Roberts v. NLRB
Decision Date | 21 July 1965 |
Docket Number | No. 18942.,18942. |
Citation | 350 F.2d 427 |
Parties | H. B. ROBERTS, Business Manager of Local 925, International Union of Operating Engineers, and Local 925, International Union of Operating Engineers, Petitioners, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Mr. Theodore J. St. Antoine, Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. J. Albert Woll and Robert C. Mayer, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for petitioners.
Mr. Gary Green, Atty., N. L. R. B., with whom Messrs. Arnold Ordman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Associate Gen. Counsel, and Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, N. L. R. B., were on the brief, for respondent.
Before FAHY, DANAHER and McGOWAN, Circuit Judges.
That the fine was imposed by the Union upon its member Martin is not disputed; nor is it disputed that it was imposed in connection with his having filed charges with the Board against the Union. Petitioners claim, however, with some unresolved factual support, that the fine was imposed only because Martin filed the charges without having previously exhausted his internal union remedies. The Board's position is that this makes no difference, that is, that the availability of such internal remedies, and failure of the member to pursue them, is not a defense to the unfair labor practice of imposing the fine.
Section 8(b) (1) (A) provides:
Section 7, thus referred to, provides:
No such provision was added in 1947 when unfair labor practices of labor organizations were embodied in the amended Act. We think none was required.1 Indeed, Section 8(a) (4), and its predecessor in like terms in the original Wagner Act of 1935 only made clear that which was implicit in original Section 8(1). For we assume, and petitioners agree, as stated in their brief, that "the right of an employee to file charges is protected under Section 7."
That a fine such as here imposed is restraint or coercion in the ordinary meaning of those terms is clear. The question is whether it is the sort of restraint or coercion intended to be proscribed when the conduct is that of a labor organization with respect to its member. The crucial question more precisely is whether membership discipline by such a fine is, as petitioners phrase the matter, "outside the range of conduct which Congress meant to reach by the terms `restrain or coerce'." The heart of the petitioners' position is that such disciplinary action, in the contemplation of the Labor Acts, is an internal union affair beyond Board jurisdiction, since, it is said, such jurisdiction over union conduct respecting its members extends only to a member's status as an employee, not to his status as a union member. And much legislative history is referred to as indicative of the congressional intent to leave internal affairs of unions to the unions: 93 Cong.Rec. 4318 (daily ed. April 29, 1947), 2 Leg.Hist. L. M.R.A. 1097; 93 Cong.Rec. 4317-18 (daily ed. April 29, 1947), 2 Leg.Hist. L.M.R.A. 1096; 93 Cong.Rec. 4398-4401 (daily ed. April 30, 1947), id. at 4568 (daily ed. May 2, 1947), 2 Leg.Hist. L.M. R.A. 1138-1143, 1216-17; and see H.R. Conf.Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess p. 46.2
The Board, however, the same day it decided this case also decided Local 138, International Union of Operating Engineers (Charles S. Skura), 148 NLRB No. 74, 57 LRRM 1009, where the question was substantially the same as the one now before us. The Board in that case rejected the position urged by the Union, stating in part:
The Board distinguished such decisions as it had rendered in Wisconsin Motor Co., 145 NLRB 1097, 55 LRRM 1085, on the ground that the fine there, which was held not to be an unfair labor practice but protected by the proviso to Section 8(b) (1) (A), was imposed to compel compliance with internal union affairs falling short of "job discrimination"; whereas in Skura the Board held the Union attempted to "regulate its members' access to the Board's processes," as in the present case. In other words, by filing a charge with the Board in this case Martin stepped beyond the internal affairs of the Union and into the public domain. The Act, in enabling the Board to inhibit the Union from penalizing him for doing so keeps open the channels created by Congress for the administration of a public law and policy. This is not, we agree with the Board, an inroad upon those internal union affairs left by the...
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