United Steelworkers of America v. Block

• Citation: 578 F. Supp. 1417
• Decision Date: 23 December 1982
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 82-5078.
• Parties: The UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC, and United Steelworkers of America, Local Union No. 7044. v. John R. BLOCK, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture; Allan C. Nickels, Mountain Plains Regional Director of the Family Nutrition Program, United States Department of Agriculture; James Ellenbecker, Secretary of the South Dakota Department of Social Services; Judith Thompson, Program Administrator, South Dakota Office of Food Stamps.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota

578 F. Supp. 1417

The UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO-CLC, and United Steelworkers of America, Local Union No. 7044. v. John R. BLOCK, Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture; Allan C. Nickels, Mountain Plains Regional Director of the Family Nutrition Program, United States Department of Agriculture; James Ellenbecker, Secretary of the South Dakota Department of Social Services; Judith Thompson, Program Administrator, South Dakota Office of Food Stamps.

Civ. No. 82-5078.

United States District Court, D. South Dakota, W.D.

December 23, 1982.

Dennis W. Finch, Finch & Viken, Rapid City, S.D., for plaintiffs.

Philip N. Hogen, U.S. Atty., Sioux Falls, S.D., Douglas E. Kludt, Asst. Atty. Gen., Pierre, S.D., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BOGUE, Chief Judge.

In this case, the United Steelworkers of America, and its Local No. 7044, (hereinafter "Union"), challenge on several grounds the interpretation given by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to its regulations under the Food Stamp program concerning the ineligibility of persons "on strike." 7 U.S.C. § 2015(d)(4) provides, inter alia, "... a household shall not participate in the food stamp program at any time that any member of such household, not exempt from the work registration requirements of paragraph (1) of this subsection, is on strike as defined in section 142(2) of Title 29, because of a labor dispute (other than a lockout)...." At issue is the USDA's interpretation of 7 C.F.R. § 273.1(g)(1), which provides:

(g) Strikers. (1) For food stamp purposes, a striker shall be anyone involved in a strike or concerted stoppage of work by employees (including a stoppage by reason of the expiration of a collective-bargaining agreement) and any concerted slowdown or other concerted interruption of operations by employees. Any employee affected by a lockout, however, shall not be deemed to be a striker. Further, an individual exempt from work registration in accordance with § 273.7(b), other than those exempt solely on the grounds that they are employed, who may go on strike shall not be deemed to be a striker.

On June 1, 1982, following the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement covering union members at the Homestake Mine, the Union called a strike at the Mine. A majority of the members of the Union local voted in favor of the strike. On that same date, and in fact, immediately upon commencement of the strike, the management of the Mine closed all operations. The Mine was closed either because management wished to avoid possible violence, or because the strike left insufficient qualified personnel to continue operations.

Following the strike, many Mine employees applied for food stamps at the South Dakota Department of Social Services offices in Deadwood and Sturgis, South Dakota. The defendant administrators of the Department requested directions from the USDA concerning the eligibility of Mine employees for food stamps. The Regional Office of the USDA advised the Department of Social Services that strikers were generally ineligible to participate in the food stamp program. This conclusion obviously precluded any eligibility on the part of Union members. The USDA added, however, that nonunion workers would be considered "locked out," and if otherwise eligible, could receive food stamps. This direction apparently was based upon the USDA's conclusion that the direct cause of the unemployment of nonunion workers was not their participation in the strike. Rather, the unemployment of nonunion workers resulted from the closure of the Mine—which occurred immediately after the Union called the strike. Thus, nonunion workers were given no opportunity voluntarily to leave their jobs and to go on strike. They were laid-off by the Mine immediately after the strike was called and the Mine closed. For this reason, nonunion workers at the Mine were considered locked out, and therefore eligible for food stamps. Accordingly, defendants asked Mine workers who applied for food stamps whether they were members or non-members of the Union. Members generally were denied food stamps, and non-members, if otherwise eligible, received them.

The Union seeks both declaratory and injunctive relief. The Union contends that the USDA unlawfully discriminates on the basis of union membership in its interpretation of 7 U.S.C. § 2015(d)(4) and 7 C.F.R. § 273.1(b)(1). In several counts of its Complaint, the Union asserts that the USDA denied food stamps on the basis of union membership, in violation of Union members' rights under the first amendment (freedom of association), and the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution. The Union further contends on these same grounds that defendant state administrators are liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Finally, plaintiffs assert that the USDA's interpretation of the Food Stamp Act in this case violates their rights under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 157. The merits of the case are before this Court on the Union's motions for declaratory and injunctive relief. Defendants advance several arguments in opposition to the motions, the first of which is that the plaintiffs have failed to present a justiciable case or controversy.

I.

Article III of the Constitution limits the judicial power of the United States to the resolution of "cases" and "controversies." As an incident to this requirement, the U.S. Supreme Court has always required that a litigant have "standing" to challenge the action sought to be adjudicated in the lawsuit. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). At "an irreducible minimum, Art. III, requires the party who invokes the court's authority to show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant, (cites omitted), and that the injury fairly can be traced to the challenged action and is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision." Id. 102 S.Ct. at 758. Ordinarily a plaintiff must assert his own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties. But an organization, such as a union, has standing to assert the constitutional rights of its members. See, Arkansas State Highway Employees Local 1315 v. Kell, 628 F.2d 1099 (8th Cir.1980); CIBA-GEIGY Corp. v. Local # 2548, United Textile Workers, 391 F.Supp. 287 (D.R.I.1975).

In this case, the Union contends that defendants' interpretation and application of Section 2015(d)(4) actually injured or threatens future injury to the constitutional rights of union members. First, the Union asserts that defendants denied food stamps "on the basis of union membership," thereby burdening the members' right to freedom of association. One union member stated that defendants offered food stamps to any member who signed a written resignation of union membership, acknowledged by the Union, together with a promise not to rejoin the Union. (Affidavit of William Maddocks.) Additionally, the Union contends that nonmembers may decline to exercise their fundamental right to belong to the Union and to participate in its activities, because by doing so they would become ineligible for food stamps. Thus, the Union concludes that members suffer actual injury to their associational rights by defendants' "offering federal benefits as an inducement to forego union membership." These factual allegations may be adequate to confer standing to invoke federal jurisdiction. But to obtain a judgment and remedy, the Union must establish the truth of these allegations. Through this rule Article III controls not only who may have access to federal courts at the threshold of the litigation, but also who may obtain a judgment. Legal Aid Society of Alemeda County v. Granny Goose Foods, Inc., 608 F.2d 1319, 1320 (9th Cir.1979); N.A.A.C.P., Boston Chapter v. Harris, 607 F.2d 514 (1st Cir.1979).

This Court finds and concludes that defendants did not offer food stamps to persons who relinquished union membership. Instead, when some members offered to quit the union, defendants told them that they still would be ineligible for food stamps. Defendants used June 1, 1982, the date the strike began, as a cut-off date for determining which Mine workers were "on strike." As union membership aided that determination, any person who was a union member on that date was found to be on strike, regardless of any offer on their part to relinquish union membership after that date. Furthermore, the Union does not challenge the constitutionality of section 2015(d)(4), and does not oppose the provisions denying benefits to "strikers". It agrees that all union members at the Mine were on strike and were not entitled to food stamps. Since this Court finds that present members were not offered food stamps as an inducement to relinquish union membership, and were properly denied food stamps, union members suffered no "distinct" and "palpable" injury to their associational rights as a result of defendants' application of section 2015(d)(4) against union members.

As in N.A.A.C.P., Boston Chapter v. Harris, plaintiffs here seek only equality of treatment of members and nonmembers of the union, with respect to federal benefits. In plaintiffs' view,

"equality would be achieved—if only the equality of equal misery—if benefits were denied to everyone .... The difficulty with this approach is that a mere abstract denial of equal opportunity does not constitute injury in fact. A general denial of equal opportunity does not confer standing on a particular individual unless that individual would have had access to the benefit at stake in the absence of the discrimination." 607 F.2d at 520.

In this case members would properly be denied food stamps in the absence of defendants' classification of applicants as members or...