Donovan v. District Lodge No. 100, Intern. Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO
| Decision Date | 01 February 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-3858,D,AFL-CI,79-3858 |
| Citation | 666 F.2d 883 |
| Parties | 109 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2743, 93 Lab.Cas. P 13,222 Raymond J. DONOVAN, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DISTRICT LODGE NO. 100, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS,efendant-Appellee. . Unit B * |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
William Taylor, III, Beate Bloch, U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., Bobbye Spears, Regional Sol., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.
Jos. P. Manners, George H. Tucker, Miami, Fla., for defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before TJOFLAT, HATCHETT and THOMAS A. CLARK, Circuit Judges.
By authority granted in Title IV of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 401 et seq., 1 the Secretary of Labor, appellant, asked the district court to set aside a 1975 election of officers of District Lodge No. 100, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO. Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the union's motion and entered judgment. The United States appeals. Because the district judge decided material issues of fact on motion for summary judgment, we reverse.
The defendant-appellee, District Lodge No. 100, is an intermediate body of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO with, at the time of the challenged election, 13,177 members in 43 locals, spread from Miami to Anchorage, Hartford to Los Angeles. District 100 is not a district in the sense that its membership is confined to a geographical region; more accurately it is an employer district. Most of the membership is employed by Eastern and locals exist almost everywhere that carrier operates. The size of a local is generally proportional to the Eastern traffic serviced at that airport. Miami, Eastern's base of operations, has a local membership of 5,370. Other hubs of the airline's transportation network have large locals: Atlanta-1,280; Kennedy-1,970. Other cities with smaller Eastern operations, some at large airports, have very small locals: San Francisco-2; Anchorage-2; Toronto-2; Minneapolis-9; Columbus-7.
The defendant union has established detailed procedures for the nomination and election of its governing officers: president and general chairman, vice president, secretary-treasurer, and nine Executive Board members. The government does not challenge the election procedures. Provisions are made for absentee voting and opportunity is provided for night workers to vote during the election. The Labor Secretary limits his complaint to nomination procedures.
In order to qualify as a candidate, district by-laws require a member to be nominated by at least four local lodges. In the event that more than two candidates for any office received four nominations, only the names of the two candidates with the greatest number of nominations appear on the ballot. Each local lodge may nominate only one candidate for each office. If the members of a local lodge nominate more than one person for a particular office, an election is held at the same nomination meeting to determine the official nominee of the local lodge. 2 When such a nomination election is held, absentee ballots are not used. In granting the union's motion for summary judgment, the district court found these nomination procedures reasonable and thus permissible under the LMRDA.
The district office directed locals to make nominations at the regular July 1975 meetings. The Cleveland and San Antonio locals failed to hold such meetings for lack of a quorum. At the meetings in San Francisco and Jacksonville, nominations were not solicited. Other locals held nomination meetings at a variety of times and on different dates throughout the month of July. The meetings were poorly attended. In many cases as few as 5% of the eligible membership participated. The best attended meeting, of which we are aware, was held at midnight in Newark, New Jersey. Approximately 100 of 328 eligible members attended. Nearly 100 of the members were working when the meeting was held.
Some members faced unusual obstacles to their attendance at meetings. The parties stipulated that Local 2319 held its election in Tampa and 22 of its members lived and worked in Pensacola and Tallahassee, Florida. Local 1690 met in Atlanta. Fifty-five of its members live and work in Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama and Greenville, South Carolina. Employees of Eastern may fly standby for a small service charge. This may have eased the burden on those who lived and worked far from meetings, but the distances were an obstacle to voting nevertheless.
Low attendance may have resulted in part because a large number of members were working while meetings were held: typically, one of every three eligible members. Eastern had a policy of allowing shift switching and similar devices as operational needs would permit in order to allow members to attend meetings.
Few union members participated in the nomination process. The principal employer has a twenty-four hour operation. Some members must work during meetings. Some locals have members who work and live far from the central union meeting places. These things are beyond the control of the union. Nonetheless, the record indicates little effort by the union to minimize the obstacles to participation in the nomination process. Absentee voting for nominees is not permitted. Except for the Miami local, all-day nomination elections are not held. In short, the union does not encourage participation in nominations. On the other hand, when elections are held, absentee ballots are permitted. The record is unclear as to why nominations and elections are treated differently. "I don't care who does the electing," New York's William Marcy "Boss" Tweed once remarked, "just so I can do the nominating." The union's policies regarding nomination meetings raise at least the specter of entrenched leadership. We have insufficient evidence of union motive and the effect of these policies to flesh out the ghost of entrenchment.
In the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 401-531, "Congress chose the goal of 'free and democratic' union elections as a preventive measure 'to curb the possibility of abuse by benevolent as well as malevolent entrenched leadership.' " 3 In order to achieve that free election goal, Congress enacted specific provisions such as that in issue here.
(e) In any election required by this section which is to be held by secret ballot a reasonable opportunity shall be given for the nomination of candidates and every member in good standing shall be eligible to be a candidate and to hold office (subject to section 504 of this title and to reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed) and shall have the right to vote for or otherwise support the candidate or candidates of his choice, without being subject to penalty, discipline, or improper interference or reprisal of any kind by such organization or any member thereof. Not less than fifteen days prior to the election notice thereof shall be mailed to each member at his last known home address. Each member in good standing shall be entitled to one vote. No member whose dues have been withheld by his employer for payment to such organization pursuant to his voluntary authorization provided for in a collective bargaining agreement shall be declared ineligible to vote or be a candidate for office in such organization by reason of alleged delay or default in the payment of dues. The votes cast by members of each local labor organization shall be counted, and the results published, separately. The election officials designated in the constitution and bylaws or the secretary, if no other official is designated, shall preserve for one year the ballots and all other records pertaining to the election. The election shall be conducted in accordance with the constitution and bylaws of such organization insofar as they are not inconsistent with the provisions of this subchapter.
29 U.S.C. § 481 (emphasis supplied).
The Secretary of Labor based his complaints on the reasonable opportunity and reasonable qualifications provisions above. The questions to be determined are (1) whether members had a reasonable opportunity to participate in the nomination process and (2) if the rule limiting candidacy to the top two candidates nominated by at least four unions (4/2 rule) was a reasonable qualification for office. These determinations must be made in light of the problem which Congress recognized and the method by which it chose to attack that problem. "The legislative history and wording of section 401(e) reveal a congressional purpose to ensure open and democratic union elections and to limit candidacy restrictions to those that do not invite abuse, especially by entrenched incumbents." 4
A goal of the Act is "to protect the rights of rank and file members to participate fully in the operation of their union through processes of democratic self-government." 5
The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.
On a motion for summary judgment the court must determine the existence or nonexistence of a genuine issue of material fact. The trial judge must decide only whether such an issue exists, not how it should be decided. 6 The district judge recognized a potential problem existed which was not resolved because both parties requested summary judgment.
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