191 Pa. Super. 434 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1959
Opinion by
In this unemployment compensation case the referee after hearing affirmed the decision of the bureau and awarded benefits as claimed. The board on appeal remanded the proceedings to the referee on July 31, 1956, and again on December 13, 1956, and for a third time on October 15, 1957. Further testimony was taken
In reality there is little dispute as to the facts and the situation presented is not complex. Claimant had been employed by appellant at its plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for many years. His job classification was that of a “slipmaker”. In general the slipmaker’s duties consisted in straightening structural steel sections, by means of gags, as they came to the shipping yard from other departments of the plant. The slip-makers also measured the sections for size and length against “hot saw report information”; they marked the sections by means of stencils with the heat number, the dimensions of each of them and the weight per foot; and they then allocated the finished steel sections to particular orders or to stock. In this the Saucon Division of the Bethlehem Company workmen in the initial operation prepared ingots in the “soaking pits” by heating the metal in its raw state to the proper rolling temperature; the ingots then were put through the blooming mills—an operation which prepared them, still in a rough shape, for final rolling to specified dimensions. After the steel members leave the rolling mills they “go to a hot bed” for final treatment, and thence to the structural steel shipping yard where the slipmakers, in the department where claimant was employed, perform the final operation in the processing of steel into structural members of specified lengths, weights and shapes. Thus it is apparent that uninterrupted work in claimant’s department is dependent upon the continuous flow of material through integrated
On March 29, 1959 a small group of about 20 employes whose duty was the preparation of the ingots in the soaking pits went out on an unauthorized strike. They were impatient of the failure of management to work out the details of a local incentive pay agreement which required revision. According to appellant’s testimony, in the form of answers to a questionnaire requested by the board, the number of Bethlehem Steel Company production and maintenance employes idled by this strike was about 1,600. At the hearings this number was not disputed but at the argument before us claimant’s counsel questioned appellant’s estimate although it was then admitted that 350 employes, whose duties had to do with successive operations, in the production of structural steel, were idled by the strike. Thirty-six claims were filed for unemployment compensation of which all but the present claim were disallowed. The striking workmen were members of Local Union 2599 of The United Steelworkers of America C.I.O., and all other employes involved in the production of structural steel, including the slipmakers, of whom claimant was one, were members of the same local union. The existing collective bargaining contract between the Company and the union was violated by the stoppage of work by the striking employes. This was a wildcat strike and representatives of the union attempted to persuade the 20 employes to return to work because of the violation of the union contract. When production was interrupted by the strike, in the soaking pits and blooming mill, claimant’s department was shut down and there was no work for him because the flow of steel in the production of structural forms was stopped by the strike.
The findings of the board reflect the testimony which we have reviewed above. The board however
The fact that the various phases of the production line, from the raw product in the pits to the straightening process in the shipping yard may have been governed by separate pay plans, is not decisive of the question. There may be differences in basic, and particularly in incentive pay applicable to workmen in the same class of employes without affecting the result, although they perform different kinds of work on the same product. There was a labor dispute in this case which caused the stoppage. And here as in Curcio Unemployment Compensation Case, 165 Pa. Superior Ct. 385, 68 A. 2d 393, “While the duties of the various employes differed somewhat in detail, yet they were all production workers” members of the same union, and all of the workers were engaged in some phase of an integrated service ending in the same finished product. In Stahlman Unempl. Compensation Case, 187 Pa. Superior Ct. 246, 144 A. 2d 670, the Dravo Corporation was engaged in the heavy construction industry and in its business employed workmen from four different crafts who were members of four separate unions. We there held that “all of the claimants, [laborers, carpenters, operating engineers and teamsters], regardless of differences in their duties, . . . were of the same class as the striking members of the laborers’ union . . .” and therefore all were disqualified under §402(d). In Oliver Unempl. Compensation Case, 189 Pa. Superior Ct. 362, 150 A. 2d 361, there was a reversal of the board as a matter of law on undisputed facts. In that case the work done in the steel mill involved, was “a continuous integrated production process”. There the stoppage resulted when a group of employes engaged as pilers, stacking the finished product,
Decision reversed.