56 A.2d 390 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1947
Argued September 30, 1947. In this unemployment compensation case the employes of the Boyertown Burial Casket Company, after failure of negotiations as to wages, hours and conditions of employment, went out on a strike on May 1, 1946.
Claimant, and his associates, were awarded unemployment compensation, after the expiration of the waiting period, under § 402(d) of the Act as amended (
Under the original Unemployment Compensation Act of December 5, 1936, P.L. 2897, § 401(e), it was provided: "If the employe's total unemployment is due to a voluntary suspension of work resulting from an industrial dispute, then he shall be ineligible for compensation for a further waiting period of three weeks . . ."; thus making a waiting period of six weeks in the industrial dispute cases. In the same section it was provided: "Compensation shall be payable to any employe who is or becomes totally unemployed . . ." upon meeting certain *100 conditions of earnings, registration for work, the making of a claim, and his ability and availability for work, after a waiting period of three weeks. The original Act, § 4(s) defined "total unemployment" as meaning that an employe, during a particular week, has had no work for which wages are payable to him.
The original act was amended in 1942, P.L. 60; 1943, P.L. 337 and P.L. 717; and 1945, P.L. 1145,1 and the Legislature adhered to the policy of paying unemployment compensation where a voluntary suspension of work resulted from an industrial dispute; but the waiting period was reduced to four weeks, and the method was changed by taking the proviso from § 401 and placing the substance of it in § 402(d) (
Compensation is therefore payable to any employe who, after meeting the qualifications of § 401, is unemployed, i.e., has performed no services for which remuneration was payable; unless he is rendered ineligible under § 402 (
Appellant adduces many arguments that unemployment compensation ought not to be granted in the labor dispute cases, but we must again state that the Legislature possessed and exercised the sole power to determine the social and economic policies involved in unemployment compensation, and embedded them in the Unemployment Compensation Law as it was from time to time *101
amended. The definitions, the details, and the circumstances under which compensation would be paid, or would be denied, were for the Legislature alone. Unless prohibited by the Constitution its pronouncements are valid. The wisdom and the appropriateness of the statute are not for the judicial branch of the government:English et al. v. Robinson Township School District,
The appellant makes various attacks on the constitutionality of the act as to the payment of compensation where a suspension of work results from an industrial dispute. Most, if not all, of these contentions are interwoven with the alleged increase of the intervenor's taxes or contributions to the fund under the "experience rating" provisions of the amendment of 1943, P.L. 639 (
Appellant contends that the payment of unemployment compensation to persons unemployed because of industrial dispute, impinges upon what it calls the Commonwealth's traditional policy of neutrality in labor disputes, and argues that such payments give assistance to one party to the controversy, i.e., labor. It must be recognized that one of the factors in all labor disputes is the economic resources of the disputants. Therefore the withholding of unemployment compensation in such cases is a help to the industry, just as the payment of compensation is an aid to labor. The choice is with the Legislature, which may have been guided in its different choices by what it deemed an abuse of power by one party or the other.
Appellant contends that the real cause of the dispute was the demand for a "closed shop" (which was not granted in the final agreement), and that without this the other matters could have been resolved. It further contends that it made an offer on July 12, 1946,2 which was refused, but embraced substantially the settlement and contract made on October 25, 1946; and that the strike was not concluded earlier than October 25 only for the reason that the unemployment payments did not cease under the law until that date. The board's first additional finding of fact3 is based on substantial, credible *103
and competent testimony, and is binding on us under § 510 (
Appellant contends that although payment of compensation in the industrial dispute cases is a policy which is constitutional, yet it must be denied in this case because the payment thereof will cause the intervenor's tax or contribution to the fund to be increased under "experience rating." *104
"Experience rating" did not come into existence until the amendment of 1943, P.L. 639 (
Prior to 1943 intervenor's tax was 2.7%. "Experience rating" effected, according to a formula, an adjustment of the contribution, which reduced this rate, the reduction to become greater as the "unemployment" of the employer's workmen became less. It was a reward and not a penalty, for without "experience rating" the employer's tax would remain at 2.7%, and in the subsequent amendments of 1943 and 1945 its tax was fixed at this rate unless adjusted.
Since we hold that it was constitutional prior to 1943, before "experience rating" and when the tax was 2.7%, to provide unemployment compensation in the industrial dispute cases, — it remained equally constitutional after the statute was amended to provide for the reward or adjustment of the employer's contribution under the formula of "experience rating." The adoption of the plan of "experience rating" does not amend, modify or limit the benefit sections of the statute: SturdevantUnemployment Compensation Case,
Decision affirmed.