Donovan v. MASTER PRINTERS ASS'N, ETC.
Decision Date | 10 December 1981 |
Docket Number | No. 80 C 1768.,80 C 1768. |
Citation | 532 F. Supp. 1140 |
Parties | Raymond J. DONOVAN, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff, v. MASTER PRINTERS ASSOCIATION, A DIVISION OF PRINTING INDUSTRY OF ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION, Defendant. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Michael S. O'Connell, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.
Jerry Kronenberg, Lisa S. Kohn, Borovsky, Ehrlich & Kronenberg, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.
This case involves a challenge to the Secretary of Labor's ("Secretary") interpretation of § 203 of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act ("LMRDA" or "Act"), 29 U.S.C. § 433 (1959). The Secretary seeks to compel defendant, Master Printers Association ("Association") to disclose the names and various aspects of its relationship with clients who receive labor relations advice from the Association. The Association contests the Secretary's interpretation of the Act and alternatively raises several constitutional objections to the disclosure requirements. Both sides have moved for summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56, Fed.R.Civ.Pro. and exhaustive briefs have been filed. The records and files of the case present no genuine issues of material fact and the case is ready for decision.
The facts are not in dispute. The Association is an unincorporated trade organization comprised of approximately 800 nonunion printing shops. The purpose of the Association is, in part, to counsel and advise its members on how to keep their employees unorganized. To this end the Association provides a variety of services for its members, including literature, meetings and counseling on how to maintain "open" shops, and establishing credit unions and other benefit programs for the unorganized employees. Affidavit of Robert Lindgren, Exhibit D.
In 1976 the former executive director of the Association made three separate speeches directly to employees of three of its member employers. The Secretary, pursuant to Title II of the LMRDA, Section 203, 29 U.S.C. § 433(b), determined that these speeches constituted "persuader activity" within the meaning of the Act and therefore ordered reports and disclosure of the relationship between the Association and those employers. In addition the Secretary ordered the Association to report the names and disbursement records of all other employers who had received labor relations advice regardless of whether they received persuader services. The Association filed the required reports for the three employers, but refused to comply with respect to its other member-employers. The Secretary instituted this action to compel disclosure. The questions presented here are whether the LMRDA supports the broad disclosure interpretation urged by the Secretary and, if it does, whether the reporting sections of the Act can withstand constitutional scrutiny.
The LMRDA grew out of the lengthy and well publicized McClellan Committee investigations into organized labor in the late 1950's.1 The legislation which ultimately passed after several years of debate and many attempts dealt primarily with insuring internal union democracy and public disclosure of union financial arrangements.2 In addition, the LMRDA and its precursors, the Kennedy-Ives Bill, S. 3974, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. (1958), the Kennedy-Ervin Bill, S. 505, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. (1959), and finally S. 1555, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959) authored by Senator John F. Kennedy, focused on the influence of "middlemen" employed by management to influence employees in the exercise of their rights under § 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. § 157 (1976). The Senate Report accompanying the Act explained:
It is also plain that there are important sections of management that refused to recognize that the employees have a right to form and join unions without interference and to enjoy freely the right to bargain collectively with their employer concerning their wages, working conditions, and other conditions of employment. ... Employers have employed so-called middlemen to organize "no-union committees" and engage in other activities to prevent union organization among their employees. They have financed community campaigns to defeat union organization. They have employed investigators and informers to report on the organizing activities of employees and unions. It is essential that any legislation which purports to drive corruption and improper activities out of labor-management relations contain provisions dealing effectively with these problems. S.Rep. 187, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. at 10 reprinted in 1959 U.S.Code & Admin.News 2318, 2322-23 (1959).3
It is clear that Congress did not look favorably on the activity of outside consultants and believed they frequently engaged in practices of questionable legality.
In response to the problems outlined above the LMRDA provides criminal sanctions for improper payments by middlemen to employees4 and requires disclosure of the employer-middlemen relationship. Section 203 of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 433 (1976), provides in relevant part:
Aaron, The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Harv.L.Rev. 851,...
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Humphreys, Hutcheson & Moseley v. Donovan
...legislative history surrounding the LMRDA has been comprehensively reviewed by several courts. See, e.g., Donovan v. Master Printers Association, 532 F.Supp. 1140 (N.D.Ill.1981), aff'd, 699 F.2d 370 (7th Cir.1983); Douglas v. Wirtz; Wirtz v. Fowler, overruled in part by Price v. Wirtz. Thes......
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International Union, United Auto., Aerospace & Agr. Implement Workers of America v. Brock
...and disclosure requirements of unions and their officers than it does of employers and consultants." Donovan v. Master Printers Association, 532 F.Supp. 1140, 1142 n. 2 (N.D.Ill.1981), aff'd, 699 F.2d 370 (7th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1040, 104 S.Ct. 703, 79 L.Ed.2d 168 (1984). For......
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Master Printers of America v. Donovan
...(4th Cir.1981), and by the Seventh Circuit in Donovan, 699 F.2d 370 (affirming and adopting the opinion of the district court, 532 F.Supp. 1140 (N.D.Ill.) (1983). In Marshall we noted that the need for compelled disclosure under the Act grew out of Congressional findings that "union busting......
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Humphreys, Hutcheson and Moseley v. Donovan
...harm and loss of employment found in NAACP v. Alabama and its progeny." 751 F.2d at 704. See also Donovan v. Master Printers Association, 532 F.Supp. 1140, 1148 n. 11 (N.D.Ill.1981) (court found that members' allegations fell far below the level of reprisals articulated in NAACP v. Alabama ......