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10 Monthly Bull. Int'l Jurid. Ass'n 1 (1941-1942)

handle is hein.journals/injasmb10 and id is 1 raw text is: INTERNATIONAL JURIDICAL ASSOCIATION MONTHLY BULLETIN Vol. 10, No. 1 JULY, 1941 JW Price $2 a year Unemployment Compensation in Industrial Disputes While the fifty-one unemployment insurance laws of the states and territories embody somewhat different for- mulae, all of them contain some provision denying or de- laying payment or benefits where the unemployment was caused by a labor dispute. The various administrative de- terminations of these provisions have already been noted in this Bulletin' and elsewhere.2 Final adjudications on appeal to the courts again call attention to the unsatis- factory criteria of the present statutes.3 Among the earliest disputed claims for benefit were those arising from the bituminous coal stoppage of 1939.4 Here, briefly stated, there was a cessation of work upon the termination of a two year contract with the United Mine Workers and pending the negotiation of a new contract. Neither strike nor lockout was declared. The applications of the unemployed miners for benefits posed the question: was the stoppage due to a labor dispute? The administrative tribunals which heard the claims were hopelessly divided.5 The division in the courts is less sharp but more heavily weighted against labor. That the stop- page as such, and without regard to the merits of the con- troversy constituted a labor dispute, is the judicial holding in Alabama,6 Kentucky7 and Tennessee.8 A contrary result has been reached in Ohio.! (Continued on Page 8) 1. Labor Disputes and Unemployment Insurance, 8 I.J.A. Bull. 57 (Dec. 1939). 2. Fierst and Spector, Unemployment Compensation in Labor Disputes, 49 Yale L. J. 461 (1940) ; Compensation for Unemploy- ment During Industrial Disputes, 51 Monthly Labor Rev. 1375 (1940). 3. See generally, Schindler, Collective Bargaining and Unem- ployment Insurance Legislation, 38 Col. L. Rev. 858 (1938). Fierst and Spector, supra note 2. 4. They are summarized by Fierst and Spector, supra note 2, pp. 466-469. 5. Benefits were granted in 6 states, denied in 11. Compensa- tion for Unemployment During Industrial Disputes, supra note 2, pp. 1379-1380. Perhaps the real reason for denying benefits was the desire to conserve the reserves. A West Virginia tribunal (Bd. of Review No. 3380, Compensation for Unemployment Due to Industrial Disputes, supra note 2, p. 1376) pointed out that pay- ment of benefits to the bituminous miners would have exhausted the reserves in 8 weeks. That achievement of the purpose of un- employment insurance laws-protection against the consequences of unemployment-should be thought to be fraught with danger is an interesting irony. 6. Department of Industrial Relations v. Pesnell, 29 Ala. App. 528, 199 So. 720 (1940), aff'd 199 So. 726 (1941), certiorari denied, 85 L. ed. (Adv.) 1002. 7. Barnes et al. v. Hall, 285 Ky. 160, 146 S. W. (2d) 929 (1941). 8. Block Coal & Coke Co. v. United Mine Workers, 148 S. W. (2d) 364 (1941) dissent reported at 149 S.W. (2d) 469. 9. United States Coal Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Board, 66 Ohio App. 329, 32 N. E. (2d) 763 (1940). Recent Items of Interest Regulation of Employment Agency Fees Upheld Undoubtedly little surprise was occasioned by the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Olsen v. Nebraska' upholding the constitutionality of a state law limiting the charges made by a private employment agency to ten per cent of the first month's salary or wages of the person for whom employment was obtained. The significance of the Olsen case, however, goes beyond the overruling of Rib nik v. McBride,2 decided in 1928, and even then discredited by the brilliant dissenting opinion of Mr. justice (now Chief Justice) Stone,3 with whom Justices Holmes and Brandeis concurred. The opinion in the Olsen case, writen by Mr. Justice Douglas, makes clear that the present court regards price-fixing as purely a matter of legislative choice and not as a special power which may be exercised only upon a showing that competition has failed to eliminate an economically undesirable situation. So broad a statement of the constitutional powers of gov- ernment takes on special significance at a time when federal price control is becoming imperative as a means of checking inflationary prices which would seriously af- fect the defense program. 1. 61 S. Ct. 864 (April 28, 1941). 2. 277 U.S. 350 (1928). 3. Mr. Justice Stone is the only member of the Court who sat in both cases. New York Agrees to Bargain Collectively With Subway Workers In 1940 the New York City Board of Transportation in taking over the operations of the B.M.T. and I.R.T. sub- way lines recently purchased by the City, assumed, so far as not inconsistent with constitutional and statutory pro- visions, all the terms and conditions of the labor agree- ments between the private operators and the Transport Workers Union of America, the Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen of America.' Upon the refusal of the Board to enter into negotiations for the renewal of its contract, the T.W.U. voted to strike on June 30, 1941, when all three agreements would expire. Two days before the strike, Mayor LaGuar- dia, who had steadfastly endorsed the refusal of the Board to bargain collectively, capitulated by entering into a mcm- orandum continuing the agreements, except for certain provisions, pending a court test of their legality.2 By the 1. The contracts of the Brotherhoods cover only the craft groups indicated by their names and only on part of the formerly privately-operated lines. No contracts exist with respect to the In- dependent Division built as well as operated by the Board of Transportation. 2. On April 9 the City brought suit for a declaratory judg- ient in which it asked that the Board be held to have no power to enter into labor agreements. Whatever may be said of the closed shop clauses of the old contracts (see N. Y. U. Law Q. Rev., Jan. 1941) with respect to employees covered by the civil service law, there is manifestly no merit in the contention that 1

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