Quincy Corp. v. Aguilar

• Decision Date: 05 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. 97-0284,97-0284
• Citation: 704 So.2d 1055
• Parties: 22 Fla. L. Weekly D2543 QUINCY CORPORATION, d/b/a Quincy Farms, Appellant, v. Hector P. AGUILAR, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1055

704 So.2d 1055

22 Fla. L. Weekly D2543

QUINCY CORPORATION, d/b/a Quincy Farms, Appellant, v. Hector P. AGUILAR, et al., Appellees.

No. 97-0284.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Nov. 5, 1997.

Robert L. Norton, David J. Stefany and Michael Mattimore of Allen, Norton & Blue, P.A., Tampa, for Appellant.

Robert A. Williams of Florida Legal Services, Inc., Tallahassee, for Appellees.

SMITH, Senior Judge.

The employer challenges an order of the Unemployment Appeals Commission (UAC) which affirmed the appeals referee's decision to award unemployment benefits to appellees upon a finding that the labor dispute disqualification of section 443.101, Florida Statutes (1995), no longer applied. We affirm.

I. THE LABOR DISPUTE

This case arose out of a labor dispute involving appellant, a mushroom farmer, and some of its employees, more than 100 mushroom harvesters, including appellees. The facts as determined by the appeals referee, which were found by the UAC to be supported by competent substantial evidence and which are not substantially in dispute on appeal, indicate that since 1995 there has been an ongoing controversy regarding appellant's refusal to recognize or negotiate with the organized harvesters who are affiliated with United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO. On March 14, 1996, the harvesters told their supervisor that they intended to demonstrate during both of the half-hour lunch breaks. Some of the demonstrators who refused to return to work after the first half-hour lunch break were arrested, and the others left the property as instructed by appellant through translators. There was confusion over whether the demonstrators had been fired, and one of them who tried to return to work the next day was not allowed to do so. ¹ The others did not attempt to return to work, but demonstrated for several days.

On March 18, 1996, the union representative sent appellant a letter requesting clarification of the harvesters' work status and offering an unconditional return to work. Appellant did not respond to the union representative, but contacted the harvesters individually, instructing them to report to the job site and advising them that failure to do so would result in the assumption that they had no interest in returning to work. When they reported to the job site on March 21, 1996, they were each asked to sign a document stating that appellant did not recognize the union, that there was a limited number of job openings, and that to be considered eligible for job openings the harvester had to sign the document, which included a statement that the harvester offered to return to work unconditionally. Some of the harvesters signed the document prior to March 23, 1996, and have been put back to work. Appellees did not sign the document; some did not understand it, some wanted their attorney or union representative to review it first, and some objected to not being put back to work right away. Appellant refused to give them copies of the document, and on March 23, 1996, it hired replacement harvesters to perform their jobs.

After consulting with their union representative, appellees reported to the job site on March 25, 1996, and signed statements making "an unconditional and unequivocal offer to return to work" with no changes in pay or working conditions. Appellant responded with letters dated March 28, 1996, acknowledging the unconditional offers to return to work and stating that each of the harvesters was being put on a preferential recall list for future openings. Appellees have continued since March 25, 1996, to demonstrate across the street from appellant's place of business and at supermarkets, seeking a union contract and a return to work. They are willing to return to work without a union contract, but they wish to retain the right to organize, to belong to the union, and to attempt negotiations with appellant for recognition of the union as their bargaining agent. ²

II. PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE DIVISION

Near the end of March 1996, appellees filed requests for unemployment benefits, denying that they were engaged in a strike. They stated that they had been locked out of the plant and had offered to return to work, but had not been put back to work. Appellant responded that appellees had "voluntarily quit" on March 14, 1996, because they "voluntarily elected to participate in a work stoppage & labor dispute." It asserted that appellees had been given an opportunity to return to work, that replacement workers had subsequently been hired, and that "[a]nyone who contacts us now will be put on a list and contacted for work when an opening is available." On April 10, 1996, determinations were issued by the Division of Unemployment Compensation (the division), holding each appellee disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits from March 14, 1996, on the ground that the unemployment was "due to a labor dispute in active progress." This term refers to section 443.101, Florida Statutes (1995), which provides, in pertinent part:

An individual shall be disqualified for benefits:

. . . . .

4) For any week with respect to which the division finds that his total or partial unemployment is due to a labor dispute in active progress which exists at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which he is or was last employed; except that this subsection shall not apply if it is shown to the satisfaction of the division that:

(a)1. He is not participating in, financing, or directly interested in the labor dispute which is in active progress; however, the payment of regular union dues shall not be construed as financing a labor dispute within the meaning of this section; and

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

(b) His total or partial unemployment results from a lockout by his employer. For the purposes of this section, the term "lockout" shall mean a situation where employees have not gone on strike, nor have employees notified the employer of a date certain for a strike, but where employees have been denied entry to the factory, establishment, or other premises of employment by the employer. However, benefits shall not be payable under this paragraph if the lockout action was taken in response to threats, actions, or other indications of impending damage to property and equipment or possible physical violence by employees or in response to actual damage or violence or a substantial reduction in production instigated or perpetrated by employees.

There were no appeals of these initial determinations, but on April 18, 1996, a division field auditor reported that the unemployed harvesters "are not picketing at all" and that they "want their jobs back under any conditions." On April 22, 1996, the division director informed the chief of claims administration that the labor dispute "terminated effective March 25, 1996." On April 24, 1996, redeterminations were issued removing the disqualification as of March 25, 1996, on the ground that the unemployment was no longer "due to a labor dispute in active progress." The employer appealed these latter determinations, asserting that the labor dispute remained in active progress.

After a consolidated hearing, the appeals referee issued her notice of decision, affirming the determinations of the claims adjudicator "holding the claimants qualified for benefits based on the cessation of the labor dispute effective March 25, 1996." She found that the evidence was conflicting as to the information provided to the protesting harvesters by the employer on March 14, 1996, and accepted the testimony of the harvesters. She noted some confusion at the hearing concerning how each harvester received information from the employer, but concluded that it was not necessary to resolve that confusion "because the record reflects that the workers acted cohesively in making the decision to actively engage in a labor dispute by demonstrating during scheduled working hours, to abandon the labor dispute on March 18 and to advise the employer of their unified decision to return to work unconditionally." She considered whether the harvesters were discharged on March 14, 1996, cited Meyer v. Florida Industrial Commission, 117 So.2d 216 (Fla. 2d DCA 1959), ³ and concluded "that the labor dispute which began on March 14, 1996, was initiated by the harvesters and that the employment relationship did not cease when they were advised on the same day that they would be replaced." She considered whether the harvesters had abandoned the labor dispute by March 25, 1996, noted that "once a labor dispute begins, it remains in active progress until it is finally settled, terminated or completely abandoned," and concluded that when the harvesters as a group submitted their written offer to return to work unconditionally, they "were then prepared to work without a contract and without changes in the working conditions, although they intended to continue their quest for recognition as a bargaining group." She concluded that "[b]y that time, the active progress of the labor dispute ceased." Citing George A. Hormel & Co. v. Asper, 428 N.W.2d 47 (Minn.1988), ⁴ she found that the fact that the harvesters "continue to demonstrate for their return to work and union recognition does not change the fact that they abandoned the labor dispute in order to unconditionally return to employment." She found that the harvesters' decision to promote a boycott of appellant's products "due to the employer's failure to put them back to work" and their organized protest "in an attempt to be put back to work" without changes in the conditions that caused their initial work stoppage "does not constitute a continuation of a strike or work stoppage by the...