Section 48
REMUNERATION, Allocation of vacation pay, Arbitration, Contractual specification, Designation of vacation, Layoff
CITE AS: McCaleb v Harbor Industries, Inc, No. 77-5202 (Mich App September 8, 1978).
Appeal pending: No
Claimant: Victor E. McCaleb, et al
Employer: Harbor Industries, Inc.
Docket No: B75 15530 50209
COURT OF APPEALS HOLDING: (1) Where contractual specification of vacation procedures includes designation of vacation periods but does not treat the allocation of vacation pay, the employer may allocate such pay as it chooses. (2) Arbitration has no role in the determination of eligibility for benefits.
FACTS: The employer allocated vacation pay to a week in which the claimants were on layoff. A subsequent arbitration decision dealt with the selection of a vacation period.
DECISION: The claimants received remuneration under Section 48 of the Act.
RATIONALE: The Court affirmed the Ottawa Circuit Court, which held: "We interpret Section 10.1 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement as dealing with the scheduling of vacations by the employer, and employee participation in selecting individual vacation periods. Nothing is said about the allocation of vacation pay to any particular period. Neither does the arbitrator's decision reach such issue. (Properly so, because arbitration has no place in the Michigan system of administrative and judicial determination as to eligibility for statutory employment compensation benefits.) We reject appellant's request to add contractual language by implication as being without justification, particularly in view of the statutory grant of power to the employer to allocate vacation pay as he chooses in the absence of 'contractual specification.'"
11/90
NA