Lourdes Medical Center v. Board of Review

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal, we must determine whether nurses, while on strike against Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County (Lourdes), were entitled to unemployment benefits. N.J.S.A *34543:21-5 provides that striking workers are entitled to unemployment benefits, except when the strike causes a “stoppage of work” at their place of employment. The question is what constitutes a “stoppage of work” for purposes of N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d).

Despite the considerable financial difficulties produced by the strike, Lourdes continued to function at full service. It found replacement nurses, maintained its patient and employee census, and did not curtail its hospital procedures. On that basis, the Board of Review (Board) concluded that Lourdes did not suffer a “stoppage of work” within the intendment of the statute and granted unemployment benefits to the striking nurses. The Appellate Division reversed because the Board did not consider, in determining whether a work stoppage occurred, “the financial expense to which the hospital was put to maintain normal levels of service to the community.” Lourdes Med. Ctr. v. Bd. of Review, S94 N.J.Super. 446, 467, 927 A.2d 164 (App.Div.2007).

We now hold that the Appellate Division erred in not deferring to the findings of the Board. We also conclude that loss of revenue attributable to the strike, which does not result in a substantial curtailment of work at the hospital, is not the equivalent of a “stoppage of work.” Accordingly, we reverse the Appellate Division and reinstate the Board’s decision to grant the striking nurses unemployment benefits.

I.

A.

Lourdes Medical Center is a 259-bed, nonprofit hospital located in Willingboro, New Jersey, employing 2000 people and providing a wide range of medical services to the public. On April 19, 2004, approximately 240 registered nurses, who had been working without a contract for almost two months, went on strike over work scheduling and economic issues.

While the labor dispute was ongoing, ninety-seven of the striking nurses filed for unemployment benefits for the period they *346were out of work. On June 15, 2004, a Deputy Director of the New Jersey Division of Unemployment Insurance found the striking nurses eligible for benefits. Lourdes appealed, claiming that the nurses should have been denied benefits because they were “participating in a labor dispute.”

At a hearing conducted by an appeals examiner (also known as the Appeal Tribunal), evidence was presented that the nurses, who were members of a union,1 manned picket lines at the hospital’s five entrances during the strike.2 In response to the strike, the hospital at first hired replacement nurses, which increased by about $1 million per month the total cost for nursing staff. Later, Lourdes hired new nurses on a permanent basis. Management costs generally increased during the strike. For example, the hospital had to hire additional security guards and its public relations personnel were diverted from handling usual matters to focus full-time energies on strike-related activities. Additionally, the receipt of a $750,000 obstetrics department grant and the opening of a new laboratory were temporarily delayed. Before the strike, operational losses for the hospital were $600,000 per month, and afterward losses rose to between $1.4 and $1.75 million per month. In 2004, the hospital’s losses were projected to exceed those of 2003 by $8 million.

Despite the strike, the hospital remained in full operation. The hospital’s patient census remained stable, its hours of operation did not change, it did not curtail medical procedures in any department, and it found no need to discharge staff. Indeed, in a series of published letters issued during the strike, Lourdes repeatedly assured the community that there was no decline in the *347quality of services offered by the hospital. Several weeks into the strike, Lourdes reported that doctors serving on the Medical Executive Committee viewed “nursing care at the hospital [as] ‘excellent’ and patient care ‘[as having] never been better.’ ” In the fifth week of the strike, Lourdes was “pleased to report that hospital operations continue to run smoothly.” In a letter to registered nurses, approximately nine weeks after the inception of the labor dispute, Lourdes insisted that the “hospital has been able to maintain operations and continue to provide quality care to the community.” Despite the sunny face it portrayed in those letters, Lourdes claimed at the Appeal Tribunal hearing that the strike required a public relations offensive to counteract rumors that it might close.

At the hearing, Lourdes emphasized that because a hospital is highly regulated by the state, it could not simply close its doors due to mounting financial losses without first engaging in a lengthy and complex legal process to obtain the issuance of a certificate of need from the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services. Lourdes argued that it should not be forced to “subsidize” a strike that was placing it in “severe financial distress.”

To determine whether the hospital suffered a “stoppage of work” under N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) and N.J.AC. 12:17-12.2(a)(2), the appeals examiner looked to the governing statute and regulation. N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) provides that an individual is disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits if her “unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment or other premises” where she was employed. N.J.AC. 12:17-12.2(a)(2) defines “‘[stoppage of work’ [as] a substantial curtailment of work which is due to a labor dispute.” That regulation also provides that “[a]n employer is considered to have a substantial curtailment of work if not more than 80 percent of the normal production of goods or services is met.”3 Ibid.

*348With those legal principles in mind, the appeals examiner noted that, during the strike, the hospital “operate[d] at normal occupancy levels” without a decrease in the census of patients, “did not reduce the medical procedures or services provided to the public,” and “maintain[ed] all of the same quality services to the public.” The appeals examiner took into account that Lourdes incurred a cost of $1 million per month to replace the striking registered nurses with agency nurses and “hired approximately 40 new nurses.” One-third of the striking nurses had returned to work by the date of the hearing.

Despite the “great cost” to the hospital caused by the strike, the appeals examiner concluded that there was not a “stoppage of work” as defined by N.J.A.C. 12:17 — 12.2(a)(2) or N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d). The examiner rejected Lourdes’ argument that the regulation “should not apply to a hospital’s production.” Therefore, the examiner held that the striking nurses were entitled to unemployment benefits.

The Board of Review affirmed the decision of the appeals examiner.

B.

The Appellate Division reversed the Board of Review and remanded to the Board for consideration of “whether the financial expense to which the hospital was put to maintain normal levels of service to the community, including its net revenue, constitutes a stoppage of work within the meaning and intendment of the statute and regulation here at issue.” Lourdes Med. Ctr., supra, 394 N.J.Super. at 467, 927 A.2d 164. In reaching that decision, the appellate panel nevertheless upheld the validity of N.J.AC. 12:17-12.2(a)(2), finding that the application of the regulation’s “eighty-percent rule” to a hospital was consistent with the “statutory scheme and the public policy supporting it” and therefore was *349neither arbitrary nor capricious. Id. at 461-62, 927 A.2d 164. Significant to the panel’s determination was that the hospital, as a regulated entity, had no choice but to hire replacement nurses and remain in full operation, given that a shutdown could take as long as a year. Id. at 467, 927 A.2d 164.

The panel compared the present case to the unreported Appellate Division opinion in Dominions v. Board of Review (Amergen), No. A-3352-04T2, 2007 WL 92415 (App.Div. Jan. 2, 2007). Amer-gen involved a ten-week union strike at the American Energy Company, a nuclear-powered electric-generating facility where 219 of 439 workers withheld their services. Lourdes Med. Ctr., supra, 394 N.J.Super. at 456, 464-67, 927 A.2d 164. In Amergen, in measuring what constituted ‘“normal production of goods and services,’ ” the Board of Review’s focus was not solely on whether the nuclear power plant generated electricity at full capacity. Id. at 465, 927 A.2d 164. Rather, in considering whether a “stoppage of work” occurred during the strike, the Board noted that “the workforce was only able to complete fifty to sixty percent of the work normally done” and that “projects were reduced, postponed or left undone during the strike.” Id. at 464-65, 927 A.2d 164. Based on those facts, the Board concluded that the power plant had experienced “a substantial curtailment of work” and therefore a work stoppage. Id. at 465, 927 A.2d 164.

In drawing a parallel to Amergen, the appellate panel found that although Lourdes remained in full operation during the strike, its “routine work processes and projects were reduced, postponed or left undone” and it incurred “significant financial deficits directly attributable to the cost of securing replacement nurses.” Id. at 466, 927 A.2d 164.

Relying, in part, on case law in other jurisdictions, the panel was “persuaded that revenue is a factor that must be considered in determining whether there was a stoppage of work as a result of a labor dispute.” Id. at 467, 927 A.2d 164. Because “there was no statistical analysis provided analyzing the effect of [the hospital’s] reductions and establishing that the net revenue was reduced *350by twenty percent or more,” id. at 466-67, 927 A.2d 164, the matter was remanded to the Board for further review, id. at 467, 927 A.2d 164.

We granted the Board of Review’s petition and Lourdes’ cross-petition for certification. 193 N.J. 222-23, 936 A.2d 969 (2007). We also granted the New Jersey Hospital Association’s motion to participate as amicus curiae.

II.

The Board of Review argues that the Appellate Division, by substituting its own policy judgments for the Board’s findings of fact and law, violated the deferential standard of review that is owed to the agency responsible for administering the statutes and regulations governing the unemployment compensation system. The Board contends that striking workers are statutorily guaranteed unemployment benefits unless the labor dispute causes the employer to suffer a “substantial curtailment of work,” N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a)(2). That test, according to the Board, encompasses a consideration of “the impact of the labor dispute on the employer’s overall work processes.” Applying its agency expertise to that test, the Board concluded that Lourdes did not suffer a “stoppage of work.”

The Board points out that a strike intended to redress workers’ grievances, by its very nature, will necessarily “cause financial harm to the employer.” By making “financial impact the primary determinant of the existence of a work stoppage,” the Appellate Division’s decision will effectively strip striking workers of unemployment benefits in most cases — even when the business remains in full operation — and force the unemployment agency “to engage in complex, time-consuming inquiries into the employer’s financial status.” In the Board’s judgment, “the stoppage of work test” is “clearly directed at the employer’s operations, not the financial harm suffered by the employer,” and therefore “financial impact should not be a material factor” in that test.

*351The striking nurses join in the arguments advanced by the Board, adding that Lourdes made a strategic business decision not to curtail its patient care operations in order to defend its “market share” against four competing area hospitals. By maintaining its normal operations and engaging in an “aggressive advertising campaign,” Lourdes ensured not only “the continued flow of government funding,” but also that the hospital would remain a going concern. Additionally, the nurses emphasize that although the State may have temporarily postponed a $750,000 grant to the obstetrics department, the government bankrolled the hospital through the “unimpeded flow of Medicare and Medicaid funding.” Loss of growth opportunities and even loss of revenue, according to the nurses, do not constitute “a stoppage of work” under the applicable statute and regulation.

Lourdes responds with a two-fold argument. First, it argues that the Appellate Division correctly ruled that the Board misapplied its own work processes test devised in Amergen. Lourdes submits that under the flexible work processes test a “stoppage of work” occurred at the hospital. The hospital satisfied that test, it insists, because the entire nursing staff walked off the job and “routine work processes and projects were reduced, postponed, or left undone during the strike.” Lourdes maintains that the Board should not have looked narrowly at patient census — the production of goods or rendering of services — as the sole measure of determining whether a work stoppage occurred. Because a hospital is responsible for delivering uninterrupted, quality healthcare, the Board should have analyzed lost revenue and profitability under the work processes test in assessing whether the striking nurses caused a work stoppage.

Second, it contends that the Appellate Division erred in not invalidating N.J.AC. 12:17-12.2(a)(2), which provides that “[a]n employer is considered to have a substantial curtailment of work if not more than 80 percent of the normal production of goods or services is met.” Lourdes maintains that the regulation is an arbitrary guideline inconsistent with its enabling statute. *352Lourdes states that the regulation does not account for the impact of a strike on the normal operations of a hospital, which cannot simply close its doors. It disagrees that financial inquiries into the economic livelihood of the business will be complex and time-consuming, and also complains that the regulation “has the effect of arbitrarily requiring a hospital to fund a strike against it[self],” thus violating the public policy of “State neutrality in labor disputes.”

Amicus Curiae New Jersey Hospital Association echoes the positions articulated by Lourdes. The Association believes that the Appellate Division correctly considered net revenue to be “one important factor” in analyzing whether there was a substantial curtailment of work under the work processes test. The Association also considered the “eighty percent rule” embodied in N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a)(2) to be an arbitrary and capricious formula that “precludes a holistic review of the impact of a strike on an employer’s normal overall operations.” According to the Association, “[t]he Board was required to analyze the disruption caused by the reassignment of [the] Hospital’s staff and the costs of hiring temporary workers.”

III.

In deciding between the competing claims, we must determine whether the Board of Review properly exercised its authority in granting unemployment benefits to the striking workers. That undertaking requires that we first construe N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d), which allows striking workers to receive unemployment benefits, provided they do not cause their employer to suffer a “stoppage of work.”

We begin by reviewing the statutory language in dispute. N.J.S.A 43:21-5 states that

[a]n individual shall be disqualified for benefits:

[...]

*353(d) If it is found that this unemployment is due to a stoppage of work which exists because of a labor dispute at the factory, establishment or other premises at which the individual is or was last employed.

[N.J.S.A. 43:21-5 (emphasis added).]

It has been long accepted that the term “stoppage of work” refers to whether the nurses caused work to stop at the hospital (“factory, establishment or other premises”) and not whether the striking nurses stopped working themselves. See Gerber v. Bd. of Review, 36 N.J.Super. 322, 328, 115 A.2d 575 (App.Div.), aff'd, 20 N.J. 561, 120 A.2d 436 (1956); see also Herbert Fierst & Marjorie Spector, Unemployment Compensation in Labor Disputes, 49 Yale L.J. 461, 483 (1940) (“The technical meaning of the term ‘stoppage of work,’ as used in disqualification clauses, is a substantial curtailment of work in an establishment, not the cessation of work by the claimant or claimants.”). In other words, striking employees are not disqualified from receiving benefits because they refused to appear for work because of a labor dispute; they are disqualified from receiving benefits only if they cause a “stoppage of work” at their place of employment. Gerber, supra, 36 N.J.Super. at 328, 115 A.2d 575.4

In considering whether the striking nurses at Lourdes caused a “stoppage of work,” disqualifying them from unemployment benefits, we first must determine what the Legislature intended by using the term “stoppage of work.” DiProspero v. *354Penn, 183 N.J. 477, 492, 874 A.2d 1039 (2005) (“The Legislature’s intent is the paramount goal when interpreting a statute ....”). The unemployment compensation law nowhere defines the phrase “stoppage of work.” One dictionary definition of the word “stoppage” is an “act or instance of stopping; cessation of activity: the stopping of all work at the factory,” Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language 1876 (2001). Although typically, “[w]e ascribe to the statutory words their ordinary meaning and significance,” DiProspero, supra, 183 N.J. at 492, 874 A.2d 1039 (citations omitted), we recognize that “stoppage of work” is a term of art used by the statute’s drafters. We do not have access to committee reports and sponsor statements that might shed light on the meaning of those words. See DiProspero, supra, 183 N.J. at 492-93, 874 A.2d 1039. Indeed, “[t]he original bill” that served as the basis for the passage of the unemployment law is not even available at the New Jersey State library.5 N.J. State Library, Legislative History Checklist for N.J.S.A. 4.8:21-5a 1 (1957).

We know, however, that our state’s unemployment law is nearly identical in language to laws passed in every jurisdiction in the country in the period between 1932 and 1939, as part of the national response to the Great Depression. New Jersey’s statute, like that of other jurisdictions, was modeled after the federal Social Security Draft Bill. See Fierst & Speetor, supra, at 491. The federal Bill’s so-called “stoppage of work” clause was copied from a similarly-worded provision in the British Unemployment Insurance Act of 1911. See 1 & 2 Geo. V, c. 55, §§ 84-87(g)(l); see also K. Pribham, Compensation for Unemployment During Industrial Disputes, 51 Monthly Lab. Rev. 1375, 1380 (1940) (noting that Draft Bill “[f]ollow[s] the example set by the British Unemployment Insurance Act”).

*355In the years after passage of New Jersey’s unemployment law, our courts and the Department of Labor’s Board of Review rejected a literal interpretation of the term “stoppage of work.” In Ablondi v. Board of Review, 8 N.J.Super. 71, 73 A.2d 262 (App.Div.1950), Judge (later Justice) Jacobs noted that although “‘stoppage of work’ refers generally to a cessation of plant operations ... [i]t has been recognized ... that the stoppage need not be complete and that it will suffice if there has been a substantial curtailment of operations.” Id. at 76-77, 73 A.2d 262 (citations omitted). In Ablondi, the Appellate Division affirmed the finding of the Board of Review that a “substantial curtailment in production at the employer’s [fur] plant” occurred when normal production of furs had diminished by ninety percent. Id. at 78, 73 A.2d 262; see also Gerber, supra, 36 N.J.Super., at 328, 115 A.2d 575 (noting that “labor dispute resulted] in a stoppage of work” because all production workers became unemployed as result of strike). In affirming Gerber, this Court generally accepted, as its premise, the reasoning of Ablondi. See Gerber, supra, 20 N.J. at 566-67, 120 A.2d 436 (citing Ablondi, supra, 8 N.J.Super. 71, 73 A.2d 262).

Those states that continue to adhere to the work-stoppage rule, similar to N.J.S.A. 43:21 — 5(d), almost uniformly take the approach that a substantial curtailment of the operations of a plant or factory due to a labor dispute qualifies as a “stoppage of work.” See Fierst & Spector, supra, at 483 (“The technical meaning of the term ‘stoppage of work,’ as used in disqualification clauses, is a substantial curtailment of work in an establishment____”); Milton I. Shadur, Unemployment Benefits and the Labor Dispute Qualification, 17 U. Chi. L.Rev. 294, 310 (1949-1950) (“There has consequently been unanimous acceptance ... in this country, of the proposition that a substantial curtailment is sufficient to disqualify claimants.”); Willard A. Lewis, The “Stopping of Work” Concept in Labor Dispute Disqualification Jurisprudence, 45 J. Urb. L. 319, 327 & n. 30 (1967) (noting there is “universal acceptance” of proposition that “‘stoppage of work’ *356means a substantial cessation or curtailment of the normal operations or production of the employer”); see also Ablondi, supra, 8 N.J.Super. at 76-77, 73 A.2d 262 (citing Midvale Co. v. Unemployment Compensation Bd. of Review, 165 Pa. Super. 359, 67 A.2d 380 (1949); Magner v. Kinney, 141 Neb. 122, 2 N.W.2d 689 (1942)); Totorica v. Western Equip. Co., 88 Idaho 534, 401 P.2d 817, 822 (1965) (“A work stoppage is deemed to have ended when the employer resumed substantially normal operations.” (citation omitted)); In re Stevenson, 237 N.C. 528, 75 S.E.2d 520, 524 (1953) (“[A] stoppage of work commences at the plant of the employer when a definite cheek in production operations occurs, and a stoppage of work ceases when operations are resumed on a normal basis.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

In some of the earliest decisions of New Jersey’s Board of Review, a stoppage of work was found when there was a twenty-percent decrease in production, N.J. Bd. Rev. BR-65L (1939), and not found when production did not decrease more than fifteen percent, N.J. Bd. Rev. BR-91L (1939). Consistent with the approach taken both in our case law and by the Board, the New Jersey Department of Labor promulgated a regulation stating that a “ ‘[stoppage of work’ means a substantial curtailment of work which is due to a labor dispute.” N.J.AC. 12:17-12.2(a)(2). That regulation further refined the test by stating that, “[a]n employer is considered to have a substantial curtailment of work if not more than 80 percent of the normal production of goods or services is met.” Ibid.

IV.

A.

Although this State has held fast to the work-stoppage rule for more than seventy years, other states have taken different approaches. For example, California now denies benefits to striking *357workers under all circumstances.6 On the other hand, New York expanded unemployment benefits to striking workers, allowing the payment of benefits even if a plant or factory is forced to shut down due to a labor dispute.7 As of 1988, New Jersey was one of twenty-four states that maintained a work-stoppage rule. See Robert Hutchens et al., Unemployment Insurance and Strikes, 4 J. Lab. Res. 337, 339 (1992).

After 1950, when Justice Jacobs in Ablondi, supra, construed N.J.S.A 43:21-5(d) as granting unemployment benefits to strikers, provided they did not substantially curtail the work of their employer, “several attempts” were made by New Jersey’s Legislature to amend N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) — “all of them unsuccessful.” Gerber, supra, 36 N.J.Super. at 331, 115 A.2d 575. The failed legislative initiatives to amend the work-stoppage rule, N.J.S.A 43:21-5(d), reflected business’s effort to limit the availability of striker benefits and labor’s effort to expand those benefits.8

*358In 1967, the labor movement achieved a short-lived legislative victory with the adoption of the “strike benefits clause.” Like the statute in New York, that clause allowed for the payment of unemployment benefits — after a forty-two day waiting period— even if a business was dosed due to a labor dispute. L. 1967, c. 30, § 3.9 In response to strong, publicly voiced opposition, the “strike benefits clause” was repealed thirty days after its effective date. See L. 1968, c. 1, § l.10 The Legislature readopted the original language of N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d), thus reinstating the work-stoppage rule as it existed before enactment of the “strike benefits clause.” 11 See 1A Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construdion § 23:30 (6th ed. 2000) (“The reenactment of a statute is a continuation of the law as it existed prior to the reenactment as far as the original provisions are repeated without change in the reenactment.”). Our courts and the Board of Review continue to recognize the work-stoppage rule no differently than before the thirty-day reign of the “strike benefits clause.” *359See, e.g., Lourdes Med. Ctr., supra, 394 N.J.Super. at 461, 927 A.2d 164 (“[Striking employees may draw upon the fund, provided the employer has not experienced a ‘stoppage of work.’ ” (citing Sweeney v. Bd. of Review, 43 N.J. 535, 539, 206 A.2d 345 (1965))).

B.

In concluding that the very act of going out on strike is a work stoppage, thus making striking workers always ineligible for unemployment benefits, our dissenting colleague ignores this state’s case law, Board of Review decisions, and the overwhelming weight of authority in this country construing provisions similar to N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d). That misinterpretation of N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) rests almost entirely on a misreading of a 1968 press release issued by Governor Hughes on the occasion of the repeal of the “strike benefits clause.” In the press release, the Governor stated that the purpose of the repeal was intended “to remove the provision permitting the payment of benefits to those on strike after a work stoppage has continued for more than six weeks, subject to certain safeguards.” Press Release, supra, at 1. Governor Hughes’s words directly addressed the repeal of the “strike benefits clause,” and nothing else. Contrary to the suggestion of the dissent, Governor Hughes’s signing statement in no way-indicated that the courts had incorrectly interpreted the work-stoppage rule, which was reinstated on repeal of the “strike benefits clause.”

The reality — to which the dissent turns a blind eye — is that in the forty years after 1968 and the thirty years before that date, striking workers have received unemployment benefits when they have not caused a work stoppage at their place of employment. Tellingly, our dissenting colleague’s interpretation of N.J.S.A. 43:21 — 5(d) is so at odds with labor and management’s understanding of what that statute means that not even Lourdes advanced the argument that he now makes. Ultimately, our dissenting colleague would substitute his own policy choices for those made by our Legislature in 1936.

*360V.

We next turn to Lourdes’ contention that under N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) the Board of Review improperly found that there was no substantial curtailment of services at the hospital during the strike. Lourdes also argues that the “eighty percent rule” enunciated in N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a) is not authorized by N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) and therefore is ultra vires, at least as applied to this case. In raising those arguments, Lourdes presents a broad-based policy complaint that, by providing unemployment benefits to striking workers, it has been made to subsidize the strike in violation of state law.

A.

In reviewing the decision of a state agency, charged with enforcing the laws and regulations governing the disbursement of unemployment benefits, this Court’s appellate authority is limited to determining whether the agency acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably. Brady v. Bd. of Review, 152 N.J. 197, 210, 704 A.2d 547 (1997); Pub. Serv. Elec. v. N.J. Dep’t of Envtl. Protec., 101 N.J. 95, 103, 501 A.2d 125 (1985). We look at four factors in assessing whether an agency acted within the scope of its authority:

(1) whether the agency’s decision offends the State or Federal Constitution;

(2) whether the agency’s action violates express or implied legislative policies;

(3) whether the record contains substantial evidence to support the findings on which the agency based its action; and

(4) whether in applying the legislative policies to the facts, the agency clearly erred in reaching a conclusion that could not reasonably have been made on a showing of the relevant facts.

[Brady, supra, 152 N.J. at 211, 704 A.2d 547 (quoting George Harms Constr. v. Tumpilee Auth., 137 N.J. 8, 27, 644 A.2d 76 (1994)).]

Only factors two and four are at issue here. Lourdes urges that, in relying on N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a), the Board’s decision violates express or implied legislative policies of N.J.S.A. 43:21 — 5(d). Lourdes also contends that, when applying the legislative policy *361expressed in N.J.S.A 43:21 — 5(d), the Board’s finding is not supported by sufficient credible evidence in the record.

Ordinarily, this Court “ ‘give[s] substantial deference’ ” to the agency’s interpretation of the statute it is charged with enforcing. In re Application of Virtua-West Jersey Hosp. Voorhees, 194 N.J. 413, 422, 945 A.2d 692 (2008) (quoting Saint Peter’s Univ. Hosp. v. Lacy, 185 N.J. 1, 15, 878 A.2d 829 (2005)). Even though we are not “ ‘bound by the agency’s interpretation of a statute or its determination of a strictly legal issue,’” we give considerable latitude when it construes the “express and implied powers” of a statute for the purpose of carrying out legislative intent. Ibid, (citations omitted).

B.

In deciding whether the Board properly construed and applied N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d), we start with an overview of the Legislature’s purpose in enacting New Jersey’s unemployment compensation law, N.J.S.A. 43:21-1 et seq. As mentioned earlier, the unemployment compensation law came into being in the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the statute’s opening declarations, the Legislature expressed that “economic insecurity due to unemployment [was] a serious menace to the health, morals, and welfare of the people of this state.” N.J.S.A 43:21-2. To meet the desperate needs of New Jersey’s citizens, the Legislature created a social safety net — a means of financial assistance — for the unemployed worker and his family who suffered the “crushing force” of economic dislocation. Ibid. The new law accomplished that end by requiring employers to accumulate “unemployment reserves to be used for the benefit of persons unemployed after qualifying periods of employment.” Ibid.12 Although the unemployment compensation law generally addresses “the s'erious social *362consequences” of those who suffer “involuntary unemployment,” ibid., the Legislature specifically included unemployment benefits for striking workers, provided that they do not cause “a stoppage of work” at the place of their employment, N.J.S.A 43:21 — 5(d).

New Jersey’s unemployment compensation law was passed at a turbulent time in the history of labor relations when unions and management were locked in battle over issues ranging from employee demands for sustainable wages to improved working conditions.13 N.J.S.A. 43:21~5(d), which grants unemployment benefits to striking workers, allows ordinary men and women, who otherwise could not afford to leave work to protest for increased wages or decent working conditions, the lifeline of unemployment benefits. The statute simply permits labor to compete on a more equal playing field with management. However, the statute also recognized that striking workers could not expect to receive unemployment compensation if they shut down or put out of business, or substantially curtailed the operations of the very employer paying “unemployment reserves to be used for [their] benefit.” See N.J.S.A. 43:21-2; Sweeney, supra, 43 N.J. at 539, 206 A.2d 345 (explaining that striking worker loses eligibility for benefits when employer “experience^] the impact of inactivity on account of the labor dispute”). Thus, under the statute, striking workers who cause a work stoppage receive no benefits if they kill- — or substantially curtail the operations of — the golden goose. See Hutchens et al., supra, at 339 (“In a sense this provision provides strikers with insurance against a failed strike. In work *363stoppage states, if a strike succeeds in forcing employers to close down or reduce the scale of their operations significantly, the strikers cannot collect unemployment benefits----”).

Lourdes complains that it should not be made to subsidize a strike by contributing to the unemployment benefits of workers who walk off the job due to a labor dispute. The Legislature, however, rejected Lourdes’ policy argument when it enacted N.J.S.A. 43:21 — 5(d). That statute “ ‘deals with a sensitive area of [labor] policy.’” Febbi v. Bd. of Review, 35 N.J. 601, 606, 174 A.2d 481 (1961) (quoting Gerber, supra, 20 N.J. at 566, 120 A.2d 436). “[0]ur province is merely to interpret and apply [the statute] to particular situations as they are presented, keeping in mind the general policy of the act.” Ibid. With “regard to the rightness or reasonableness of the positions or demands of the employer or the employees,” the State maintains a “completely neutral position.” Ablondi, supra, 8 N.J.Super. at 76, 73 A.2d 262; see also N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a)(2) (“Justification for the labor dispute may not be considered.”).14

C.

Lourdes argues that because a hospital serves the immediate health needs of the public, is highly regulated, and cannot close down unless the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services grants permission through a certificate of need, it should not be governed by a regulation measuring output of goods and services as though it were a widget factory. But N.J.S.A. 43:21-*3645(d) includes within its compass labor disputes “at the factory, establishment or other premises” and does not exempt any profit or non-profit business or rank in terms of importance industries or professions. ‘We cannot write in an additional qualification which the Legislature pointedly omitted in drafting its own enactment____ Our duty is to construe and apply the statute as enacted.” DiProspero, supra, 183 N.J. at 492, 874 A.2d 1039 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

Under the statute, the employees involved in a work stoppage at a steel plant making instruments for the defense industry stand in no different a position than those employees involved in a work stoppage at a local coffeehouse. Nothing in N.J.S.A. 43:21 — 5(d) suggests that the right to unemployment benefits by striking workers is diminished when those seeking increased wages or better working conditions are nurses.15 It is well recognized that “to further [the compensation law’s] remedial and beneficial purposes ... the [compensation law] is to be construed liberally in favor of allowance of benefits.” Utley v. Bd. of Review, 194 N.J. 534, 543, 946 A.2d 1039 (2008) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

Significantly, Lourdes did not have to close down to qualify for a work stoppage. Although the statute requires a “stoppage of work” to disqualify striking workers from receiving unemployment benefits, our case law only requires a “substantial curtailment of work” to constitute a “stoppage of work.” N.J.A.C. 12:17-12.2(a)(2) provides an additional gloss on the statute — a “substantial curtailment of work” occurs “if not more than 80 percent of *365the normal production of goods or services is met.” We are not aware of any reported New Jersey case in which a substantial curtailment of work was found when an employer’s level of services or production of goods exceeded eighty percent. Even in the unreported Amergen decision — relied on by the Appellate Division in this case — approximately forty percent or more of the overall work in the nuclear power plant was left undone during the strike.16

Here, if patient census or patient services had decreased by more than twenty percent or if the hospital’s operations in any of a number of ways had diminished by more than twenty percent, the Board may well have found a substantial curtailment of work under both N.JA.C. 12:17-12.2(a)(2) and N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d)..17 However, as a conscious business objective, the hospital may have determined to maintain full services in order not to lose its edge in á very competitive market or to encourage the strikers’ demands. Indeed, by the date of the Appeal Tribunal hearing, one third of the striking nurses had returned to work, suggesting that the strike was beginning to founder.

We cannot agree with the Appellate Division in this case that “revenue is a factor that must be considered in determining whether there was a stoppage of work as a result of a labor dispute” or that the Board erred by not discounting “the financial expense to which the hospital was put to maintain normal levels of service to the community.” Lourdes Med. Ctr., supra, 394 N.J.Super. at 467, 927 A.2d 164. It is fair to conclude that the Legislature that enacted N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d) understood that a strike would have a negative affect on the revenue of an employer *366involved in a labor dispute. The very purpose of a strike is to inflict sufficient financial pain on an employer to accomplish the goal of the striking workers. See, e.g., Trompler, Inc. v. NLRB, 338 F.3d 747, 751 (7th Cir.2003) (“[T]he entire purpose of a strike is to exert economic pressure on the employer by withholding labor services that he needs.”). The Legislature employed the words “stoppage of work” as the defining point when striking workers would lose their unemployment benefits. Loss of financial revenue is just not a work stoppage, and if lost revenue were the test under N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d), there would be a work stoppage in almost every case. Had the Legislature intended a business’s loss of revenue to constitute “a stoppage of work,” it undoubtedly would have said so. See DiProspero, supra, 183 N.J. at 506, 874 A.2d 1039. We cannot interfere with the policy choices made by the Legislature. Ibid. If the Legislature wishes to enact a different standard for hospitals, it is free to do so.

It bears mentioning that some sister courts, when considering the issue of a stoppage of work, do not give any consideration to loss of revenue, focusing instead on practical measures of output and production. See, e.g., Monsanto Chem. Co. v. Comm’r of Labor, 229 Ark. 362, 314 S.W.2d 493, 496 (1958) (considering number of oil barrels produced, and not revenue, in determining whether stoppage continued to exist); Cont’l Oil Co. v. Bd. of Labor Appeals, 178 Mont. 143, 582 P.2d 1236, 1244 (1978) (“Clearly, in determining whether there is a stoppage of work at the plant such as appellant’s which is engaged in the production of a final product or set of final products, the first and major measure must be [whether] such production is curtailed or stopped.” (citations omitted)); see also Jerre S. Williams, The Labor Dispute Disqualification — A Primer and Some Problems, 8 Vand. L.Rev. 338, 340 (1955) (‘While various factors obviously would enter in, the courts tend to concentrate on the diminution of the activities of production in determining the question of existence of a stoppage of work. The critical breaking point would seem to be about a 20 to 30 per cent cut in production as being sufficient to establish a stoppage.”).

*367Other state courts consider revenue as only one factor along with the more traditional indicia of a work stoppage, such as decreased production and changes in operating hours. See, e.g., Twenty-Eight (28) Members of Oil, Chem. & Atomic Workers Union v. Employment Sec. Div. of Alaska Dep’t of Labor, 659 P.2d 588, 591-92 (Alaska 1983) (noting that courts consider as factors “decreased production, business revenue, service, number of employees, payroll, or man-hours” (citation omitted)); Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Sakrison, 71 Ariz. 219, 225 P.2d 707, 712 (1950) (finding work stoppage in ease involving strike at utility company, where toll calls decreased 84.5%, local calls decreased 93%, revenues dropped 66.7%, and number of employees decreased 89%). Thus, even in those cases, loss of revenue is a reflection of the decline in services and the production of goods.

We conclude that the Board’s decision not to measure lost revenue in deciding whether “a stoppage of work” occurred did not violate any of the express or implied legislative policies of N.J.S.A 43:21-5(d). We next must determine whether the factual findings made by the Board are supported by the record.

D.

We are obliged to defer to the Board when its factual findings are based on “ ‘sufficient credible evidence’ ” in the record. Brady, supra, 152 N.J. at 210, 704 A.2d 547 (quoting Self v. Bd. of Review, 91 N.J. 453, 459, 453 A.2d 170 (1982)). We are not permitted to review the case as though we were the original factfinder and substitute our judgment for any disagreements we might have with the Board. Ibid. Rather, we must determine whether the Board could reasonably have reached its conclusion based on the proofs. Ibid.

Here, the Board concluded, after a lengthy hearing before the Appeal Tribunal, “the hospital was able to operate at normal occupancy levels and the census of patients did not decrease because of the strike.” Despite the hospital’s loss of revenue, its need to hire replacement workers, and the temporary delay in the *368receipt of grants and the opening of a laboratory, “[t]he hospital did not reduce [its] medical procedures or services” and “main-tainted] the same quality of services to the public.” The Board also noted that Lourdes “continued to release information to the public indicating that [it was] providing all of the same quality services that [it] had provided prior to the strike.” Those findings are based on sufficient credible evidence in the record. Based on those findings, the Board held that Lourdes had not suffered a substantial curtailment of work and therefore the striking nurses were not disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits. Those factual and legal findings made by the Board are entitled to deference. We have no basis to disturb them.

VI.

We therefore hold that the Board did not act arbitrarily or capriciously in concluding that Lourdes did not suffer “a stoppage of work” within the intendment of N.J.S.A. 43:21-5(d). Accordingly, the striking nurses qualify for unemployment benefits. For those reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and reinstate the decision of the Board of Review.