Conille v. Council 93, Am. Fed'n of State, Cnty. & Mun. Emps., No. 18-1038
| Decision Date | 24 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 18-1038 |
| Citation | 973 F.3d 1 |
| Parties | Pharamond CONILLE; Yves Rigaud; Michelet Auguste; Jacques Laraque; Guy Raphael; Jean Louis; James Shea; Elga Bernard; Hodelin Aubourg; Gabriel Bernard ; Verleen Lewis; Carmesuez Michaud; Kallot Jean-Francois; Monique Modan; Joeseph Berlus; Marie Aveline Fortunat; Valentine Dubuisson; Franchette Dorsainvil; Sally Rogers; Stanley Sienkiewicz; Yvonne Vassell; Local 402, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. COUNCIL 93, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Defendants, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Paul F. Kelly, with whom Sasha N. Gillin and Segal Roitman, LLP were on brief for appellants.
Mark D. Stern, with whom Mark D. Stern P.C., Arthur L. Fox, II, and Lobel, Novins & Lamont, LLP were on brief, for appellees.
Michael J. Goldberg on brief for The Association for Union Democracy, amicus curiae.
Before Howard, Chief Judge, Torruella and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
This appeal requires us to consider the proper role of the courts in adjudicating an intra-union dispute that implicates both Titles I and IV of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 ("LMRDA"). The case arises out of a dispute between Council 93, a regional division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ("AFSCME"), and one of its local divisions, Local 402, over the allocation of seats on Council 93's governing executive board. The plaintiffs, Pharamond Conille and other members of Local 402, brought suit in the District of Massachusetts, alleging that the allocation of seats on the executive board violated their right to an equal vote under both Title I of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. § 411, and the AFSCME constitution. The district court agreed and ordered Council 93 to reconstitute its executive board "within one year so that there may be proper proportional representation for its constituent locals and members." Conille v. Council 93, Am. Fed'n of State, Cty. & Mun. Emps., No. 17-11495, 2018 WL 2223672, at *5 (D. Mass. May 15, 2018).
After careful consideration, we conclude that, even if the composition of Council 93's executive board violates the equal rights provision of Title I, the remedy for any such violation can, in the first instance, be implemented only by the Secretary of Labor under the remedial provisions of Title IV. We also conclude that the plaintiffs have not shown that the union constitution supports their claims. We therefore reverse the district court's judgment on all claims except for Council 93's counterclaim, and remand for further proceedings.
We begin with a sketch of AFSCME's organizational structure and the pertinent facts underlying this case.
AFSCME is a large international trade union organization under the umbrella of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations ("AFL-CIO"). Representing public service employees throughout the United States, AFSCME is governed by a biennial convention composed of delegates elected by local unions in proportion to their membership. These delegates in turn elect an executive board composed of a president, a secretary-treasurer, and thirty-four vice presidents representing AFSCME's twenty geographical and five organizational legislative districts. Council 93 is the governing body for the legislative district covering Northern New England, and the Northern New England legislative district is represented by one vice president on the AFSCME executive board. The AFSCME executive board manages the day-to-day affairs of the union and serves as the union's governing body when the convention is not in session. Plaintiffs do not challenge the manner in which AFSCME selects its governing bodies and officers. Rather, they train their criticism on the methods by which the governing bodies and officers of Council 93 are selected.
As the intermediate body governing of one of AFSCME's legislative districts, Council 93 is tasked with coordinating the activities of AFSCME's local unions ("locals"), which are the narrowest formally recognized components of AFSCME. Council 93 covers the Northern New England legislative district and represents locals in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. It consists of approximately 500 affiliated locals, representing approximately 45,000 members. Like AFSCME, Council 93 is governed by a biennial convention composed of delegates representing the locals that make up Council 93 and an executive board elected by the convention delegates.
In choosing Council officers, voting begins at the local union level, where each qualified union member votes to select the delegates representing that local. Plaintiffs offer no criticism of that process. The delegates then attend a regular convention every two years which, while in session, governs Council 93. They may also attend legislative conferences and special conventions. At the regular conventions, all delegates vote on all matters of union governance and possess the power to amend Council 93's governing constitution. They also select by a vote of all delegates the five principal officers of the Council (president, executive vice president, recording secretary, secretary-treasurer, and sergeant-at-arms). For these decisions, each delegate's vote is weighted to approximate the number of members of the local represented by the delegate. Plaintiffs do not criticize this process, either. The five chosen principal officers lead the Council's executive board, to which forty-five vice presidents also belong. That executive board is responsible for the day-to-day governance of Council 93, and it is the selection of those vice presidents upon which plaintiffs focus their criticism.
To choose the vice presidents, Council 93's constitution divides the locals into thirteen legislative districts -- nine geographic and four organizational. These legislative districts do not have independent governing bodies; rather, they function solely as a way to divide delegates to nominate and elect members of the executive board. The Council 93 constitution allocates a specific number of vice president positions to each legislative district. The number allocated to each district bears little, if any, relationship to the number of members in that district. Rather, the allocations are artifacts of agreements made over time as locals have joined the Council. For example, a single vice president is chosen by the delegates representing over 1,800 members in the Vermont district, while four vice presidents are chosen by the delegates representing 1,500 employees in a "Department of Mental Health" legislative district. It is this type of disproportionality that triggers plaintiffs' displeasure.
Pharamond Conille and the other plaintiffs are members of the now-deactivated Local 402, a local labor union representing employees of the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services ("DDS") who worked at the Walter E. Fernald State School in Waverly, Massachusetts. AFSCME chartered Local 402 in 1953, and until its deactivation, Local 402 maintained an affiliation with both AFSCME and Council 93. Conille and non-party Raymond McKinnon were the vice president and president, respectively, of Local 402 at the time of its deactivation in March 2017. Conille, 2018 WL 2223672, at *2. Conille also sat on the Council 93 executive board. Id. at *3–4.
In February 2017, the Fernald Development Center closed permanently, and its employees, including the members of Local 402, were transferred to other state facilities and programs. Id. at *2-3. After Fernald's closure, certain members of the executive board for Council 93 recommended to AFSCME that Local 402 be deactivated because there were no longer any union members working within Local 402's jurisdiction. Id.
Conille and McKinnon objected to the deactivation; both wrote to several individuals within Council 93, as well as to AFSCME's Charter and Constitution Department, opposing deactivation and requesting that Local 402's charter be updated to include several community worksites that Local 402 had been representing. Id. at *3. AFSCME declined this request on the basis that Council 93 opposed it. Id. In May 2017, a special assistant to the executive director of Council 93 sent an email to DDS's human resources department advising DDS of Local 402's deactivation. Conille, 2018 WL 2223672, at *3. A few weeks after this deactivation notice, Local 402 received an additional notice ordering it to return funds and property to Council 93. Id.
Shortly thereafter, McKinnon filed charges with AFSCME's judicial panel against Council 93 for interfering with the ability of Local 402's officers to perform their duties. Id. The judicial panel ultimately declined to take any action based on these charges, and the AFSCME secretary-treasurer instead issued a notice requiring the transfer of funds and property from the deactivated Local 402 to AFSCME. AFSCME also responded to objections lodged by Local 402 with a letter stating that the decision to deactivate Local 402 was made in accordance with the AFSCME constitution. Conille, 2018 WL 2223672, at *3. As a result of the deactivation, the charters of two other local unions -- Local 646 and Local 1730 -- were amended to allow those locals to absorb the members of Local 402. Id.
Conille became a member of Local 646 and, as a result, found his Council 93 executive board post in jeopardy. The Council 93 constitution prohibits two members from the same local from sitting on the executive board at the same time and one of Local 646's members was already serving on Council 93's executive board. Conille asserts that, at the end of the June 2017 executive board meeting, members of the board informed him that it would be his last meeting because Local 646 already had a member on the board. Conille, ...
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