Government & Civil Employees Organizing Committee, CIO v. Windsor

• Decision Date: 10 March 1955
• Docket Number: 3 Div. 702
• Parties: GOVERNMENT & CIVIC EMPLOYEES ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, CIO, v. S. F. WINDSOR et al. S. F. WINDSOR et al. v. GOVERNMENT & CIVIC EMPLOYEES ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, CIO. , 702A.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 646

78 So.2d 646

262 Ala. 285

GOVERNMENT & CIVIC EMPLOYEES ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, CIO, v. S. F. WINDSOR et al.

S. F. WINDSOR et al. v. GOVERNMENT & CIVIC EMPLOYEES ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, CIO.

3 Div. 702, 702A.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

March 10, 1955.

Act No. 720 is as follows:

'Section 1. As used in this act the term 'labor union or labor organization' means any organization of any kind, in which employees participate for the purpose of dealing with one or more employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work; and the term 'public employee' means any person whose compensation is derived in whole or in part from the State, or any agency, board, bureau, commission or institution thereof.

'Section 2. Any public employee who joins or participates in a labor union or labor organization, or who remains a member of, or continues to participate in, a labor union or labor organization thirty days after the effective date of this act, shall forfeit all rights afforded him under the State Merit System, employment rights, re-employment rights, and other rights, benefits, or privileges which he enjoys as a result of his public employment.

'Section 3. This act shall not apply to persons employed as teachers by any county or city board of education or trade schools or institutions of higher learning, nor shall it apply to those employees of the State Docks Board referred to in Title 38, Section 17 of the Code of Alabama, 1940, nor shall it apply to employees of cities or counties.

'Section 4. Any public employee who prior to the passage of this act or to his public employment belonged to a labor union or labor organization and as a result thereof has acquired insurance benefits or any other financial benefits may continue to participate in such labor union or labor organization to the extent that he shall not lose any benefits thus acquired.

'Section 5. The provisions of this act are severable. If any part of the act is declared invalid or unconstitutional, such declaration shall not effect (sic) the part which remains.

'Section 6. All laws or parts of laws which conflict with this act are repealed.

'Section 7. This act shall become effective immediately upon its passage and approval by the Governor, or upon its otherwise becoming a law.'

Cooper, Mitch & Black, Birmingham, Arthur J. Goldberg, David E. Feller, and Thos. E. Harris, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Bernard F. Sykes, Gordon Madison, Asst. Attys. Gen., and Jesse M. Williams, Montgomery, for appellees.

LAWSON, Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Montgomery County, in equity, rendered in a declaratory judgment proceeding.

The complainant below was the Government & Civic Employees Organizing Committee, CIO, an unincorporated association, to which we will refer as the Committee. We will sometimes refer hereafter to the Congress of Industrial Organizations as the Organization.

The Committee is the appellant here and contends that the trial court erred in declaring that it is a labor union or labor organization as defined in Act 720, H. 231, approved September 17, 1953, Acts of Alabama 1953, p. 974 (which the reporter will set out and to which we will sometimes refer hereafter as the Solomon Bill), and in declaring that the provisions of the Solomon Bill have application to complainant and its members, including employees of the State of Alabama connected with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (sometimes referred to hereafter as the Board).

We are of the opinion that the bill shows a justiciable controversy between complainant and the respondents, Curry v. Woodstock Slag Corporation, 242 Ala. 379, 6 So.2d 479, and that the trial court properly proceeded to the rendition of the final decree with the declarations of which we are in accord. The respondents were officers and agents of the Board from the time the bill was filed until submission here.

The evidence shows that the Organization is composed of affiliated national and international unions, organizing committees, local industrial unions and industrial union councils. According to its constitution it is unquestionably a labor organization 'in which employees participate for the purpose [among other purposes] of dealing with one or more employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work.' § 1 of Solomon Bill.

It is our understanding of the record before us that when the Organization determines that it is advisable to create an international union of CIO, to be composed of employees in a given industry or field of labor, that decision is effectuated in the following manner: Its president, acting under authority of the executive board, appoints a national organizing committee, charged with the duty and responsibility of organizing the employees into local unions which will later be formed into the international union.

The Committee of instant concern was established as an affiliate of the Organization on March 1, 1950, by the late Phillip Murray, the then president of the Organization, acting under authority of an executive board resolution. The National Organizing Committee, selected by President Murray, consisted of a chairman, assistant chairman, secretary-treasurer, and eleven other members.

In establishing that Committee, President Murray wrote:

'This Committee is authorized and directed to proceed with the organization of employees in federal, state, county, municipal and related governmental agencies. The Committee shall undertake to represent and defend the interests of these employees in the realm of collective bargaining and legislative matters in such manner as to afford them the protection and improvement to which they are entitled.

'This Committee shall prepare and promulgate rules, in accord with the CIO Constitution, for governance of Local Unions which shall affiliate with it.

'Such Committee shall be given the same status and representation on the CIO Executive Board as other affiliates of the CIO.

'The CIO shall apply such financial assistance and other aid as it shall deem necessary in connection with the organizing of said Committee.

'The Committee will be expanded as appears appropriate to provide adequate representation to affiliating groups of governmental employees.

'When the Government and Civic Employees Organizing Committee--CIO shall determine that a National Convention shall be held to set up a permanent organization and such organization is formed, the CIO shall issue a charter to such organization as a new International Union.'

The rules governing the administration of the Committee and 'its local bodies' were adopted at Washington, D. C., on June 17, 1950. It was provided therein that as to all matters not contained in the rules so adopted, the Constitution of the Organization shall govern. In the rules, the objects of the Committee are stated to be as follows:

'First. To unite into one organization all eligible workers and to establish as soon as economically and numerically practical an International Union of the CIO.

'Second. To increase the wages and to...