Ford Motor Co. v. Division of Employment Sec.

• Decision Date: 06 February 1951
• Citation: 96 N.E.2d 859,326 Mass. 757
• Parties: FORD MOTOR CO. v. DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SEC. et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 859

96 N.E.2d 859

326 Mass. 757

FORD MOTOR CO. v. DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENT SEC. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued Nov. 9, 1950.

Decided Feb. 6, 1951.

A. J. Santry, Boston, A. J. Santry, Jr., Boston, for petitioner.

E. J. Nantoski, Asst. Atty. Gen., F.F. Carmichael, Jamaica Plain, J. A. Brennan, Boston, for respondent.

Before QUA, C. J., and LUMMUS, RONAN, WILKINS, and COUNIHAN, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

The employer appeals from a decision of the District Court of Somerville affirming a decision of the board of review in the division of employment security of the department of labor and industries. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 151A, § 42, as appearing in St.1943, c. 534, § 6, as amended by St.1947, c. 434. The board of review had affirmed a determination by the director that the claimants, 'over three hundred in number,' employed at the Ford Motor Company assembly plant in Somerville, are entitled to benefits for the period between May 10, 1949, and June 8, 1949, when there was a partial shut down due to failure to receive parts from Ford manufacturing plants in Michigan where there was a strike.

The issue involves the construction of G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 151A, § 25, as appearing in St. 1941, c. 685, § 1, which provides that 'no benefits shall be paid to an individual under this chapter for * * * (b) Any week with respect to which the 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 was last employed * * *.' ¹

Ford Motor Company is engaged in the manufacture and assembly of automobiles, tractors, and trucks, which it sells under the trade names, Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln. Its main office and its principal manufacturing plant, known as the Rouge, are at Dearborn, Michigan. At the Rouge plant also, in 'B Building' Ford and Mercury automobiles are assembled. Located throughout the country are assembly plants not devoted to manufacturing. One is at Somerville, where Ford automobiles and trucks are assembled. The Rouge and other Ford plants in Michigan supply Somerville with approximately sixty per cent of the 'assemblies' and parts, which in normal operation are received daily by truck and train from Detroit. The remaining parts and materials are shipped by manufacturers upon orders from Dearborn. The main office decides the amount of assembling to be done in Somerville. A schedule is made in Dearborn, and instructions with a detailed chart of the automobiles to be assembled are sent to the Somerville plant. The Somerville manager has no authority to change this schedule.

The claimants are members of International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, UAW-CIO (affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations), hereinafter called International, which had made a written agreement with Ford Motor Company. The International comprises many local unions at the various plants, among them being Local No. 901 at Somerville, Local No. 600 at the Rouge plant, and Local No. 900 at the Lincoln plant in Detroit. The International bargains for all the employees of Ford Motor Company (with exceptions not now material) in Michigan and elsewhere on such matters as rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, and many other conditions of employment. On March 11, 1949, the International notified Ford Motor Company that a labor dispute existed at 'B Building' at the Rouge plant relative to the speed of the lines. Later a similar notice was served as to the speed of the line at the Lincoln plant. Failing an agreement, the International approved strike votes which had been taken by Locals No. 600 and No. 900, and on May 5, 1949, all union members at the Rouge and Lincoln plants ceased to work. Of the members of Local No. 600 at the Rouge plant, sixty thousand were engaged in manufacture. ² The strike forced the closing of the Somerville assembly operations for a period of about four weeks. No strike vote was taken by Local No. 901.

The foregoing facts from the findings of the board of review or from the judge's report summarizing evidence introduced before the board are not in controversy. The decision of the board also contained the following: 'There was no evidence that the employees in the Somerville plant participated in the labor dispute or in any way supported its objectives. It is admitted by all the parties that the reason the claimants were unemployed was that assembly parts were not coming to the Somerville plant due to the strike in the Dearborn plant. It therefore follows that the claimants' unemployment was due to a stoppage of work which existed because of a labor dispute. The issue, however, is whether the stoppage and the labor dispute were at the factory, establishment or other premises at which the claimants were last employed. * * * The appellant corporation contends that the word 'establishment' should be interpreted to mean a business where all of the departments of a company involve manufacturing operations which are inter-related and that, inasmuch as the Ford Motor Company is functionally an integrated unit, its plants, irrespective of how distantly separated, should be considered as a single establishment.' After analyzing § 25, quoted above, it was said, 'the board does not consider that the word 'establishment' embraces all of the places of business of the Ford Motor Company, however functionally integrated they might be. It, therefore, follows that the claimants were not unemployed because of a stoppage of work due to a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which they were last employed.'

1. The employer contends that 'on the facts found by the board of review and on uncontradicted evidence before the board' the Somerville and Dearborn plants were 'so functionally integrated that under the true intendment' of § 25 there was one 'establishment' at which there was a labor dispute that caused a work stoppage and at which the claimants were last employed. This argument seeks to substitute a test of funcional integration for the limited statutory disqualification which bars benefits to an individual only where there is 'a stoppage of work * * * because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment or other premises at which he was last employed.' The board of review in substance has found that there was no labor dispute at the Somerville plant. This must stand unless as matter of law the labor dispute at Dearborn, which caused the stoppage of work at Somerville, occurred at the same 'factory, establishment or other premises.' Wagstaff v. Director of the Division of Employment Security, 322 Mass. 664, 665, 79 N.E.2d 203; Farrar v. Director of the Division of Employment Security, 324 Mass. 45, 48, 84 N.E.2d 540; Moen v. Director of the Division of Employment Security, 324 Mass. 246, 247, 85 N.E.2d 779, 8 A.L.R.2d 429.

We are of opinion that the finding of the board was in accordance with the requirements of the statute. A 'factory' has been defined as a building or group of buildings, usually in the same immediate neighborhood, devoted to the manufacture of articles or commodities. Di Santo v. Brooklyn Chair Co., 140 App.Div. 119, 120, 125 N.Y.S. 8, affirmed 205 N.Y. 538, 98 N.E. 1101; Schott v. Harvey, 105 Pa. 222, 227-228. It is not contended that the Somerville plant was part of the same factory as the Rouge plant in Dearborn. See General Motors Corp. v. Mulquin, 134 Conn. 118, 126, 55 A.2d 732. It is, however, seriously urged that the Somerville plant was part of the same 'establishment.' But, here again, the word 'establishment,' as normally used in business and in government, means a distinct physical place of business. A. H. Phillips, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U.S. 490, 496, 65 S.Ct. 807, 89 L.Ed. 1095. And the remaining words 'or other premises' also denote a distinct and definite locality. Robinson v. State, 143 Miss. 247, 259, 108 So. 903. See Meucci v. Gallatin Coal Co., 279 Pa. 184, 186, 123 A. 766. The statute, accordingly, impresses us as laying stress upon geographical location rather than upon a combination of widely scattered plants used for the business operations of one employer. We cannot read into § 25 any provision as to functional integration. If we could, we would not understand on what ground its scope could be restricted to plants used for the business operations of only one employer. The employer's argument rests upon a construction of 'establishment' which is so broad as to devour entirely, and leave no additional scope for the words 'factory * * * or other premises.' We think that 'establishment' is meant to embrace premises, not aptly described as a factory, where labor is performed--and without attempting to name them all--such as stores, banks, theatres and other places of amusement, laundries, garages, hotels, restaurants, office buildings, shipyards, newspaper and printing offices, insurance buildings, express and transportation buildings, repair shops, telephone and telegraph offices, and barber and hair-dressing shops.

The history of § 25 tends to support our construction. The original c. 151A, § 19(a), inserted by St.1935, c. 479, § 5, read: 'No benefits shall be paid to an employee under this chapter for any week in which his unemployment is directly due to a strike, lockout or other trade dispute still in active progress in the establishment where he was last employed.' In the second and final report of the special commission appointed to make an investigation of unemployment insurance, reserves and benefits, which recommended this legislation, it was said (1935 House Doc. No. 2225, page 8), 'Disqualifications.--Out of work because of a strike, etc., still in active progress at the place where the employee last worked * * *.' In a complete revision of c. 151A, as appearing in St.1937, c. 421, § 1, this disqualification was expressed in § 16(b)...