Martinez
Martinez v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Stone, J.
Appellants applied for and were denied unemployment insurance benefits. Respondent upheld the decision of the California Employment Development Department and the administrative law judge, ruling appellants were ineligible for benefits under Unemployment Insur *1388 anee Code section 1262, * the “trade dispute” disqualification. Appellants challenged this decision by filing a petition for writ of mandate in the superior court. Their petition was denied. Appellants here seek to reverse that judgment. We affirm.
Background
The facts are undisputed. Appellants are former employees of Egg City at the Moorpark and Nipomo plants, leaving this employment in June 1986.
In July 1984, the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW), entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Egg City on behalf of its agricultural workers. That agreement covered the period from January 1984 to September 1, 1985.
Egg City was sold in May 1985. The new owners informed the UFW that the wages and benefits paid to the employees put the company in an unfavorable competitive position.
In August 1985, negotiations began for a new collective bargaining agreement. No new contract was ever…
Concurring Opinion
Gilbert, J.
I reluctantly concur. Here appellants’ wages were effectively reduced 34 to 41 percent. The trial court made the lugubrious observation that the wage cuts here were catastrophic, were almost starvation wages, and put the workers in “an impossible situation.” The trial court’s reflection led him to perceptively conclude that the employees had no option but to leave.
Our Supreme Court in Bunny’s Waffle Shop v. Cal. Emp. Com. (1944) 24 Cal.2d 735, 743 [ 151 P.2d 224 ], stated: “A substantial reduction in earnings is generally regarded as good cause for leaving employment . . . .” In Bunny’s, the court endorsed the California Employment Commission’s finding that a 25 percent cut imposed upon a single worker would give him good cause for leaving his work.
When the reduction is as drastic as it was here, the employees’ leaving work amounts to an involuntary act. Once the leaving is involuntary, the existence of a trade dispute should be immaterial. Bunny’s, however, also states that “[h]ad claimants in the present case left their work because of the trade dispute, the merits of the controversy would be immaterial and there would be no occasion to inquire whether they had good cause…