AMERICAN FED. OF STATE, CTY. & M. EMP. v. City of Cleveland
| Decision Date | 14 August 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 73-1106 to 73-1108.,73-1106 to 73-1108. |
| Parties | AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES, AFL-CIO, GREATER CLEVELAND DISTRICT COUNCIL 78 and Local 100, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO, Plaintiffs-Appellees and Cross Appellants, v. CITY OF CLEVELAND and James D. Hodgson, Secretary of Labor, et al., Defendants-Appellants and Cross Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Stanton R. Koppel, Dept. of Justice, and Malcolm C. Douglas, Asst. Director of Law, Cleveland, Ohio for defendants-appellants.
Harlington Wood, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Frederick M. Coleman, U. S. Atty., Walter H. Fleischer, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., on brief.
Bernard A. Berkman, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiffs-appellees; Larry S. Gordon, Joshua J. Kancelbaum, Cleveland, Ohio, on brief.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and MILLER and LIVELY, Circuit Judges.
This case arose out of a dispute between certain unions which represent employees of the City of Cleveland on the one hand and the Secretary of Labor and the City of Cleveland on the other over the terms of a grant made to the City under the Emergency Employment Act of 1971 (EEA). Cleveland had received two previous grants under the EEA and substantially all of these funds had been used to rehire former employees of the City who had been laid off because of the inability of the City to maintain its full force of workers during a period of severe financial stress. The grant in dispute was made on March 22, 1972 in the amount of $3,400,000. Prior to approving this grant the Secretary of Labor had determined that under the previous two grants Cleveland had rehired the highest percentage of former employees of any program agent in the country. The Director of the Public Employment Program, who was designated by the Secretary to administer the EEA, concluded that the objectives of the Act were not being met by Cleveland. On February 4, 1972 this official wrote the City that it would be a condition of the proposed third grant that not more than fifteen per cent of the grant funds be used to rehire persons employed by the City during the six months immediately preceding the grant application date. On February 25, 1972 the City applied for the third grant with the stipulation included in the application that no more than fifteen per cent of the funds would be thus used.
Plaintiffs filed an action on March 27, 1972 seeking a declaratory judgment that the third grant to the City of Cleveland was invalid to the extent that it placed a restriction upon the amount of granted funds which might be used to hire laid-off city employees and an injunction to prevent the City from hiring employees with the grant money except in accordance with seniority rights set forth in certain collective bargaining agreements between the plaintiffs and the City and with the rules of the Cleveland Civil Service Commission. Depositions were taken of responsible officers of the Department of Labor and the City of Cleveland and in addition there were filed a stipulation of facts, several
affidavits and a group of exhibits. All parties moved for summary judgment and District Judge Thomas D. Lambros filed a Memorandum Opinion and Order on October 6, 1972. The District Court declared the fifteen per cent restriction to be invalid and enjoined the City of Cleveland from hiring with regard to this restriction. The Court specifically directed that the City accord laid-off workers applying for jobs under the grant the same consideration as other applicants and prohibited it from discriminating against any applicants because of their laid-off status. However, the Court refused to grant the additional relief sought by the unions, that is, a prohibition from hiring any employees under the grant except in accordance with the seniority provisions of the collective bargaining agreements and the regulations of the Cleveland Civil Service Commission. The Court held that it had no independent jurisdiction over this cause of action and could only decide it under its pendent jurisdiction. Finding that the issues involved questions of state law and that it would not be significantly more convenient for the parties to adjudicate them in the District Court, in the exercise of its discretion, the Court declined jurisdiction. All parties have appealed from those portions of the District Court judgment which decided matters adversely to their contentions.
The Emergency Employment Act of 1971 appears at Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 4871-4883. It was a temporary measure designed to meet a particular emergency. Following a statement of findings and declarations, the purpose of the Act was stated by Congress in the following language:
Several provisions of 42 U.S.C. § 4881 are directly involved in this case and are set out below:
A fair reading of the entire Act indicates that Congress intended for the Secretary of Labor to exercise rather wide discretion in administration of the program. While certain criteria are set forth in the Act, they tend to be general rather than specific.
On their appeal, the unions, which were plaintiffs below, maintain that the fifteen per cent restriction in the grant violates 42 U.S.C. § 4881(a) (1) (C) which prohibits any program under the Act which will impair "existing contracts for services . . . ." It is the position of these appellants that the collective bargaining agreements between them and the City of Cleveland are "contracts for services" which would be impaired by the fifteen per cent limitation. They point out that 42 U.S.C. § 4881(c) provides for commentary by labor organizations, and refer to the "fundamental Congressional policy of encouraging collective bargaining." Primarily, however, these appellants rely upon the decision of the Supreme Court in J. I. Case Co. v. NLRB, 321 U.S. 332, 64...
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