INTERN. LONGSHOREMEN'S, ETC. v. WATERFRONT COM'N, ETC.

• Decision Date: 25 June 1980
• Docket Number: No. 79 Civ. 4267.,79 Civ. 4267.
• Citation: 495 F. Supp. 1101
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, AFL-CIO, Atlantic Coast District, ILA, AFL-CIO, Local 1233, ILA and Carol Gardner, Plaintiffs, v. The WATERFRONT COMMISSION OF NEW YORK HARBOR, New York Shipping Association, Inc., and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors Association, Inc., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

495 F. Supp. 1101

INTERNATIONAL LONGSHOREMEN'S ASSOCIATION, AFL-CIO, Atlantic Coast District, ILA, AFL-CIO, Local 1233, ILA and Carol Gardner, Plaintiffs, v. The WATERFRONT COMMISSION OF NEW YORK HARBOR, New York Shipping Association, Inc., and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors Association, Inc., Defendants.

No. 79 Civ. 4267.

United States District Court, S. D. New York.

June 25, 1980.

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Gleason, Laitman & Mathews, New York City, for plaintiffs, International Longshoremen's Ass'n, AFL-CIO, Atlantic Coast Dist., ILA, AFL-CIO, and Local 1233, ILA, AFL-CIO, by Thomas W. Gleason, Ernest L. Mathews, Gary G. Nicolosi, New York City.

Brown & Brown, Jersey City, N. J., for plaintiff, Carol Gardner, by Raymond M. Brown, Jersey City, N. J Gerald P. Lally, Gen. Counsel, New York City, for defendant, The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, by Gerald P. Lally, David B. Greenfield, New York City.

Lorenz, Finn, Giardino & Lambos, New York City, for defendant, New York Shipping Association, Inc., by C. P. Lambos, Donato Caruso, New York City.

Greene & Bonaguidi, New York City, for defendant, Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors Association, Inc., by James P. Corcoran, New York City.

Schulman & Abarbanel, New York City, for intervenor, Local 814, International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO, by Howard Schulman, David Jaffe, New York City.

Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen. of the State of New York, New York City, for intervenor, New York State, by Amy Juviler, Stephen A. Marcus, Asst. Attys. Gen., New York City.

OPINION

SOFAER, District Judge:

This suit was commenced by plaintiffs International Longshoremen's Association ("ILA"), Atlanta Coast District, ILA, AFL-CIO, and Local 1233, ILA, seeking to enjoin enforcement on statutory and constitutional grounds of Section 8 of the New York Waterfront Commission Act ("WCA § 8"), N.Y.Unconsol.Laws (65) § 9933 (McKinney 1974). Defendants are the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor ("Commission"), an instrumentality created to enforce the Waterfront Commission Compact ("Compact"); and the New York Shipping Association, Inc. ("NYSA") and Metropolitan Marine Maintenance Contractors Association, Inc. ("MMCA"), two organizations of employers which, under a collective bargaining agreement with the ILA, collect and pay to the ILA dues from union members. No genuine issues of material fact exist, and all the parties have moved for summary judgment.¹ Judgment is now granted to each of the parties in accordance with the following opinion. In summary, an injunction is denied in all respects, since it is unnecessary. The following declaratory judgment is entered, however: (1) WCA § 8 may lawfully be enforced against individuals whom it disqualifies from service as waterfront union employees; (2) WCA § 8 may not lawfully be enforced against persons other than disqualified union employees for collecting and distributing union dues; and (3) WCA § 8 may lawfully be enforced against the ILA or its officers for knowingly employing a disqualified individual.

Numerous challenges have been made in this case to the legality and application of WCA § 8. These challenges have in turn raised jurisdictional questions. A brief review of the Compact, the WCA, and of section 8 in particular, will clarify the parties' respective positions. Some of the matters being disputed relate to whether certain union officials, recently sentenced after trial, should be forced out of their union jobs now rather than after their appeals have been completed. Other issues are of far greater import, pertaining to the standards which govern the States of New York and New Jersey when they regulate unions and employers to achieve the legitimate objective of forcing convicted criminals out of waterfront union employment.

I. THE WATERFRONT COMMISSION ACT AND SECTION 8

Waterfront employment in New York Harbor is governed by the Waterfront and Airport Commission Act ("WCA"), Chap. 1, Title 29, N.Y.Unconsol.Laws (65), §§ 9801 et seq. (McKinney 1974) ("N.Y.Laws"). The Act is divided into three parts. Part I, comprising Sections 9801 to 9873, is a restatement of the Waterfront Commission Compact consented to by Congress on August 12, 1953. 67 U.S.Stat. 541 (1953). Parts II and III of the Act, covering respectively Sections 9901 to 9920, and Sections 9931 to 9937, contain supplementary provisions, including regulations and prohibitions, which have been enacted by New York and New Jersey, with only slight variation, but have not been consented to by Congress. Section 8 of the WCA, the provision challenged in this action, is found in Part III.

The Compact's background and objectives have been discussed in several decisions, most notably De Veau v. Braisted, 363 U.S. 144, 80 S.Ct. 1146, 4 L.Ed.2d 1109 (1960); Bradley v. Waterfront Comm'n of N.Y. Harbor, 12 N.Y.2d 276, 239 N.Y.S.2d 97, 189 N.E.2d 601 (1963); and Hazelton v. Murray, 21 N.J. 115, 121 A.2d 1 (1956). A central purpose of the "drastic reform" implemented by the Compact was to eliminate the presence of corrupt and irresponsible persons in any waterfront employment. De Veau, supra, 363 U.S. at 147, 80 S.Ct. at 1148. To accomplish this end, the Compact created the Waterfront Commission, granting it extensive administrative, adjudicatory and enforcement powers. Among the Commission's primary tasks is the supervision of a detailed licensing procedure for several employment categories, all of which were found to be "affected with a public interest." N.Y.Laws § 9805. The Commission is authorized to deny, revoke, cancel or suspend certain licenses or registrations if the applicant or licensee has "without subsequent pardon, been convicted" by any state or federal court of certain crimes. N.Y.Laws §§ 9814(b), 9818(c) (pier superintendents and hiring agents); §§ 9821(e), 9824(a) (stevedores); §§ 9829(a), 9831(a) (longshoremen); §§ 9841(b), 9844(a) (port watchmen).² To deny, revoke, cancel or suspend a license or registration, however, the Commission must follow certain procedures, designed to protect the rights of the applicant or licensee. See N.Y.Laws §§ 9845, 9846.³

The Compact anticipates that this statutory scheme may lead to regulatory efforts that conflict with national labor policy. It provides explicit safeguards against such efforts. Thus, N.Y.Laws § 9868 states that the "compact is not designed and shall not be construed to limit in any way any rights granted or derived from any other statute or any rule of law for employees to organize," to bargain collectively, to strike, and to act in any other way individually, collectively, and through labor organizations "or other representatives of their own choosing." See also N.Y.Laws § 9869. At the same time, N.Y.Laws § 9872 provides that the Compact "shall be liberally construed to eliminate the evils described therein and to effectuate the purposes thereof."

The Compact has been supplemented by provisions as extensive and important as those it contains. Many of these were adopted contemporaneously with the Compact in 1953, but have never been approved by Congress.⁴ Section 8 of the WCA, the statute challenged in this lawsuit, is one of these supplementary provisions. A slightly different version has been adopted by New Jersey.⁵

Section 8 has proved the WCA's most controversial provision. Like the licensing regulations set forth in the Compact, WCA § 8 sets employment qualifications, but for waterfront unions rather than waterfront workers. The statute limits those who may serve as officers, agents or employees of any waterfront union, which in practical effect means the ILA. In contrast to the Compact's regulatory scheme, however, WCA § 8 establishes no licensing or registration mechanism, no hearing procedure, no right to judicial review. In its present form, it simply imposes criminal penalties for violating any of three prohibitions relating directly or indirectly to the employment by a waterfront union of certain "convicted" officers or employees.

The first prohibition of WCA § 8, and the only part in the section as adopted in 1953, is its most inclusive and potentially consequential. It prohibits any "person" (defined in the Compact to include virtually any individual or entity imaginable other than a governmental unit, N.Y.Laws § 9806), from soliciting, collecting or receiving any dues or other charges within New York for or on behalf of any labor organization representing the employees regulated by the WCA, "if any officer, agent or employee" of such labor organization or of a fund it administers "has been convicted" of certain crimes by a federal or state court, unless he has been subsequently pardoned or has received an appropriate certificate of good conduct. The convictions presently covered by this section include all felonies, "any misdemeanor involving moral turpitude," and certain other crimes or offenses. See N.Y.Laws § 9918(3)(b). This prohibition seems clearly to apply to employers and organizations such as NYSA and MMCA that aid in the collection of union dues or other charges. The provision also seems applicable to union officials, or locals, or anyone else participating in dues collection, including those individuals disqualified by the statute from union employment.

WCA 8's second prohibition, adopted in 1969, is its most narrow and discriminate. It simply prohibits any person "so convicted" from serving as an officer, agent or employee of a labor organization or fund, unless he has been pardoned or received the requisite certificate of good conduct. It applies only to disqualified individuals.

The third prohibition of WCA § 8, also adopted in 1969, is that "no person," including the labor organizations covered by the section, "shall knowingly permit such convicted person to assume or hold any office, agency, or employment in violation of this section." Though the statute's language prohibits employing a...