Division of Labor Law Enforcement Department of Industrial Relations v. Safeway Stores, Inc.

Defendant appeals from a judgment in favor of plaintiff in an action brought on behalf of two employees of defendant to recover wages which it was alleged were due them under the provisions of a contract between defendant and the Butchers' Union Local 193 of the Amalgamated Heat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, hereinafter referred to as the “Union.”

For many years prior to June 20, 1946, the defendant, throughout its Los Angeles division, had paid its market managers or head meat cutters a weekly salary which had been fixed by contracts with the union, and had in addition to said weekly salary, paid quarterly to its market managers or h.ead meat cutters a bonus. No contract had provided for or required such bonus and the method of its computation had always been prescribed by the defendant. During the whole of the year 1946 the contract between the union and the defendant called for a minimum weekly pay to market man agers of $65 per week for a 48-hour week; prior thereto, the weekly payments having been based on a 54-hour week. In 1947, a new bargaining agreement was executed between defendant and the union in which the minimum weekly pay of market managers was…