North Jersey Newspaper Guild, Local No. 173, American Newspaper Guild v. Rakos

• Decision Date: 20 April 1970
• Citation: 110 N.J.Super. 77,264 A.2d 453
• Parties: , 74 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2487 NORTH JERSEY NEWSPAPER GUILD LOCAL NO. 173, American Newspaper Guild, Plaintiff-Respondent Cross-Appellant. v. Ronald E. RAKOS, Defendant-Appellant Cross-Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 77

110 N.J.Super. 77

264 A.2d 453, 74 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2487

NORTH JERSEY NEWSPAPER GUILD LOCAL NO. 173, American Newspaper Guild, Plaintiff-Respondent Cross-Appellant. v. Ronald E. RAKOS, Defendant-Appellant Cross-Respondent.

Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

Argued Nov. 24, 1969.

Supplemental Memoranda Filed Feb. 20, 1970 and Feb. 26, 1970.

Decided April 20, 1970.

Harry Green, Deal, for defendant-appellant and cross-respondent.

Irving Leuchter, Newark, for plaintiff-respondent and cross-appellant (Kapelsohn, Lerner, Leuchter, Reitman & Maisel, Newark, attorneys).

Before Judges KILKENNY, LABRECQUE and LEONARD.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

LABRECQUE, J.A.D.

Defendant Ronald E. Rakos appeals from a judgment of the Middlesex County District Court awarding damages of $500 to plaintiff and dismissing his counterclaim. Plaintiff cross-appeals, challenging the amount of damages awarded.

The North Jersey Newspaper Guild, Local No. 173 (Guild), is a subordinate local union of the American Newspaper Guild, an international union, and the collective bargaining representative of the employees in the news-editorial department of the Perth Amboy News (News). In December 1960 defendant, a News employee, joined the Guild. In November 1965 a labor dispute arose between Local 658 of the International Typographical Union (ITU), which represented the printers and compositors, and the News. On November 11, 1965 ITU declared that the members of Local 658 had been locked out and sanctioned a strike against the News. The Perth Amboy Evening News unit of Local 173 of the Guild thereupon adopted a motion to support Local 658 by requiring its members not to cross picket lines set up by Local 658 at the News. This decision was ratified on November 15, 1965 by the executive committee of the Guild, after which its members honored the picket lines set up by Local 658. Officers and members of Local 173 also joined the picket line. The strike continued until November 29, 1965.

Defendant did not attend the meetings of the Guild at which it was voted to support Local 658 and not to cross its picket lines. He received no written notice of those decisions although he knew that the officers and members of the Guild had joined the ITU picket line. Actually, he had not attended any meetings of the local or participated in any of its activities since August 1964. At the conclusion of the strike he was appointed to the post of managing editor, a supervisory position excluded from the labor contract between the Guild and the News. He thereupon tendered his resignation, dated November 29, 1965, to be effective immediately.

When his resignation was submitted to the Guild's executive committee on December 11, 1965 it was tabled. On December 9, 1965 charges of improper activities during the strike were brought against defendant by members of the Guild. These were filed on or about December 12, 1965. Although served with the charges and duly notified of the hearing date, defendant did not answer and failed to appear at the hearing before the Guild's trial board.

The charges against defendant included: (1) crossing ITU's picket line, (2) attempting to entice other members of the Guild to cross the picket line, (3) working on jobs other than his own, (4) working under conditions other than those provided for in the Guild's contract with the News, and (5) acting collusively with the employer or its agent to the detriment of the Guild or any of its branches. At the hearing, various Guildsmen testified to seeing defendant violate the picket line. A letter was also received in evidence on the basis of which a finding was made that defendant had attempted to entice other Guildsmen to cross the picket line. Four complainants testified to defendant's association with an executive editor of the News, and to his suggestion to editorial workers to continue working despite the strike.

The trial board found defendant guilty of violating the picket line, attempting on one occasion to entice another Guildman to cross the picket line and collusion with management. He was fined $750 and expelled from Local 173. The expulsion from the local brought with it loss of membership in the parent American Newspaper Guild.

Although defendant did not appeal the decision of the trial board to the membership of the local, it was nevertheless affirmed by the membership on April 17, 1966. While he could have appealed to the International's executive board within 30 days thereafter, he did not do so.

When defendant failed to pay the fine, plaintiff filed its present complaint to have it reduced to judgment. In his answer defendant challenged the right of the Guild to discipline him after he had submitted his resignation, and attacked the fine imposed as violative of his constitutional rights. He also counterclaimed seeking compensatory and punitive damages for malicious prosecution, based on three articles referring to the charges against him which were published in the Guild newsletter and were allegedly calculated to harass, persecute and humiliate him.

The matter was heard on an agreed statement of facts. The trial judge found that portion of the decision of the trial board which found defendant guilty of solicitation of another Guildsman to cross the picket line, to be unsupported by the proofs. He likewise found that, by reason thereof, the fine should be reduced from $750 to $500. He concluded that at the time of the violations defendant was still a member of the local and subject to its discipline, that he had been afforded substantial due process and, in view of the nature of the offenses and the manner in which defendant had profited from them, the fine was not excessive.

Defendant now raises three points: (1) the local was without jurisdiction over him for the purpose of imposing disciplinary measures for conduct occurring during the period of his membership, after he had been appointed to an ineligible supervisory position and had submitted his resignation; (2) such disciplinary measures could not be imposed where his alleged transgression was in connection with a sympathy work stoppage involving a dispute in which Local 173 was not involved, and (3) by reason of its excessiveness and unreasonableness the penalty should not be enforced.

It would appear clear that, in general, a labor union may discipline one of its members for violation of its rules; that such discipline may take the form of a fine, and that such fine, when reasonable and levied in accordance with due process, may be collected in an action at law in the state courts. Division 1478, etc. v. Ross, 90 N.J.Super. 391, 217 A.2d 883 (App.Div.1966); NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., 388 U.S. 175, 87 S.Ct. 2001, 18 L.Ed.2d 1123 (1967); Local 248, UAW v. Natzke, 36 Wis.2d 237, 153 N.W.2d 602 (Sup.Ct.1967). See also Annotation, 'Right of Labor Union to Enforce in the Courts Fine Validity Imposed upon Member,' 13 A.L.R.3d 1004 (1965).

In Division 1478, etc. v. Ross, Supra, the right of a local union to maintain an action to collect a fine levied upon a member for his infraction of a union rule was upheld, upon a finding that the matter was not one arguably subject to section 7 or 8 of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 and so within the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board.

Since Ross, in NLRB v. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., Supra, the right of a local union to impose a fine upon one of its members for crossing a picket line was upheld. There a number of employees of Allis-Chalmers who had crossed picket lines and worked during an authorized strike were fined by their union. When the union sought to enforce the fines in the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) County Court it was charged in a complaint before the National Labor Relations Board with having committed an unfair labor practice by imposing and suing to collect the fines, on the ground that such actions involved wrongful interference with the right of employees to refrain from 'concerted activities' conferred by section 7. The board held that section 8 (§ 8(b)(1)(A)) was not intended to impair the right of a labor organization to prescribe its own rules with respect to membership and dismissed the complaint. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the union's conduct violated § 8(b)(1)(A), which declared it an unfair labor practice for unions to restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their right, conferred by section 7, to refrain from concerted activities. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company v. NLRB, 358 F.2d 656 (7 Cir. 1966).

In reversing the Seventh Circuit and upholding the right of the union to impose the fines, the majority opinion of the Supreme Court held:

Integral to this federal labor policy has been the power in the chosen union to protect against erosion its status under that policy through reasonable discipline of members who violate rules and regulations governing membership. That power is particularly vital when the members engage in strikes. The economic strike against the employer is the ultimate weapon in labor's arsenal for achieving agreement upon its terms, and '(t)he power to fine or expel strikebreakers is essential if the union is to be an effective bargaining agent * * *.' Provisions in union constitutions and bylaws for fines and expulsion of recalcitrants, including strikebreakers, are therefore commonplace and were commonplace at the time of the Taft-Hartley amendments.

In addition, the judicial view current at the time § 8(b)(1)(A) was passed was that provisions defining punishable conduct and the procedures for trial and appeal constituted part of the contract between member and union and that 'The courts' role is but to enforce the contract.' In International Association of Machinists v. Gonzales, 356 U.S. 617, 618, 78 S.Ct. 923, 924, 2 L.Ed.2d 1018, (1020,) we recognized that '(t)his contractual conception of the...