Aragon

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of the United States for the Territory of Alaska, rendered in a proceeding to review a decision of the Unemployment Compensation Commission of the Territory. Under the Alaska Unemployment Compensation law 1 appellant employees, hereafter called appellants, were admittedly entitled to unemployment compensation from the Commission for the several months’ period fixed by the Commission’s Regulation 10 of the fishing season of 1940 at the fishing and canning plants of the appellee corporations, hereafter called Canners, at Chignik, Karluk and Bristol Bay, Alaska.

The beneficent purpose of the Unemployment Compensation Law of Alaska is stated in its “Declaration of Territorial Public Policy,” as follows:

The question here for determination is whether eight weeks’ time should be deducted from the admitted period of unemployment and appellants’ awards reduced by the compensation otherwise due for that period by reason of a claimed labor dispute in active progress for the eight weeks at the “factory, establishment or other premises” of the Canners, within the meaning of an exceptive provision of the Act, as follows:

Such an…

(dissenting).

The majority opinion assumes (1) that the unemployment for which appellants sought compensation was due to a labor dispute, (2) that the dispute was in active progress at the commencement of the 1940 season, and (3) that it con *540 firmed indefinitely thereafter. Since the whole effort on the part of appellants has been to refute one or the other of these propositions, it would seem that the assumptions should result in a decision favorable to the Commission. However, my associates have reversed the Commission on a theory volunteered by themselves, namely, that the dispute was not in progress at the right place.

The case arose under the following circumstances. For some years prior to' 1940 the Union of which appellants are members had contracts with the canning companies in respect of wages and terms of employment. After the close of the 1939 season the existing agreement was cancelled so that it became necessary to negotiate a new contract for the 1940 season. Negotiations to this end were initiated at San Francisco but no agreement was reached, with the result that the San Francisco fleet did not depart for Alaska and the seasonal enterprise was eventually…