Wirtz v. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 9, 9-A AND 9-B, INT. U. OF OP. ENG., 8226
| Decision Date | 06 October 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 8226,8227.,8226 |
| Citation | 366 F.2d 911 |
| Parties | W. Willard WIRTZ, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Appellant, v. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 9, 9-A AND 9-B, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, Appellee. LOCAL UNIONS NO. 9, 9-A AND 9-B, INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS, Cross-Appellant, v. W. Willard WIRTZ, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, Cross-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
John W. Douglas, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Lawrence M. Henry, U. S. Atty., Alan S. Rosenthal and Robert C. McDiarmid, Attys., Dept. of Justice., with him on brief), Denver, Colo., for appellant and cross appellee.
Wayne D. Williams, Denver, Colo. (Howard E. Erickson, Denver, Colo., with him on brief), for appellee and cross appellant.
Before LEWIS, BREITENSTEIN and HICKEY, Circuit Judges.
The action was filed in the District of Colorado pursuant to the requirements of Section 402 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.1
Taylor and other members of defendant Local Unions affiliated with the International Operating Engineers Union filed declarations of candidacy for various local union offices. The Constitution of International required that the declarations be filed prior to January 15th of the year of the election. Taylor and other members complied with this requirement in 1963. In February of that year, these members were notified that under the Constitution of International and Bylaws of the local unions they were not eligible to file.
The Constitution, and local Bylaws revised April, 1963, provide that nominees must be in continuous good standing for not less than one year. Good standing is defined in the Constitution as having paid all current dues to the local union. In the local Bylaws good standing is defined as payment of current quarterly dues on or before the first day of each quarter.
Taylor and the other members declared ineligible, although they paid their quarterly dues, had not paid on or before the first day of each quarter. This oversight in timely payment was the basis for the disqualification in the February notice. When the election was held on June 12, 1963, Taylor, who had declared himself a candidate for the Office of Financial Secretary, was therefore excluded from the ballot. Taylor protested to the Locals and the International on July 8, 1963. The protest was denied on September 24, 1963. On October 7, 1963, he filed a protest under Section 402 with the Secretary of Labor alleging a violation of Section 401.2
The Secretary investigated the complaint, found probable cause and filed the civil action in the Federal District Court of Colorado on December 6, 1963. The trial court, on uncontroverted facts established by the pretrial conference order, stipulations, and evidence adduced at trial, found the basis of the disqualification of Taylor unreasonable; and ordered the Secretary to supervise an election to rerun the candidates for the Office of Financial Secretary. Taylor was to be included among the candidates. This order, contrary to the demands of the Secretary, did not grant relief to other similarly aggrieved members who had failed to exhaust their internal remedies.
The order was based on two conclusions: (1) under Section 402 the scope of the Secretary's authority and thereby the jurisdiction of the court is limited to aggrieved parties who have exhausted their internal remedies; (2) the requirement that a candidate for office shall have paid his quarterly dues on or before the 1st day of the initial month of the quarter is an unreasonable requirement under Section 401.
The appeal questions the first conclusion regarding the scope of the Secretary's authority.
The cross appeal challenges the second conclusion that the eligibility requirements are unreasonable.
An examination of the legislative history of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act discloses that it was one of the most controversial efforts before the Congress in a decade. Two years of extensive public hearings had pointed up the need for legislation that would (a) sustain the internal stability of union organizations, (b) guarantee the individual members a voice in the democratic control of the organization and (c) protect the rights of the individual members.
The sections involved in the appeal were a part of the final efforts of Congress to establish a statutory scheme to accomplish the purposes. Section 402 guarantees individual rights. It provides:
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