Smith v. Chicopee Mfg. Corp.

• Decision Date: 14 July 1937
• Docket Number: 26122,26130.
• Parties: SMITH v. CHICOPEE MFG. CORPORATION. SLOAN v. SAME.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

192 S.E. 481

56 Ga.App. 294

SMITH v. CHICOPEE MFG. CORPORATION.

SLOAN v. SAME.

Nos. 26122, 26130.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Second Division

July 14, 1937

Rehearing Denied July 28, 1937.

Error from Municipal Court of Atlanta; A. L. Etheridge, Judge.

Suits by Dean Smith and by E. F. Sloan against the Chicopee Manufacturing Corporation, etc. To review judgments for the defendant sustaining general demurrers, the plaintiffs bring error.

Judgment in each case affirmed.

Carl N. & Frank T. Davie, of Atlanta, and Frank B. Stow, of Gainesville, for plaintiffs in error.

J. E Palmour, Jr., and Edgar B. Dunlap, both of Gainesville, and Spalding, Sibley, Troutman & Brock and Wm. K. Meadow, all of Atlanta, for defendant in error.

STEPHENS Presiding Judge.

1. Where, as a result of difficulties between the employees of a mill and the employer, the mill was closed and the employees at the time were out of work, the employees, at the suggestion of the employer, appointed a committee of the employees to represent the employees individually and collectively in negotiating with the employer to settle the difficulties, obtain better working conditions for the employees, and to obtain a contract with reference to wages and the duration of the employment, and where the employees after receiving a request from the employer to return to work with the mill, with suggestions from the employer as to the conditions under which the employees should work, adopted resolutions which recited that whereas the mill had been closed for more than ten days on account of a strike caused by conditions which had arisen because of a "system of time study, which the employees have termed 'a stretch-out,"' and the employees requested that the mill be reopened and they be permitted to return to work "with the time study abandoned for a period of two months," that at the end of two months the employer "be permitted to make a study of the point system for a period estimated to be six months with the full co-operation of all the employees," and that on the completion of the time study of the point system, it should be instituted on certain conditions named, and that when so instituted the employees agree to give it a fair trial for a period of six months, that during this six months' period and the two months' period preceding thereto, from the reopening of the mill, no employee will be discharged because of the strike or his participation therein, that for a period previous to the completion of the time study of the point system no employee's wages shall be reduced where a full week's work has been performed that during the six months' period for trying out the point system after the completion of the time study, no employee will be given more work than he can reasonably do, that certain designated privileges shall be accorded the employees, and certain named conditions shall govern the manner of the performance of the work, and where these resolutions were accepted and agreed to by the employer, these resolutions as accepted and agreed to by the employer, whether they may be regarded as an agreement only as to the terms on which contracts of employment may be made, or whether they in themselves constitute a binding contract of employment between the employer and the employees, contain no binding obligation or agreement of the employer to employ any of the employees for any definite period of time, and contain no obligation or promise of any employee to work or continue in the employ of the employer for any definite period of time. The agreements by the employer to the time study or to the trying out of the point system for any definite period, and the agreement of the employees to give the point system, when instituted, a fair ...