Connecticut State Federation of Teachers v. Board of Educ. Members

• Decision Date: 21 May 1976
• Docket Number: No. 720,D,720
• Citation: 538 F.2d 471
• Parties: 92 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3011, 80 Lab.Cas. P 53,877 CONNECTICUT STATE FEDERATION OF TEACHERS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION MEMBERS et al., Appellees. ocket 75-7436.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 471

538 F.2d 471

92 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3011, 80 Lab.Cas. P 53,877

CONNECTICUT STATE FEDERATION OF TEACHERS et al., Appellants, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION MEMBERS et al., Appellees.

No. 720, Docket 75-7436.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued March 8, 1976.

Decided May 21, 1976.

Karl Fleischmann, Hartford, Conn., for appellants.

Martin A. Gould, Hartford, Conn., for appellees.

Before KAUFMAN, Chief Judge, and SMITH and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

ROBERT P. ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

The plaintiffs-appellants, who are the local unions of the Connecticut State Federation of Teachers (CFT) in the Connecticut towns of Hamden, Westport, Bridgeport, Stratford, and Bloomfield, and the president of each local, allege a deprivation of rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution in this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for declaratory relief. ¹ The defendants-appellees are members of the boards of education in each of the five towns, and the local affiliate of the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) in each town. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1343, as well as on 28 U.S.C. § 1331(a) because federal constitutional questions are raised and the amount in controversy is alleged to exceed $10,000.

The CFT local in each of these towns is a minority union which has been unsuccessful in the representational elections. By a majority vote of the teachers in each of the towns, the CEA affiliate has been designated to act as their exclusive collective bargaining representative labor negotiations with the respective school board, pursuant to the Connecticut Teacher Negotiation Act, Conn.Gen.Stat. §§ 10-153a et seq.

The appellants claim that certain school board policies and collective bargaining provisions pertaining to the use of school mailboxes, bulletin boards, and meeting facilities, ² in force in the respective towns, infringe upon teachers' "fundamental rights (which) are guaranteed to them by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as made applicable to the states ³ by the Fourteenth Amendment." These are "the right to speak on issues of public importance and to communicate with each other on matters of organizational interest or business" and "the right to associate together for the achievement of lawful purposes." It is further alleged that the policies and practices result in discrimination between the plaintiff organizations and the CEA affiliates and deny to the plaintiff organizations equal protection of the law as guaranteed to them by the Fourteenth Amendment.

As the parties had agreed that there were no genuine issues of disputed facts, no evidentiary hearing was held by the court below; and the case was decided on cross-motions for summary judgment on the basis of the complaint, the answers, and the parties' oral arguments and memoranda of law. When entering summary judgment in favor of the defendants-appellees on June 30, 1975, the district court cited several cases ⁴ in which similar claims, raised by minority public employee unions, had been rejected, and also noted that

"The Supreme Court has long approved the grant of exclusive rights to a labor organization that has been elected the collective bargaining representative. N.L.R.B. v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 44, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937); see N.L.R.B. v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 175, 180, 87 S.Ct. 2001, 18 L.Ed.2d 1123 (1967)."

The appellants on appeal argue that the district court, as well as the cases which it cited, failed to apply the correct constitutional standards to the issues raised. They assert that the respective school boards may not enforce the policies and practices in question because they restrict not only communication with other teachers but their right of association as well, by inhibiting the recruitment of CFT members among teachers, and that no showing has been made that the activities in which the minority union wishes to engage would materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the schools. As principal authority, appellants rely on Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969); Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972); and James v. Board of Education, 461 F.2d 566 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1042, 93 S.Ct. 529, 34 L.Ed.2d 49 (1972).

Appellants also argue that by granting the CEA affiliates in Hamden and Westport use of mailboxes, bulletin boards, and meeting facilities; by giving CEA affiliates in Westport, Bridgeport, Stratford, and Bloomfield dues check-off privileges; and by permitting teachers in Bridgeport, Stratford, and Bloomfield to rescind their check-off authorizations only at specified times, the respective school boards discriminate against CFT affiliates and their members in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Specifically, they claim the grant of these privileges gives the majority union in each town a significant advantage in attracting and keeping members, and in maintaining its status as the majority union and exclusive bargaining representative. While the CFT locals recognize that they do not have any right to participate in collective bargaining with the school boards because they are not the designated bargaining agents, they claim they should be given equal access to teachers for purposes of attaining such status of bargaining agent. Appellants further contend that fundamental First Amendment rights of speech and association are involved, and the discriminations are, therefore, impermissible unless the boards can establish that a "compelling state interest" is promoted by the disparate treatment. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 634, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969).

The school boards, on the other hand, claim that their policies are necessary to prevent constant inter-union rivalry from turning schools into a "labor battleground" and that under the "majority rule" principle of American labor law, an exclusive bargaining representative may be accorded preferential rights in order better to enable it to carry out its duties. They assert that minority unions have no right to dues deduction privileges, as the "checkoff" is won for itself by the majority union only through the process of collective bargaining.

In reply, the appellants claim that the defendants-appellees have shown no "compelling state interests"; that the "majority rule" principle cannot be extended so as to justify the infringement of plaintiffs' constitutional rights; and that the grant of the privileges herein exceeds what is necessary for the bargaining agent successfully to perform its representational duties.

With regard to the constitutional issues raised by the appellants, we sustain the ruling of the district court on the First Amendment claim, as more fully discussed below; but we are of the opinion that the issues raised under the equal protection claims should first be resolved by reference to state law, as it is determined and applied by the Supreme Court of Connecticut, before resort to the federal courts on the questions of the constitutionality of the challenged policies and contractual provisions. Since plaintiffs' complaint did not allege pendent jurisdiction and in fact did not assert the state law claims, the case is remanded to the district court with a direction that it vacate its decision as to the equal protection issue, and that it dismiss that part of the action, without prejudice to plaintiffs' seeking relief on this issue in the courts of Connecticut.

This case presents the all-too-familiar situation in which a dispute, commonplace in the private sector, becomes constitutional litigation by virtue of the fact that public employers (the school boards) are involved, rather than private entities, and the plaintiffs are, therefore, able to turn a problem of labor relations into a constitutional issue. Mindful of the undesirability of becoming entangled in the operation of local school systems, we nevertheless must address this case in a constitutional, rather than a private-law, framework. Despite its constitutional gilding, however, this case involves us, to paraphrase Chief Judge Kaufman, in the "unwelcome" task of "meddling in an intramural fray" among two teachers unions and their board of education employers. Fuentes v. Roher, 519 F.2d 379, 381 (2 Cir. 1975).

First Amendment Claims

It is unquestioned that teachers may not be required to check their constitutional rights outside the "schoolhouse gate." Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969); James v. Board of Education, 461 F.2d 566 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1042, 93 S.Ct. 529, 34 L.Ed.2d 491 (1972). Nor can it be questioned that the First Amendment's protection of speech and associational rights extends to labor union activities. Thomas v. Collins,323 U.S. 516, 65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093 (1940); American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees v. Woodward, 406 F.2d 137 (8 Cir. 1969); McLaughlin v. Tilendis, 398 F.2d 287 (7 Cir. 1968). Of course, teachers' exercise of First Amendment rights in the schools is subject to reasonable regulation, just as it is in the community at large. Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 568, 88 S.Ct. 1731, 20 L.Ed.2d 811 (1968); cf. Kelley v. Johnson, --- U.S. ----, 96 S.Ct. 1440, 47 L.Ed.2d 708 (1976); Hudgens v. NLRB, --- U.S. ----, 96 S.Ct. 1029, 47 L.Ed.2d 196 (U.S., March 3, 1976); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972); Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 192-93, 92 S.Ct. 2338, 33 L.Ed.2d 266 (1972); Adderley v. Florida, 385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 (1966); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 536, 554, 85 S.Ct. 453, 13 L.Ed.2d 471 (1965)....