area as large as two or three square blocks, housing both the Fisher Body Division (2,000 hourly paid workers) and the Chevrolet Division (1,950 hourly paid workers) of the Kansas City plant, under one roof. Bodies are made by Fisher Body Division in the east portion; Chevrolet and Corvair passenger automobiles and Chevrolet trucks are assembled in the west portion of the building. Approximately 30 repairmen on the payroll of Fisher Body Division work in the Chevrolet portion of the plant on Chevrolet and Corvair passenger car assembly lines alongside Chevrolet Division workers, repairing body paint and trim, an operation essential to the completion of the automobiles as saleable products. A fire wall, constructed for safety purposes after a fire at GM's Lavonia plant in 1953, runs north and south in the building, dividing the two operations. The wall does not run the entire length of the building. On the second floor there is an open area approximately 80 feet wide between the end of the fire wall and the front wall of the building. This space permits free movement of conveyor lines carrying Chevrolet and Corvair bodies from the Fisher body side to the Chevrolet side of the premises. Across the front of the building are offices where salaried workers of both divisions are employed. There is a cafeteria for use of all employees in the building. The equipment is owned by GM, leased to a private operating company. One power plant provides power for the entire building. A common lobby for the use of both divisions is located in the front of the building. The address of Chevrolet Division is 6801 East 37th Street; the address of Fisher Division is 6817 East 37th Street. Each division has its own manager, plant protection unit, personnel, accounting and payroll departments, employment office, first-aid and pre-employment facilities, located in each division's portion of the building. Each division has separate entrances to its area of the plant. On entering his plant area an employee is identified by a badge which is separate and distinct for each division. Fisher Division employees in the plant are paid by check drawn on Commerce Trust Company, showing it is the check of Fisher Body Division, General Motors Corporation, Kansas City Plant. Chevrolet Division employees in the plant are paid by check drawn on a different bank, showing it is the check of Chevrolet-Kansas City Division of General Motors Corporation. The plant is designed for the assembly of complete Chevrolet and Corvair passenger cars, ready to be sold and shipped to dealers for resale to the public. There are three conveyor lines on the Chevrolet Division side of the building, for the assembly of Chevrolet and Corvair passenger cars and Chevrolet trucks. The assembly of Chevrolet and Corvair bodies by Fisher workers, commenced on the assembly conveyor line on the Fisher side of the plant premises, continues on that line until the bulk of the Fisher work on the body is completed, then the conveyors take the bodies over to the Chevrolet side of the plant, through the opening between the end of the fire wall and the front of the building. The production lines on both sides of the plant are open and obvious to everybody, and the way in which these bodies are placed on the lines and transported continually into the Chevrolet area is common knowledge, known to the officers of Local No. 93 and the members of the shop committees. Some distance inside the Chevrolet side of the building there is a cycling arrangement where the bodies are taken from the conveyor and either placed on a production assembly line or placed in a 'body bank,' which was a capacity of about 60 bodies. When placed on the line, other items are installed on the bodies by Chevrolet Division workers until the bodies reach the 'body drop,' where the body is dropped by a hoisting arrangement to the chassis line below and there attached to the chassis. From the body drop the conveyor line on which the body traveled from the Fisher side of the plant returns to the Fisher side, where the operation is started over again, and the entire process repeated. Production schedules of both divisions are 100% coordinated. Chevrolet has to have a body from Fisher for every passenger automobile chassis assembled on the Chevrolet side. Fisher constituted Chevrolet's only source of supply, except for a few sedan delivery bodies shipped in from a plant in Ohio, of which an average of 3 are used in an 8-hour shift. Fisher-Kansas City Division builds bodies only for Chevrolet Division-Kansas City, and the latter is the only user of the bodies there assembled. Fisher's work schedules are coordinated with the Chevrolet work schedules. Normally Fisher produces 40 bodies an hour and Chevrolet Division uses the same number. Except for the body bank, no provision is made for stockpiling bodies. The two divisions are closely coordinated as to work, number of shifts, reduction of forces on either side, close-downs for inventory, vacations or material shortages. If Fisher workers do not work, Chevrolet workers cannot work, and vice versa.

The International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, affiliated with the AFL-CIO, hereinafter 'International Union,' is the exclusive bargaining agent for all hourly production workers in GM's 23 plants. International Union and GM entered into a collective bargaining agreement October 2, 1958. All of the hourly paid workers working in the building, whether in the Fisher or Chevrolet Division, with a few exceptions, belong to the same International Union and to the same local (No. 93). The officers and trustees of the local are made up of both Fisher and Chevrolet Division workers. The employees of each division, however, constitute a separate bargaining unit, and each has its own bargaining committee. These committees are elected by the employees of the respective divisions. Each bargaining unit has its own local seniority and local wage agreement, subject to approval of International Union and GM. All general wage rates or pay increases are negotiated by GM's central office staff in Detroit and International Union. Employees transferred from one division to the other lose their seniority, except with respect to certain matters such as vacation pay.

A dispute arose regarding wages and working conditions of certain Fisher Body Division employees at Kansas City. Complaint was made about 'too much work' and 'excessive line speeds.' In an effort to resolve the issues meetings, attended by the bargaining committee of the local Fisher Body Division employees, members of GM's local Fisher Body Division personnel staff, members of GM's industrial relations staff in Detroit and International Union's central office staff in Detroit, were held....