Gen. Motors Corp.. v. Mulquin

• Decision Date: 29 October 1947
• Citation: 134 Conn. 118,55 A.2d 732
• Parties: GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION v. MULQUIN et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

134 Conn. 118

55 A.2d 732

GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION

v.MULQUIN et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Oct. 29, 1947.

Case Reserved from Superior Court, New Haven County; Quinlan, Judge.

Proceeding by General Motors Corporation against William Mulquin and others, wherein plaintiff took an appeal from a decision of a panel of three unemployment commissioners in the third district holding that defendants are eligible to receive unemployment compensation benefits to Superior Court in New Haven County. The case was reserved by the court for advice of the Supreme Court of Errors.

Questions answered in accordance with opinion.

William A. Grier and Charles P. Markey, both of New York City, and Thomas J. O'Donnell, of Bristol (William J. Malone, of Bristol, on the brief), for appellant.

David R. Lessler and Millard Kaufman, both of Bridgeport, for appellees.

Paul W. McMahon, of Meriden, for certain appellees.

Before MALTBIE, C. J., and DICKENSON, BROWN and ELLS, JJ., and O'SULLIVAN, Superior Court Judge.

O'SULLIVAN, Judge.

The legal questions submitted by this reservation arise from the following facts found by a panel of three unemployment commissioners sitting on the plaintiff's appeal from the examiner's decision.

The New Departure Division of General Motors Corporation consists of two industrial plants in Connecticut, one at Bristol and the other, about 18 miles away, at Meriden. Speaking generally, the Division-for so it will be called-is engaged in the production of ball bearings of various sizes. The bearings are anti-friction devices consisting of steel balls, cones, cups and separators. All of these items, with the exception of the last, are manufactured at Bristol. The Meriden plant, which is equipped to manufacture only the separators, receives from Bristol the other necessary parts and, after continuing certain processes initiated on them at the sister plant, assembles bearings of the smaller sizes.

There is one general manager for the entire Division. With his assistants, such as the Division comptroller, general purchasing agent, general sales manager and the like, he maintains his office at Bristol. This executive staff supervises both plants, although each has its own superintendent and, under him, various departmental heads. While the general purchasing agent has charge of all Divisional purchases, an official at Meriden has, under certain limitations, the authority to buy miscellaneous supplies for that plant. The purchases effected trough the local office approximate 10 per cent of the total material bought for the Meriden plant.

The financial affairs of the Division are in the hands of the Division comptroller at Bristol. Each plant, nevertheless, maintains at a local bank a separate account upon which it draws for the payment, among other things, of the wages due certain of its employees. Checks so drawn are signed by an officer of the plant issuing them. In the records of the unemployment compensation department at Hartford, General Motors Corporation carries two accounts, one for the Bristol and the other for the Meriden plant, and the tax payable into each account is determined by the compensable separations chargeable against the experience of each plant respectively.

At all times pertinent to this case, the International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Congress of Industrial Organizations, hereinafter designated as the International, was, with certain immaterial exceptions, the certified and exclusive representative, for the purpose of collective bargaining, of all production, maintenance and mechanical employees at many General Motors plants, including the one at Bristol. On April 16, 1945, the International and General Motors Corporation executed a contract applicable to all of the latter's plants throughout the United States at which the former was the certified representative. Paragraphs of the contract which have a bearing on the issues are incorporated in a footnote. ¹

Prior to September 24, 1945, the bargaining agent at the Meriden plant had been affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, but, following an election held on that date, the International was selected and on October 8 was certified by the National Labor Relations Board as the exclusive bargaining representative of that class of employees, to which all of the approximately 2,100 defendants belong. On October 26, 1945, General Motors Corporation and the International executed a memorandum of agreement with reference to the employees at the Meriden plant. This instrument provided that for collective bargaining purposes the parties should be governed by all of the provisions of their contract of April 16, 1945, with certain exceptions not here material. It also provided that a shop committee to be chosen by the members of the local CIO should subsequently negotiate with officials of the Division on the question of wages and other matters in behalf of and subject to the approval of the International. Certain excepted matters were to be negotiated directly by the International before the Meriden plant came under the full terms of the April contract.

In the meantime, on October 24, 1945, a strike vote had been taken, pursuant to the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 1501 et seq., in all of the company's plants, except that at Meriden, at which the International was the bargaining agent, and as the result of the vote, a strike began on November 21. No such vote was ever taken at the Meriden plant, which continued to operate, but with increasing inefficiency, during the entire time covered by the remainder of this narrative. No picket line was established there and the employees continued to report for work. About two weeks before the commencement of the strike, the International granted a charter to its membership at the Meriden plant, and shortly thereafter the president of that local and a representative of the International addressed a letter to the Division making demand for a 30 per cent increase in the schedule of wages. Shortly before Christmas the local urged its members to accord financial assistance to the strikers elsewhere upon the ground that the Meriden employees would benefit from the strike. Collection boxes were placed in various Meriden stores and $108 contributed through this means was sent to an official of the Bristol local.

With the closing of the plant on November 21 all production ceased at Bristol, and the Meriden plant was thereafter unable to obtain steel balls and other parts from that source. However, for the 10 days following the calling of the strike the plant maintained its full complement of employees at work. Then, because of its diminishing stock piles and its inability to replenish them in the general market, as the purchasing department attempted to do, it became necessary gradually to reduce the number of its employees. Eventually, about 2,100 received their notices of separation. Each of these employees was laid off as a direct result of the shortage of parts essential to the assembling of bearings, and this shortage was attributable to the strike at the Bristol plant. It was not until March 13, 1946, that a settlement was reached between General Motors Corporation and the International, and shortly thereafter the strike at all plants ended.

The settlement reinstated the contract of April 16, 1945, which General Motors Corporation, in accordance with one of the contractual provisions, had terminated on December 10, 1945. The parties agreed upon maintenance of membership and checkoff systems, seniority rights, overtime pay, incentive plans, a flat wage increase of 18 1/2 cents an hour, with certain retroactive features, and vacation pay. All of the benefits of the settlement are applicable to the employees at Meriden.

As each defendant became separted, he filed a claim for unemployment benefits. From the action of the examiner in allowing these claims the plaintiff appealed to the unemployment commission, who, with two of his associates called to sit on the matter, affirmed the examiner's decision. A subsequent appeal to the Superior Court resulted in this reservation, which submits for our consideration two questions:

1. Did the commissioners err in holding that the defendants are not ineligible to receive unemployment benefits?

2. Did the commissioners err in holding that § 131 of the agreement of April 16, 1945, between General Motors Corporation and the International is void as contrary to and prohibited by § 1346e(a) of the 1939 Cumulative Supplement?

The defendants would concededly be entitled to the financial benefits under the act, were it not for § 1339e(b)(3), of the 1939 Cumulative Supplement to the General Statutes. Except for a clause which has no present relevancy, this section provides that an employee shall be ineligible for benefits during any week in which his total or partial unemployment is due to the existence of a labor dispute at the ‘factory, establishment or other premises' at which he is or has been employed. The core of the plaintiff's argument, as it deals with the first propounded question, is that the defendants cannot be classified as beneficiaries because they fall within the disqualifying provisions of the act in that they were employed at the Meriden plant, which, with the one at Bristol, it is claimed, formed a single establishment.

The weakness of this rather plausible argument lies in the undue emphasis placed upon and the erroneous interpretation given to the word ‘establishment’ in the quoted phrase. The legislature, it must be noted, specified not one but three classifications, within which fall all places where those to whom the provisions of the act were meant to apply are employed. With the classification created by the expression ‘other premises,’ we need not be concerned. It is not involved in this case and, furthermore, in accordance...