Donovan v. Air Transport, Dist. Lodge No. 146, Intern. Ass'n of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO
| Decision Date | 08 March 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1043,D,AFL-CI,84-1043 |
| Citation | 754 F.2d 621 |
| Parties | 118 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2969, 102 Lab.Cas. P 11,390 Ray DONOVAN, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AIR TRANSPORT, DISTRICT LODGE NO. 146, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS,efendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Margrit Vanderryn, Dept. of Labor, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellant.
George H. Tucker, Miami, Fla., Jos. P. Manners, Washington, D.C., for defendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Before GEE, WILLIAMS and JOLLY, Circuit Judges.
The Secretary of Labor challenges the district court's conclusion that he lacked authority to prosecute alleged violations of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. Secs. 401-531 (1976), related to a union election. The district court concluded that inquiry into some of the election irregularities was beyond the scope of the Secretary's investigatory and prosecutorial authority. These irregularities did not involve the complaining union member, although they were factually similar to those involving the union member. We find the district court's interpretation of the statute unduly restrictive of the Secretary's authority, and we reverse and remand.
The Air Transport District Lodge No. 146 (District 146), of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is composed of twenty-six locals and represents employees of twenty-one commercial airline companies in collective bargaining and related efforts. In 1977, District 146 conducted a two-step election procedure for the following District 146 offices:
(1) District 146 Secretary-Treasurer;
(2) Executive Board Member for Braniff International Airlines;
(3) Executive Board Member for Continental Airlines;
(4) Executive Board Member for Mexicana Airlines; and
(5) Executive Board Member for Taca International Airlines.
The Secretary-Treasurer office was an at-large position, for which all District 146 members in good standing were entitled to vote. The Executive Board Member (EBM) positions, on the other hand, were voted upon only by the employees of a particular airline.
The first step in the election procedure involved a nomination or "primary" election, and the second step involved a district-wide, general election. The District 146 Bylaws entitled each of the locals to nominate, by a majority of the members voting, one person for the Secretary-Treasurer office and one person for whichever EBM positions a particular local's members were eligible to vote. 1 The names of the winners of the nomination elections were placed on a ballot for the general election.
The manner in which each local conducted its nomination election was substantially similar. At the monthly union meetings in May, members of each local nominated and voted for persons for each of the available positions. If a union member was not present at the union meeting, which typically was held in the evening, the member effectively lost his or her right to participate in the nomination process. Several members of the various locals were working the 4:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. shifts on the evenings during which the locals conducted the nomination elections. Neither the District 146 Bylaws nor the various locals' rules of procedure contained any provision which would enable a member working the evening shift to participate fully in the nomination election. 2
James Kuns, an employee of Continental Airlines, was one such District 146 member who was working the evening shift on the day his local, Local 597, conducted its nomination election. Local 597 was composed exclusively of Continental Airline employees, and Local 597 members were entitled to nominate one candidate for the Secretary-Treasurer position and one for the Continental EBM position. Prior to the Local 597 nomination election, Kuns complained to the Local 597 President that the nomination process deprived members working the evening shift of the opportunity to participate in the nomination election. Kuns received no relief from the Local 597 President, and the nomination election was held as scheduled.
In May and June 1977, after Local 597 conducted its nomination election, Kuns wrote a series of letters to various union officials and argued that the nomination procedures violated section 401(e) of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 481(e) (1976), which guarantees union members a reasonable opportunity to nominate candidates and also violated a provision of the IAM Constitution which provides every union member in good standing with the right to participate in the nomination and election of officers. In Kuns's letters to the District 146 President, the IAM International President, and the Executive Council of the IAM, he challenged the manner in which the Local 597 nomination election was conducted and argued that the procedures affected the outcome of the election for the Continental EBM position. Each of Kuns's three appeals was denied by the union. In August 1977, after the general election was conducted, Kuns renewed his challenges to the nomination election and sought to have the results of the general election declared invalid. Again he wrote to the District 146 President, the IAM President, and the IAM Executive Council, and again he was accorded no relief.
Kuns then filed a complaint with the Secretary of Labor pursuant to section 402 of the LMRDA, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 482 (1976). The Secretary instituted this civil action in April 1978, seeking to invalidate the results of the 1977 general election and to require a new election supervised by him because District 146 had failed to accommodate members who were working at the time the nomination elections were conducted. The Secretary did not limit his complaint to Kuns's desire to invalidate the elections only insofar as the elections affected the Continental EBM position. Instead, he sought to invalidate the results of the nomination and general elections for all five elected positions.
After protracted proceedings in the district court, the district court granted summary judgment for the union. The court held that the Secretary lacked authority under section 402(a) & (b) of the LMRDA to challenge the results of the election for the District 146 Secretary-Treasurer position and the EBM positions for Braniff, Mexicana, and Taca Airlines. The court reasoned that Kuns in his complaints to the union and the Secretary had not challenged the effect the infirm nomination procedures had on these offices.
The initial question we must address is whether the instant case is moot. Although neither party has raised the mootness issue, this Court is compelled to raise the issue sua sponte, since the issue implicates Article III case or controversy considerations. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. v. Berry, 438 U.S. 531, 537, 98 S.Ct. 2923, 2927, 57 L.Ed.2d 932 (1978); Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 7, 98 S.Ct. 1554, 1559, 56 L.Ed.2d 30 (1978); Gulf Publishing Co. v. Lee, 679 F.2d 44, 46 (5th Cir.1982).
The election the Secretary challenges in this case occurred almost eight years ago, and the record reveals that District 146 has conducted three intervening elections for these five union offices since that time. In Wirtz v. Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowers Association, 389 U.S. 463, 88 S.Ct. 643, 19 L.Ed.2d 705 (1968), the Supreme Court held that the Secretary's challenge to a union's violation of section 401 of the Act is not mooted by the "happenstance intervention of an unsupervised election." Id. at 474, 88 S.Ct. at 649. The Court was unwilling to immunize the next election since the officers who had achieved office because of a violation of the Act might have exerted an improper or even illegal influence in the next election. In so holding, the Court in Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowers did not consider whether several properly conducted intervening elections would remove the taint of the prior alleged violation of the statute. We too need not reach this question.
Over three years ago we stated that a nomination process similar to that employed by District 146 imposed unreasonable restraints upon the union members' opportunity to nominate candidates under section 401(e). Donovan v. District Lodge No. 100, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 666 F.2d 883, 888 (5th Cir.1982). Our decision in District Lodge No. 100, IAM was not binding upon District 146, since District 146, while a sister district to District 100, was not a party to that action. The import of that decision, however, is clear. A union must either accommodate workers who are unable to attend a nomination meeting because of their work schedule or assert some valid reason for the failure to accommodate those members. Despite the clear meaning of our decision in District Lodge No. 100, IAM, counsel for District 146 and the Secretary informed us at oral argument that District 146 had not changed its nomination procedures. Accordingly, since District 146 is still conducting nomination elections in the manner challenged by the Secretary, we find that this case is not moot.
The critical question in this case is whether the Secretary may declare the results of the election for the District 146 Secretary-Treasurer position and the EBM positions for Braniff, Mexicana, and Taca Airlines invalid and require the union to conduct a new election. District 146 initially argues that the Secretary had authority to investigate and seek to invalidate the results of the election for only the Continental EBM position, since Kuns had exhausted only that claim to the union. Alternatively, the union asserts that even if Kuns had protested the manner...
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