MONROE LODGE NO. 770, IA OF M. & AW v. LITTON BUS. SYS., INC.
| Decision Date | 24 September 1971 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 68-C-121-A. |
| Citation | 334 F. Supp. 310 |
| Parties | MONROE LODGE NO. 770, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MACHINISTS AND AEROSPACE WORKERS, AFL-CIO v. LITTON BUSINESS SYSTEMS, INC. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
A. A. Campbell, Campbell & Campbell, Wytheville, Va., for plaintiff.
Waldo G. Miles, Woodward, Miles & Flannagan, Bristol, Va., for defendant.
The court by tentative views rendered August 27, 1971 outlined its decision in this case. Since that date, counsel have submitted further memoranda (filed September 1, 1971) urging their respective positions on the issues involved. Upon mature consideration it is adjudged and decided as follows:
The plaintiff in the case at bar is an unincorporated labor organization which seeks relief from this court for the defendant's alleged breach of the collective bargaining agreement entered between the plaintiff (hereinafter referred to as the Union) and Monroe International, Inc., Bristol Division on April 27, 1967. The corporate name of Monroe International was subsequently changed to Litton Business Systems, Inc. when Monroe became a division thereof. This dispute centers around Litton's (hereinafter the Company's) failure to deduct union dues from the wages of employees who had been members of the Union.
The specific provision of the agreement with which the Union alleges the Company failed to comply is Article 1— Union Security which reads as follows:
The employees whose dues had not been deducted had executed written authorizations as prescribed by the union security article given above. The content of this form is as follows:
During the last few months of the first year and during a great part of the second year of this collective agreement, a large number of employees delivered to the Company written revocations of these authorizations. These notices expressly stated that the employees were resigning from the Union, and that they wanted the Company to discontinue the deduction of union dues from their wages. The apparent reason for these revocations and resignations was the employees' dissatisfaction with an increase in the amount of union dues. The dispute in the case at bar concerns the validity of those revocations which were not made in accordance with the terms of the authorizations and the collective agreement. Of specific concern is the Company's act of honoring those revocations which occurred in the latter part of the first year, and also those which were submitted at different times during the second year after the expiration of the fifteen day period.
Although the collective agreement between the Union and the Company and the employee authorization cards both provided for automatic renewal for a yearly period, if the cards were not revoked within the fifteen day period, the Company honored these revocations and discontinued the dues deductions from the wages of employees who had submitted such revocations.
On September 30, 1968, the Union wrote the Director of Industrial Relations of the Company advising that it felt that the Company was violating the terms of the labor contract by failing to comply with Article I thereof, which the Union asserted required the Company to continue the deductions. On October 3, 1968, the Company replied that it would refuse to respect the labor contract in regard to Article I. On October 14, 1968, the Union, by its president, submitted a grievance to the Company concerning the alleged violation of the collective agreement. The Company refused to answer the grievance on the ground that it did not feel that the matter was of a grievable nature. Thereafter the business representative of the Union wrote to the Company requesting that the grievance be submitted to arbitration pursuant to Article XII of the labor agreement. In November of that year, the Company declined to comply with the request for arbitration. Following this denial, the Union instituted this action praying that the Company be required to comply with the provisions of the labor agreement which provided for arbitration; or, in the alternative, that the Company be required to pay the amounts which should have been deducted plus interest from the date such deductions should have been made.
The Company contends that it was correct in refusing to honor Article I of the agreement calling for the checkoff of dues on the ground that the Article was void under Section 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 186. It is the position of the Company that had it continued to deduct the dues from the employees' wages after the receipt of the revocations, it would have been subject to criminal prosecution under Section 302(d) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 186(d).
While Section 302 of the Act prohibits the payment of money by any employer to a labor organization, it includes several exceptions which allow certain types of payments to be made under some circumstances. The exception which is pertinent to the case at bar is codified in Section 302(c), 29 U.S.C. § 186(c), which provides:
The provisions of this section shall not be applicable * * *; (4) with respect to money deducted from the wages of employees in payment of membership dues in a labor organization: Provided, That the employer has received from each employee, on whose account such deductions are made, a written assignment which shall not be irrevocable for a period of more than one year, or beyond the termination date of the applicable collective agreement, whichever occurs sooner; * * *
The Company takes the position that the authorization cards were valid for a period of one year only, and that the automatic renewal provisions included in the authorization forms and the collective agreement were void because they violated the provisions of the above section. Therefore the Company contends that all revocations which were submitted after the expiration of one year were valid and that it was correct in honoring these revocations.
This court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to the provisions of Section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 185(a), since it involves an alleged violation of a contract between an employer and a labor organization. Furthermore, it has been specifically held that the alleged failure to checkoff dues is a matter of direct and peculiar concern of a labor organization and is within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. United Mine Workers of America, District 22 v. Roncco, 314 F.2d 186 (10th Cir. 1963); United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), Local 107 v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 229 F. Supp. 881 (E.D.Pa.1964); United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO v. Knoxville Iron Company, 162 F.Supp. 366 (E. D.Tenn.1958).
The evidence in the case at bar reveals that there were several employees who submitted their revocations before the expiration of the first year. There can be no doubt that the Company was wrong in honoring these revocations, and therefore, the Union is entitled to relief with respect to Company's failure to continue deductions from the wages of these employees.
On the other hand, the effectiveness of the revocations which were submitted during the second year, after the fifteen day period had expired, is the major issue in this case and presents...
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AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND ALLIED WORKERS OF NORTH AMERICA v. SHEN-MAR FOOD PRO., INC.
...bargaining agreement. Monroe Lodge No. 770, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO v. Litton Business Systems, Inc., 334 F.Supp. 310 (W.D.Va. 1971), aff'd per curiam # 71-2063 (4th Cir. 1972). Accordingly, this Court grants summary judgment for the plaintiff ......
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N.L.R.B. v. Atlanta Printing Specialties and Paper Products Union 527, AFL-CIO, AFL-CI
...The legal consequences of renewal are exactly the same as execution of a new authorization. See Monroe Lodge No. 770, I.A.M. v. Litton Business Systems, Inc., 334 F.Supp. 310, 316 (W.D.Va.1971), aff'd, 4 Cir., 1972,80 LRRM 2379. Therefore, since the authorizations, of which the revocation p......