Reich v. Local 396, Intern. Broth. of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, AFL-CIO
| Decision Date | 09 October 1996 |
| Docket Number | D,AFL-CI,No. 94-55494,94-55494 |
| Citation | 97 F.3d 1269 |
| Parties | 153 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2519, 132 Lab.Cas. P 11,687, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7506, 96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 12,371 Robert B. REICH, Secretary, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LOCAL 396, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFEURS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA,efendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Dennis Harley, Pasadena, California, for defendant-appellant.
Mark S. Flynn, United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Edward Rafeedie, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-93-02987-ER-EEx.
Before: FLETCHER, CANBY, and HAWKINS, Circuit Judges.
This appeal arises out of a Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) 1 Title IV suit brought by the Secretary of Labor against Teamsters' Local 396. The Secretary asserts that Local 396 violated LMRDA § 401(c) anti-discrimination and adequate safeguards provisions by refusing to make available to candidates for union office a list of Local members' job sites. The district court granted the Secretary's motion for summary judgment, and Local 396 appealed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
This dispute had its genesis in a November 1992 election of union officers conducted by Teamsters Local 396. Two slates of candidates vied for office: the "Lopez slate," comprised entirely of incumbents, and the "Huff slate," comprised entirely of candidates who had never held union office. This was the first contested election in Local 396's history.
At the time of the campaign, Local 396 had 8,000 members spread among approximately 100 different employers. All of the candidates on the challenging Huff slate worked for the United Parcel Service, which employs about two-thirds of the Local's members. The remaining one-third of the Local are employed by trash collection companies, trucking firms, and small freight companies. The Huff slate did not know what companies employed the non-UPS members or where those members worked.
Because the candidates on the Huff slate did not have personal knowledge of or business contact with union members who did not work for UPS, they repeatedly requested that Local 396's officers provide them with a list of job sites at which Local 396 members worked. Although there is no evidence that a written list of job sites actually existed, it is uncontroverted that union officials, who were also incumbent candidates on the Lopez slate, knew the employers' names and locations of non-UPS job sites either through personal knowledge or through the union's business agents. 2 The union officials refused to provide the challengers with any information regarding the job site of any union member. Although the business agents had knowledge of the information requested by the challengers, the agents were not authorized to disclose job site information except upon the request of union officers. 3
During the course of the campaign, the Huff slate was limited to appearing almost exclusively at UPS sites. The slate visited only one non-UPS site, a trash collection company that operated in a Huff candidate's neighborhood. Conversely, the Lopez slate campaigned at approximately twelve non-UPS job sites, where at least 875 Local 396 members worked. The incumbents retained six of the seven offices contested by the Huff slate, prevailing by margins ranging from 19 to 674 votes, depending on the office.
After exhausting internal union remedies, Bill Huff, on behalf of his slate, filed a complaint with the Secretary of Labor alleging several violations of the LMRDA. The Secretary investigated the complaint and found probable cause to believe that the Local had violated LMRDA § 401(c) and (e). On May 25, 1993, the Secretary filed suit against Local 396 alleging LMRDA violations. The Secretary requested that the November 1992 election be invalidated and that the Department of Labor (DOL) conduct a supervised election in its place.
The Secretary moved for summary judgment based on the alleged violations. On March 3, 1994, the district court issued an order granting the Secretary's motion for summary judgment as to the § 401(c) claim. The district court did not rule on the § 401(e) allegation, but found that Local 396 had violated two specific provisions of § 401(c), namely that (1) the Local had engaged in "discrimination in favor of or against any candidate with respect to the use of lists of members" (the anti-discrimination provision) and (2) the Local had not provided "[a]dequate safeguards to insure a fair election" (the adequate safeguards provision). 4 The Local filed a timely appeal with this court challenging the district court's summary judgment.
The summary judgment order required Local 396 to turn over a list of job sites to the Huff slate, and then conduct a new election under the supervision of the Secretary of Labor. On May 31, 1994, the Secretary conducted a supervised Local 396 officer election. It turned out that the Lopez slate had little to fear from the availability of the job site information; its candidates were elected to all seven of the contested offices. The results of the supervised election were certified by the district court on August 23, 1994. 5
A grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Warren v. City of Carlsbad, 58 F.3d 439, 441 (9th Cir.1995). We must determine, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law. Id.
We are asked to determine whether Local 396's refusal to provide the Huff slate with a list of Local members' job sites violated either LMRDA § 401(c)'s anti-discrimination provision or its adequate safeguards provision. We hold that the Local's refusal violated the anti-discrimination provision, and accordingly affirm the district court's decision to grant the Secretary's summary judgment motion. 6
The anti-discrimination provision requires unions to "refrain from discrimination in favor of or against any candidate with respect to the use of lists of members." Local 396 mounts three challenges to the district court's application of the anti-discrimination provision to the Local's decision not to distribute a job site list. First, the Local contends that the provision is inapplicable because no written list of job sites existed. Second, it argues that a list of job sites is not a "list[ ] of members" for § 401(c) purposes. Finally, the Local asserts that it did not discriminate against the Huff slate with respect to the use of any list. We address each argument in turn.
Local 396 argues that because no written job site list existed at the time the Huff slate made their requests, there could be no discrimination with respect to the use of a list. The Local's attempt to circumvent the requirements of the anti-discrimination provision through an unduly narrow interpretation of "list" must be rejected. The incumbent slate members had available to them a list of members' job sites; the form that list took, whether tangible or intangible, is of no legal consequence. 7 Indeed, to hold otherwise would allow union officials running for re-election to engage in blatantly discriminatory conduct by exploiting their knowledge of members' job sites while fastidiously avoiding the creation of any written list of those sites.
That the anti-discrimination provision can be applied to an unwritten "list" of jobsites is confirmed by reading the provision in concert with the objectives of Title IV of the LMRDA. See Wirtz v. Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowers Ass'n, 389 U.S. 463, 468, 88 S.Ct. 643, 646, 19 L.Ed.2d 705 (1968) ( ; see generally In re Rufener Construction, Inc., 53 F.3d 1064, 1067 (9th Cir.1995) ( ). The LMRDA was enacted by Congress to remedy "shocking abuses" of power by some union officials. S.Rep. No. 187, 86th Cong., 1st Sess. (1959), reprinted in 1959 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2318, 2322. To that end, the anti-discrimination clause was among those LMRDA provisions "specifically designed to offset 'the inherent advantage over potential rank and file challengers' possessed by incumbent union leadership." International Organization of Masters, Mates, & Pilots v. Brown ("IOMM & P "), 498 U.S. 466, 476, 111 S.Ct. 880, 887, 112 L.Ed.2d 991 (1991) (quoting Wirtz, 389 U.S. at 474, 88 S.Ct. at 649). 8 Because the LMRDA was meant to mitigate the advantages of incumbency, courts construing Title IV's provisions have been sensitive to the competitive disadvantages challengers face when running against incumbents. See Marshall v. Local 468, Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 643 F.2d 575, 577 (9th Cir.1980) (); see also IOMM & P, 498 U.S. at 477-78, 111 S.Ct. at 887-88 (...
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