39-51-2305. Disqualification when unemployment because of strike. (1) An individual must be disqualified for benefits for any week with respect to which the department finds that the individual's total unemployment is due to a strike that exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment, or other premises at which the individual is or was last employed. However, this subsection does not apply if it is shown to the satisfaction of the department that the individual:

(a) is not participating in or financing or directly interested in the labor dispute that caused the strike; and

(b) does not belong to a grade or class of workers of which, immediately before the commencement of the strike, there were members employed at the premises at which the strike occurs, any of whom are participating in or financing or directly interested in the dispute.

(2) If in any case separate branches of work that are commonly conducted as separate businesses in separate premises are conducted in separate departments of the same premises, each department must, for the purpose of this section, be considered to be a separate factory, establishment, or other premises.

(3) If the department, upon investigation, finds that the labor dispute is caused by the failure or refusal of any employer to conform to the provisions of any law of the state in which the labor dispute occurs or of the United States pertaining to collective bargaining, hours, wages, or other conditions of work, the labor dispute may not render the workers ineligible for benefits.