Wirtz v. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 406, 406-A, 406-B AND 406-C, Civ. A. No. 14573.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 14573.
• Parties: W. Willard WIRTZ, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 406, 406-A, 406-B AND 406-C (HOISTING AND PORTABLE), INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana

254 F. Supp. 962

W. Willard WIRTZ, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Plaintiff, v. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 406, 406-A, 406-B AND 406-C (HOISTING AND PORTABLE), INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 14573.

United States District Court E. D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division.

May 19, 1966.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Beate Bloch, Nathan Rachael, Attys., Dept. of Labor, Frederick W. Veters, Asst. U. S. Atty., for plaintiff.

Dodd, Hirsch, Barker & Meunier, Thomas J. Meunier, New Orleans, La., for defendant.

AINSWORTH, District Judge:

The Secretary of Labor brought this action under Title IV of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (29 U.S.C. § 481 et seq.) to set aside an election of officers held by defendant union in June 1963. The Secretary challenges the election on the basis of alleged violations of Section 401(e) of the Act, which allegations pertain to qualification of members as candidates for union office. The Secretary contends that defendant imposed unreasonable restrictions which had the effect of denying its members a reasonable opportunity for the nomination of candidates and of depriving them of their right to vote for or support candidates of their choice, and that the imposition of such unreasonable restrictive qualifications "may have affected the outcome" of the election within the meaning of Section 402(c) of the Act.

Defendant, Local Unions No. 406, 406-A, 406-B and 406-C, International Union of Operating Engineers, has jurisdiction over the entire State of Louisiana. The parent local union is Local Union 406, which has three branches, Local Unions 406-A, 406-B and 406-C. The union denies that the qualifications on its members to be candidates for union office are unreasonable. It contends that in an investigation of its last previous election by the Secretary, no objection was made to any of these qualifications as being violative of the Act. Finally, the union contends that none of the alleged violations of the Act set forth in the Secretary's suit was specifically included in the internal union protest of the members or in the complaint filed with the Secretary to challenge the election; accordingly, that the express statutory requirement of Section 402(a) (1), that the member of defendant union must exhaust available internal union remedies before a complaint is filed with the Secretary, not having been complied with, the Secretary's suit should be dismissed.

In his suit the Secretary alleges violations of Section 401(e) in that the defendant imposed the following qualifications upon the right of its members in good standing to be candidates for and to hold union office:

(1) only members of the "parent Local Union" were eligible to be candidates for any office;

(2) only members who had paid all dues on or before the first day of each month during the year preceding the election were eligible to be candidates for any office (the continuous good standing requirement);

(3) only members who had maintained continuous membership in the Local for the five years preceding the election were eligible to be candidates for any of the five principal offices (i. e., President, Vice President, Recording-Corresponding and Financial Secretary, Treasurer, and Business Manager); and

(4) only members who had, on or before January 15, 1963, filed a declaration of intention to run for a particular office were eligible to be candidates for such office.

The net effect of these qualifications was that only 104 of defendant's 3,137 members in good standing were eligible to be nominated as candidates and to run for office in the election; only 3 per cent of the union's membership was thus eligible to become candidates for office.

Shortly after the election several of defendant's members in good standing, including one Max Rogers, protested the conduct of the June 1963 election to the union. (See Exhibit Q.) The protest, in writing, was directed to the union's procedures in distributing and counting ballots, to campaigning by the Business Manager and his assistants on union time and using union funds, to lack of adequate precautions to safeguard the ballots returned by the members, and the protest concluded: "These being only a few of the many irregularities that took place during the recent election, * *." The complaint to the Secretary (Exhibit T) was timely filed, in writing, by Max Rogers only, but without specification, except to state that "not being able to get any action as to the contest within our organization, we make this appeal to the Sec. of Labor for assistance in regards to the contest of this election." The Secretary, having found probable cause that Title IV of the Act had been violated through the imposition of the restrictive qualifications on candidacy already enumerated, then brought this action.

None of the acts complained of by the members in their internal protest to the union is the subject of the present suit. The Secretary's alleged violations of the Act by defendant are wholly new, and are not mentioned or referred to in any manner in the internal protest of union members. The Secretary's allegations refer to completely different violations from those complained of by the members, and all of the Secretary's specifications relate to the claim that the union has imposed unreasonable qualifications for candidates.

Section 401(e) accords to every member in good standing the right to be a candidate and to hold office subject only to "reasonable qualifications uniformly imposed." In our view most of the restrictive qualifications imposed by the union are unreasonable and arbitrary and had the effect of severely limiting the right of members in good standing to be candidates for union office. They, therefore, were in violation of this section of the Act.

The continuous good standing requirement that only members who had paid all dues on or before the first day of each month during the year preceding the election were eligible to be candidates for any office is arbitrary and unreasonable. It had the effect of excluding the vast majority of the membership from being candidates for office, providing no grace period for delinquency, and denying a member the right to run for office if he is even one day late on one occasion within the twelve months preceding the election. See Wirtz v. Local Union No. 9, International Union of Operating Engineers, 254 F.Supp. 980 (D.C.Colo., 1965). Defendant's members do not lose their good standing as members of the union by failing to make prompt dues payments for they have a ninety-day grace period before being suspended for nonpayment. The requirement of continuous good standing for twelve months relates only to eligibility for union office. The evidence shows that the International Union of Operating Engineers is the only one of 73 national unions whose constitutions were studied and analyzed by the Secretary's witness, August Cantfil, Assistant Chief of the Division of Research and Analysis, Labor-Management Services Administration, United States Department of Labor, which has such a continuous good standing requirement for the purpose of eligibility for candidacy for office. It is the most stringent dues-paying requirement imposed by any major labor organization as a qualification on candidacy.¹

When only 104 of the defendant's 3,137 members have such continuous good standing so as to be eligible for office, the oppressive nature of the restriction on qualifications is evident. Cf. Goldberg v. Amarillo General Drivers, Etc., Local U. No. 577, N.D.Tex., 1963, 214 F.Supp. 74; Wirtz v. Local 153, Glass Bottle Blowing Ass'n, W.D.Pa., 1965, 244 F.Supp. 745. See also interpretation by the United States Department of Labor (29 C.F.R. § 452.7(b)).

The five years' continuous membership requirement for major office, such as President, Vice President, etc., is likewise excessive and unreasonable. Of the 73 national union constitutions analyzed by Mr. Cantfil, none required more than three years' membership to run for major union office and most required much less. The published interpretation by the United States Department of Labor (29 C.F.R. § 452.7 (b)), which contemporaneous construction is entitled to great weight,² considers any requirement beyond three years' good standing membership to be an unreasonable qualification. We agree.

The union's declaration of candidacy requirement is also unreasonable. Candidates for the June 1963 election were restricted to members who had on or before January 15, 1963, nominated themselves by filing a declaration of intention to run for a particular office. Though nomination meetings were held by defendant in May 1963, only those names of declarants by the self-nominating procedure which were filed on or before January 1963 could be nominated. No opportunity was given for the nomination of a candidate in any other way. This procedure unduly restricts the right of members in good standing to become candidates and denies completely the right of the membership at large to nominate candidates of their choice. We agree that the requirement serves no reasonable purpose. See Wirtz v. Local 30, International Union of Operating Eng., S.D.N.Y., 1965, 242 F.Supp. 631. The Cantfil study shows that the Operating Engineers is the only major union of the 73 national labor organizations analyzed which has such a requirement in its national constitution.

As to the restriction of candidate to parent Local Union members, we find that of the union's 3,137 members in good standing at the time of the election, 2,446 were members of the parent Local Union (Local 406) and the remaining 671 were members of branches (Local 406-A, 406-B and 406-C); 497 of the 671 branch members were members of Local 406-A and were considered to be apprentice engineers or mechanics. Only 154 members belonged to Local 406-B; they were journeymen operating engineers in the highway and heavy...