Johnson v. Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission

367 S.W.2d 253, 1963 Ky. LEXIS 16
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976)
DecidedApril 19, 1963
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 367 S.W.2d 253 (Johnson v. Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976) primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Johnson v. Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission, 367 S.W.2d 253, 1963 Ky. LEXIS 16 (Ky. 1963).

Opinion

PALMORE, Judge.

The appellants, members of the United Steelworkers of America, were employees of the Acme Newport Steel Company and went on strike at the time of the nationwide steel strike on July 15, 1959. The strike was precipitated by the inability of the union and steel industry to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement on or before expiration date of the old one. On November 7, 1959, the strike was brought to a halt pursuant to a Taft-Hartley injunction granted by the U. S. District Court fur the Western District of Pennsylvania. United States v. United Steelworkers of America, D.C., 178 F.Supp. 297, 44 L.R.R.M. 3016, aff’d 271 F.2d 676 (3d Cir.), aff’d 361 U.S. 39, and 44, 80 S.Ct. 1 and 177, 4 L.Ed.2d 12 and 169. The appellants were called back to work at various times between November 15 and 22, 1959, and several months thereafter, while the injunction was still in effect, a new collective bargaining agreement was reached and the operation of Acme Newport’s plant continued without interruption. Meanwhile, the appellants had applied to the Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission either to serve the one-week waiting period or be paid unemployment compensation for the respective periods of their individual unemployment between November 8 and November 22, 1959. See KRS 341.350.

The Commission denied the claims, and its action was affirmed on a judicial review by the Franklin Circuit Court under KRS 341.460. This appeal followed.

Most of the states and territories adopted unemployment insurance statutes contain *255 ing a disqualification for benefits if the unemployment “is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute.” Unemployment Compensation in Labor Disputes, by Herbert A. Fierst and Marjorie Spector, 49 Yale L.J. 461. Under these statutes “it is generally held that the claimant remains ineligible for benefits during the entire period of his unemployment even though a period of time is required after the settlement of the dispute for the employer to resume normal operations.” Annotation, Construction and application of provisions of unemployment compensation or social security acts regarding disqualification for benefits because of labor disputes or strikes, 28 A.L.R.2d 287, 322. Our statute, however, does not disqualify the claimant unless the “strike or other bona fide labor dispute which caused him to leave or lose his employment is in active progress.” KRS 341.360(1). Hence if the labor dispute that precipitated the strike on July 15, 1959, ceased to be “in active progress” upon the granting of the Taft-Hartley injunction of November 7, 1959, the appellants were eligible under KRS 341.350 even though their unemployment during the interim between cessation of the strike and resumption of normal operations was caused by the strike. See, for example, Davis v. Aluminum Company of America, 1958, 204 Tenn. 135, 316 S.W.2d 24, in which it was held, under statutory language comparable with ours, that employes whose recall following settlement of a strike was delayed pending completion of repairs to equipment damaged by the cessation of work were eligible for benefits, because the dispute, having been settled, was no longer “in active progress.”

It is clear from the opinions in Ward v. Barnes, Ky.1954, 266 S.W.2d 338, and Barnes v. Hall, 1940, 285 Ky. 160, 146 S.W.2d 929, 935, that this court has accepted the definition of “labor dispute” set forth in the Norris-La Guardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. § 113(c), enacted in 1932, and in the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), 29 U.S.C.A. § 152(9), enacted in 1935, with specific reference to KRS 341.360(1), the statutory section involved in this case. As the definition is quoted in both opinions we shall not again copy it here.

The breadth of the definition in the Norris-La Guardia and Wagner Acts was im-plementary of their fundamental purpose to protect the right of collective bargaining. It was meant as an umbrella. On the other hand, it is argued, the disqualification provision of our unemployment compensation law (KRS 341.360) has a different purpose and calls for a restrictive rather than a broad definition of the term, in keeping with the spirit of unemployment compensation-as distinguished from the objectives of the federal legislation relating to labor disputes. Appellants contend that the words “active progress” connote something more than a mere continuance of the disagreement following resumption of work. They say, in substance, that here were men ready, willing- and able to work but who were out of work, and that the purpose of our unemployment compensation law is to provide benefits under those circumstances. It is a persuasive argument.

Both the Commission and the Franklin Circuit Court found Ward v. Barnes, Ky.1954, 266 S.W.2d 338, to be dispositive of this case, and we do not see how the analogy can logically be avoided. In that case-a dispute arose over the employer’s practice of staggering the work of its tipple employes over 3 shifts. The union called the employes off the job, and a week later work resumed pursuant to a mutual understanding that the tipple would be operated in 2 consecutive shifts. This system resulted in a bottleneck, and the employer found it necessary to lay off some of its mine workers. Thereafter the union withdrew its objection to the 3-shift arrangement, whereupon the controversy was finally terminated. Upholding the Commission and the circuit court in denying unemployment compensation claims of the laid-off miners for the interim period, this court held that the understanding between the union and the employer under which work was resumed with a 2-shift tipple operation was a mere truce *256 or armistice, and not a cessation of the labor dispute.

It seems to us that the basis for disqualification is stronger in this case than it was in Ward v. Barnes. If a dispute is considered to be still in active' progress during a voluntary truce, surely it must be so during an involuntary one.

From the manner in which the terminology of KRS 341.360

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Related

Vance v. Kentucky Unemployment Insurance Commission
814 S.W.2d 284 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1991)
Roberts v. Gatson
392 S.E.2d 204 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1990)
Leach v. Republic Steel Corp.
176 Ohio St. (N.S.) 221 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1964)

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Bluebook (online)
367 S.W.2d 253, 1963 Ky. LEXIS 16, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/johnson-v-kentucky-unemployment-insurance-commission-kyctapphigh-1963.