167 Pa. Super. 256 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1950
Opinion by
Keystone Mining Company, employer, appealed from a decision of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review awarding compensation to Robert Pendleton (No. 29) and Alexander D. Alexander (No. 30). The separate appeals involved identical questions of law; were argued together; and will be decided in one opinion.
The records will be remitted for further hearing, and accordingly we state the board’s version of the facts without committing this Court to its approval. Claimants had been employed in the bituminous coal industry for most of their lives, and were in appellant’s employ for over 20 years. Pendleton is 68 years of age and Alexander is 64. Both left their employment on December 31,1948, because their work was “too heavy.” Pendleton testified that the heavy work had aggravated his hernia; Alexander that the wet and damp conditions prevailing in the mines had injured his health. They had requested lighter work but none was available. The board allowed compensation, holding that the effect of the work upon claimants’ health constituted a good cause for leaving their employment, within the meaning of the Unemployment Compensation Law, §402(b), 43 P. S. §802. We have held that the physical condition of an employe is an important factor in determining the existence of good cause. Filchock Unemployment Compensation Case, 164 Pa. Superior Ct. 43, 63 A. 2d 355; Miller Unemployment Compensation Case, 158 Pa. Superior Ct. 570, 45 A. 2d 908.
The board also decided that claimants were “able to work and available for suitable work” within the meaning of §401 (d), 43 P. S. §801, although there were no immediate opportunities for securing lighter work for which they were capable in the vicinity in which they lived. See Sturdevant Unemployment Compensation
The undisputed testimony is that immediately after ceasing work both claimants applied for pensions to which they were entitled as members of the United Mine Workers of America, and Pendleton also applied for old age assistance under the Social Security Act of Congress.
The effect of acceptance of industrial pensions upon an employe’s claim for unemployment compensation has not hitherto occupied the attention of this Court,
It is safe to assert that pension payments are not wages within the meaning of the Law, §4(x), 43 P. S. §753, and that their receipt will not disqualify an employe who meets the other requirements of the Law. Nor are payments made by an employer to a pension fund regarded as wages. Law, §4(x)(2)(A). The purpose of the unemployment legislation is “the compulsory setting aside of unemployment reserves to be used for the benefit of persons unemployed through no fault of their own”: Law, §3, 43 P. S. §752. By it the legislature seeks to prevent “the spread of indigency”, but an employe need not be indigent to secure the benefits provided by the Law. If he meets the requirements of the Law he is entitled to compensation even though he has other resources and from them receives income adequate for his needs; e. g., interest on savings accounts, mortgages, United States bonds, or rent for real estate owned by him. The purpose of a pension plan is “to pay additional compensation for services rendered in the past”: Kline v. State Employes’ Retirement Board, 353 Pa. 79, 85, 44 A. 2d 267. However it is not remuneration within §4(u), 43 P. S. §753, since the pensioner performs no service during the period covered by the pension payments.
There is another aspect to an industrial pension: its tendency to withdraw the recipient from the labor market. Indeed, at one time and possibly now, withdrawal of older men from the labor market formed an objective in the union’s advocacy of pension plans.
■ This brings us to defects of these records. There is oral testimony to the effect that under the United Mine Workers’ pension plan a member receives $100 a month upon condition that he permanently withdraw from work in the mines. (This would seem to exclude the possibility of engaging in light work in the mines.) Whether he can, without losing his pension, temporarily or perma
It has been said that some pension plans require a retired employe to maintain his union membership “in good standing.”
Consideration has been given to the position of the employer who, like appellant, has furnished the whole of the pension fund and finds his experience rating raised
Pendleton’s status as a recipient of old age assistance is established. He receives $37.22 a month which he loses only during months when his wages for services rendered amount to $15. Act of Congress of August 14, 1935, as amended, 53 Stat. 1367, 42 U. S. C. A. §403 (d) (1). Our study of the Act did not uncover any prohibition against the acceptance of unemployment compensation.
The decisions are vacated, and the records are remanded to the board for further proceedings with directions to take additional testimony.
The record does not disclose the exact date when the applications for pensions were filed. At the hearings claimants testified that they were then receiving their pensions, but the dates when payments of pensions commenced are not stated. Payments may have been made as of the date of the applications but that fact has not been developed.
The eases have not been made available to us, but we gather from the briefs that they denied compensation claims where claimants were receiving pensions under the United Mine Workers of America Health and Welfare Fund.
In Hall Unemployment Compensatton Case, 160 Pa. Superior Ct. 65, 49 A. 2d 872, claimant’s pension was only incidentally involved. The factual issue was whether or not she had been “laid off”, and this Court decided only that the evidence supported the board’s finding' that she had separated from her employment voluntarily.
Pension and Profit Sharing Service. (Prentice-Hall.) Supplement of August 1,1949.
“In the depression years of the 1930’s, however, unions adopted a contrary view. Unions then favored compulsory retirement of older workers in order to make more jobs available to new members
The agreement between the United Mine Workers and the coal operators has been printed, but the rules under which the Health and Welfare Fund grants pensions have not been found. The agreement provides that the “Trustees shall designate a portion of the . . . payments ... [to be] used for providing pensions or annuities for the members of the United Mine Workers of America”: 5 Labor Law Reporter, p. 53, 255. (Commerce Clearing House.) The rules governing the administration of the Fund should be produced.
Pension and Profit Sharing Service, supra, p. 2518; How To Plan Pensions, by Carroll Boyce, (McGraw-Hill) p. 29.
Pension and Profit Sharing Service, supra, p. 7101; How to Plan Pensions, supra, p. SI.