Section 29(8), 48
LABOR DISPUTE, Lost remuneration, Safety during labor dispute
CITE AS: Roesner (Limbach Company), 1977 BR 52993 (B76 6467).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: Gregory S. Roesner
Employer: Limbach Company
Docket No: B76 6467 52993
APPEAL BOARD HOLDING: Where there is no violence or threat of violence, an employee who honors the picket line of a union to which he does not belong suffers a loss of remuneration.
FACTS: The claimant was a plumber and a pipe fitter for a subcontractor on a construction project. Union carpenters set up a picket line as part of a strike against the general contractor. Neither the claimant nor his union were involved. The claimant refused to cross the picket line, and so did not work during the strike. Work was available for him, and some plumbers did work while the strike was in effect. The claimant declined to use an alternate entrance designated by his employer.
DECISION: The claimant lost remuneration, under Section 48 of the Act, by his refusal to cross the picket line.
RATIONALE: "The Referee considered this matter under the 'lost remuneration' provisions of Section 48 of the Act. He concluded, on the basis of Michigan Supreme Court decisions Kalamazoo Tank and Silo Co. v Unemployment Compensation Commission, 324 Mich 101 and Dynamic Manufacturers, Inc., v Employment Security Commission, 369 Mich 556, that the employer had failed to provide the claimant an assurance of safety in crossing the picket line and, therefore, that work was not genuinely available for the claimant so as to justify the application of the 'lost remuneration' concept within the meaning of Section 48 of the Act."
"The Appeal Board does not agree with the Referee's finding that the claimant should not be required to cross the picket line in this matter. It is noted that the Michigan Supreme Court decisions on which the Referee relies in reaching his conclusion in this regard, are cases where it was found that the refusal was based on 'violence or the threat of violence.' These cases are distinguished from the present case because there is no showing on the record in this matter that any violence or concrete threat of violence was associated with the carpenter's picket line."
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