182 Pa. Super. 491 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1956
Opinion by
This is an appeal from the decision of the Unemployment Compensation Board of Review reversing the
The claimant, Ruth H. Jarrett, had been employed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for a period of three years and three months, commencing in January, 1952. Claimant, while in the employ of the company, was married on July 11, 1953. She was a member of the Association of Westinghouse Salaried Employes, which was the bargaining representative for the employes of the company in her category. In accordance with a local supplement to the agreement entered into between the union, as the bargaining representative of the employes, and the company on June 18, 1952, the claimant lost her seniority rights as a result of her marriage. The supplemental agreement provides as follows: “When a woman becomes married she will have no seniority rights with regard to reduction in force or upgrading but she may continue employment.”
The claimant was continued in her employment for a period of approximately twenty-one months subsequent to her marriage until, on March 31, 1955, the company directed a reduction in force at the establishment. Since in such a situation the Westinghouse workers are retained in their employment on the basis of seniority,- this claimant, who had lost her seniority-as a result of her marriage, was laid off by the company.
- It is the-contention of the employer that the claimant is disqualified under §402(b), supra, because she
In the Means case the company-union agreement provided, inter alia: “Any woman presently employed will be required to resign if she marries . . .”. As a result of this agreement, the claimant was immediately severed from her employment upon her marriage. We there held that the claimant was voluntarily unemployed as the result of the action of her own delegated bargaining agent in entering into the agreement and her subsequent act of marrying which directly resulted in her separation from employment.
The doctrine of the Means case was followed in the Elliott case, wherein the same clause of the contract resulted in the disqualification of a non-union employe, who had accepted the contract as one of the terms and conditions of employment, and had subsequently married.
In the Means and Elliott cases, no discretion was' left to the employer to máintain the employe on ■ the rolls of the company. Márriage automatically resulted' in termination. - .'
In the instant case the company-union contract does not provide for immediate severance- of the employ
While, as we have said, the phrase “due to” imports a causal relationship and brings into the Unemployment Compensation Law the principles and theory of legal causation (See Campbell Unemployment Compensation Case, 175 Pa. Superior Ct. 592, 106 A. 2d 687 (1954)), nevertheless, “cause of a necessitous and compelling nature” must reflect the underlying purpose of the Act to relieve against the difficulties of involuntary unemployment.
While the act of the bargaining agent in negotiating an agreement can serve to bind the employe by its terms, it nevertheless, in the instant case, only bound her to accept a loss of seniority in the event of her marriage. While this loss in seniority served to make her job security more tenuous in the event that economic conditions required a reduction in force at the establishment, it was nevertheless only to a loss in seniority that she was bound.
When, after an additional twenty-one months of employment, the employer reduced its labor force, thereby causing a termination of the claimant’s status as an employe, the onus for this separation was upon its shoulders and not upon the claimants. A reduction in the number of employes by an employer is one of the exigencies against which the Unemployment Compensation Law was clearly designed to protect. See Article I, Section 3, of the Act of December 5, 1936, P. L. 2897, 43 PS §752.
In the instant case, the claimant’s marriage did not have as its direct and immediate consequence her un
Although the decision of this case must, of course, depend upon the rights which the individual claimant has under the Act, it nevertheless is interesting to examine how the rule we adopt in this case and the rule of the Means and Elliott cases are in harmony, and operate equitably when applied to the unemployment problem as a whole. This can best be done by applying the rules to two hypothetical cases. It must be remembered in considering them that an employer ordinarily carries a substantial part of the expense of paying unemployment compensation to his former employes through his increased rate of contribution which is based in part on the number of his former employes who are receiving compensation as a result of their separation from his employment.
Order affirmed.
See the Act of May 20, 1043, PX. 630, as amended, 43 PS §781, which provided for the merit rating system.