Brock v. International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots
| Citation | 842 F.2d 70 |
| Decision Date | 21 March 1988 |
| Docket Number | AFL-CIO,No. 87-2035,87-2035 |
| Parties | 127 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3070, 108 Lab.Cas. P 10,380 William E. BROCK, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF MASTERS, MATES AND PILOTS; International Marine Division of the International Longshoremen's Association,(IOMMP), Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Nathaniel I. Spiller, U.S. Dept. of Labor (George R. Salem, Sol. of Labor, Allen H. Feldman, Associate Sol., for Sp. Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation, Steven J. Mandel, Washington, D.C., Counsel for Appellate Litigation, on brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
W. Michel Pierson (Robert L. Pierson, Baltimore, Md., Burton M. Epstein, on brief), for defendants-appellees.
Before WINTER, Chief Judge, and PHILLIPS and WILKINS, Circuit Judges.
The District Court determined that the International Organization of Masters, Mates, and Pilots ("the union") did not violate the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 ("the Act"), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 401 et seq., and in particular Sec. 481(e), in its 1984 election of officers, by disqualifying members from seeking office if they had not paid their quarterly union dues on time in any of the 24 months prior to nomination, subject to a grace period for certain members. Its determination was predicated upon the ruling that the union's good standing requirement did not violate Sec. 401(e) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 481(e), which guarantees that every union member in good standing shall have the right to be a candidate and to hold union office, subject to "reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed." The district court declined to abide by the Secretary's regulation, 29 C.F.R. Sec. 452.37(b), which states that "[a] requirement of continuous good standing based on punctual payment of dues will be considered a reasonable qualification only if (1) it provides a reasonable grace period during which members may make up missed payments without loss of eligibility for office, and (2) the period of time involved is reasonable." (footnote eliminated) The district court ruled that the quoted language is an incorrect and overbroad interpretation of Sec. 401(e). It further ruled that the union had not violated the Act because the good standing requirement is reasonable and uniformly imposed.
The Secretary, who had brought the suit, appeals, and we affirm.
In a footnote to his regulation, 29 C.F.R. Sec. 452.37(b), the Secretary referred to two cases, Wirtz v. Local Unions No. 9, 9-A and 9-B, International Union of Operating Engineers, 254 F.Supp. 980 (D.Colo.1965), aff'd, 366 F.2d 911 (10 Cir.1966), vacated as moot, 387 U.S. 96, 87 S.Ct. 1505, 18 L.Ed.2d 586 (1967), and Goldberg v. Amarillo General Drivers, Teamsters Local 577, 214 F.Supp. 74 (N.D.Tex.1963), apparently to justify the language he promulgated.
In Local Unions No. 9, the court invalidated a provision of the union constitution that disqualified members from running for union office if they had not met the deadline for payment of dues for each quarter of the year preceding the election. This provision effectively barred 87 percent of the union members from becoming candidates, many of whom were unemployed during the winter months and would have found the payment of dues a hardship.
In Amarillo General Drivers, approximately 40 percent of the union membership was disqualified from candidacy because of a failure to pay dues by the prescribed deadline. Each of the aggrieved members, however, paid his dues through an employee checkoff agreement with the employer, and thus had no control over the date of dues payment. This disqualification was also held invalid.
The Secretary's regulation thus extends the holdings in these two cases to all situations where a union requires continuous good standing over a certain period of time for all candidates for union office, but fails to provide a grace period for the payment of dues to maintain good standing. The Secretary clearly seeks to protect a broader class of union members than those affected by employer checkoff, or seasonal unemployment. Moreover, the Secretary disregards as a relevant factor the number of candidates actually or potentially disqualified from running for office based on the operation of the good standing requirement, i.e., whether few, many or none are affected.
The current version of Sec. 452.37(b), promulgated in 1973, is in sharp contrast to the Secretary's previous regulation pertaining to reasonable qualifications, 29 C.F.R. Sec. 452.7(b), (adopted in 1963), which conceded the lack of a precise definition for reasonableness:
For example, a requirement that to be eligible to be a candidate for office an individual must have been a "member in good standing" for a prescribed period of time, such as two or three years, would not be, in many instances, an unreasonable qualification. However, should the actual effect of such qualification in a particular case be to disqualify from holding office all but a handful of the labor organization's members, its reasonableness would be subject to serious question.
Despite the earlier recognition of the flexible nature of the Act's use of "reasonable qualifications" of payment of dues to show continuous good standing, the Secretary advances no rationale for the existence of a grace period as a condition of reasonableness other than his reliance on Local Unions No. 9, and Amarillo General Drivers.
We recognize fully that deference should be accorded to the Secretary's interpretation of the statute "unless there are compelling indications that it is wrong." Red...
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