Opinion
March 20, 1952.
Appeal from Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board.
Present — Foster, P.J., Heffernan, Brewster, Bergan and Coon, JJ.
The employer is a steamship corporation operating a fleet of cargo ships. It customarily obtains its crews from the Seafarers' International Union through the medium of hiring halls. Claimant did not possess full membership rights in this union but belonged to a class known as "permit men". Under the rules of the union he could retain employment for the duration of one round trip voyage or sixty days, whichever was the longest. On October 7, 1949, claimant signed with the employer herein as a messman. He completed a voyage of seventy-three days, which ended on December 19, 1949. On arrival in New York he left his employment although the employer offered to continue him at work. Later he filed a claim for benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Law. Appellant argues that the appeal board erred in holding as a matter of law that it was required to recognize the union's sixty-day rule as a statutory good cause for claimant's voluntary relinquishment of employment. As an alternative argument it urges that if the board is obliged to recognize the union's rule under section 593 of the Unemployment Insurance Law, then that part of the statute provides an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to a private body. As we view the decision of the appeal board we do not find it held itself bound, as a matter of law, to recognize any and all regulations of the union. To the contrary we think it found that, under the circumstances and within the statute, claimant had good cause as a matter of fact for relinquishing his employment. It held in effect, of course, that the union's sixty-day rule was not unreasonable. This involved, in our opinion, no unconstitutional delegation of legislative power. Decision unanimously affirmed, with costs to the Industrial Commissioner.