Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/391/418
Timestamp: 2017-04-28 08:38:27
Document Index: 453572463

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 7', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 101', '§ 101', '§ 20']

NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. INDUSTRIAL UNION OF MARINE AND SHIPBUILDING WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, and Its LOCAL 22. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. INDUSTRIAL UNION OF MARINE AND SHIPBUILDING WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO, and Its LOCAL 22.
391 U.S. 418 (88 S.Ct. 1717, 20 L.Ed.2d 706)
One Holder, a member of respondent unions, filed with the National Labor Relations Board an unfair labor practice charge, alleging that Local 22 had violated § 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act,
61 Stat. 141, 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(1)(A), by causing his employer to discriminate against him because he had engaged in protected activity with respect to his employment.
The important question is whether consistent with the applicable federal statutes a union may penalize one of its members for seeking the aid of the Board without exhausting all internal union remedies. There is a threshold question, however, concerning the adequacy of Holder's first or original charge to the Board against respondents. Holder charged discrimination practiced against him because, to use the words of the Regional Director as he paraphrased the charge in the complaint, Holder had engaged 'in certain protected activity' of an unspecified nature 'with respect to his employment.' It is pointed out that § 8(b)(1)(A) protects only 'the exercise of rights guaranteed by section 7';
and that § 7 'says nothing about any right to file charges with the Board.' 379 F.2d, at 706. That, however, is not the issue. The charge by Holder that he was discriminated against because he had engaged 'in certain protected activity' was a sufficient way to allege an impairment of § 7 rights. 'The charge is not proof. It merely sets in motion the machinery of an inquiry.' NLRB v. Indiana & Michigan Electric Co., 318 U.S. 9, 18, 63 S.Ct. 394, 400, 87 L.Ed. 579. Moreover, no issue was raised before the Board concerning the nature of the 'protected activity.' The answer of respondents insofar as the original charge is concerned said only that the charge made by Holder to the Board was based upon precisely the same facts as those on which his internal union charges against the president of the Local had been based. We must, therefore, assume that the initial charge was one within the ambit of § 7 and so plainly within it that no party undertook to question it.
The main issue in the case is whether Holder could be expelled for filing the charge with the Board without first having exhausted 'all remedies and appeals within the Union'
as provided in § 5 of Article V of the constitution, already quoted.
Section 8(b)(1)(A) in its proviso
preserves to a union 'the right of a labor organization to prescribe its own rules with respect to the acquisition or retention of membership therein.'
Section 10(b) of the Act, 61 Stat. 146, 29 U.S.C. 160(b), forbids issuance of a complaint based on conduct occurring more than six months prior to filing of the chargea provision promoting promptness. A proceeding by the Board is not to adjudicate private rights but to effectuate a public policy. The Board cannot initiate its own proceedings; implementation of the Act is dependent 'upon the initiative of individual persons.' Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm'n, 389 U.S. 235, 238, 88 S.Ct. 362, 365, 19 L.Ed.2d 438. The policy of keeping people 'completely free from coercion,' ibid., against making complaints to the Board is therefore important in the functioning of the Act as an organic whole. A restriction such as we find in § 5 of Article V of the International's constitution is contrary to that policy, as it is applied here. A healthy interplay of the forces governed and protected by the Act means that there should be as great a freedom to ask the Board for relief as there is to petition any other department of government for a redress of grievances.
Any coercion used to discourage, retard, or defeat that access is beyond the legitimate interests of a labor organization. That was the philosophy of the Board in the Skura case, Local 138, International Union of Operating Engineers, 148 N.L.R.B. 679; and we agree that the overriding public interest makes unimpeded access to the Board the only healthy alternative, except and unless plainly internal affairs of the union are involved.
The Court of Appeals found support for its contrary position in § 101(a)(4) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959.
73 Stat. 522, 29 U.S.C. 411(a)(4). While that provision prohibits a union from limiting the right of a member 'to institute an action in any court or in a proceeding before any administrative agency,' it provides that a member 'may be required to exhaust reasonable hearing procedures' 'not to exceed a four-month lapse of time.'
We conclude that 'may be required' is not a grant of authority to unions more firmly to police their members but a statement of policy that the public tribunals whose aid is invoked may in their discretion stay their hands for four months, while the aggrieved person seeks relief within the union. We read it, in other words, as installing in this labor field a regime comparable to that which prevails in other areas of law before the federal courts, which often stay their hands while a litigant seeks administrative relief before the appropriate agency.
And on the Senate side, Senator Kennedy said that the proviso was not intended 'to invalidate the considerable body of State and Federal court decisions of many years standing which require, or do not require, the exhaustion of internal remedies prior to court intervention depending upon the reasonableness of such requirements in terms of the facts and circumstances of a particular case.' (Emphasis added.) Nor, he said, was it intended to prohibit 'the National Labor Relations Board * * * from entertaining charges by a member against a labor organization even though 4 months has not elapsed.'
I am persuaded by the legislative history, summarized in part by the Court, that the proviso to § 101(a)(4) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, 29 U.S.C. 411(a)(4), was intended simply to permit a court or agency to require a union member to exhaust internal union remedies of less than four months' duration before invoking outside assistance. See generally Detroy v. American Guild of Variety Artists, 2 Cir., 286 F.2d 75, 78. I cannot, however, agree that a union may punish a member for his invocation of his remedies before a court or agency 'where the complaint or grievance * * * concern(s) an internal union matter,' and thus does not touch any 'part of the public domain covered by the Act * * *.' Ante, at 428. Assuming arguendo that there are member-union grievances untouched by the various federal labor statutes, this dichotomy has, it seems to me, precisely the disadvantage that the Court has found in the Third Circuit's construction of the proviso: it compels a member to gamble his union membership, and often his employment, on the accuracy of his understanding of the federal labor laws.
Finally, it is appropriate to emphasize that courts and agencies will frustrate an important purpose of the 1959 legislation if they do not, in fact, regularly compel union members 'to exhaust reasonable hearing procedures' within the union organization. Responsible union self-government demands, among other prerequisites, a fair opportunity to function.
Section 8(b) provides in part: 'It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents
Section 7, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U.S.C. 157, contains the following guarantee of rights: 'Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3).'
See Cox, Internal Affairs of Labor Unions under the Labor Reform Act of 1959, 58 Mich.L.Rev. 819, 839 (1960); Summers, Legal Limitations in Union Discipline, 64 Harv.L.Rev. 1049, 10671068 (1951); Summers, The Usefulness of Law in Achieving Union Democracy, 48 Am.Econ.Rev. 44, 47 (May 1958).
See Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41, 58 S.Ct. 459, 82 L.Ed. 638; compare Railroad Comm'n of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971. The requirement of exhaustion is a matter within the sound discretion of the courts. See, e.g., McCulloch v. Sociedad Nacional, 372 U.S. 10, 1617, 83 S.Ct. 671, 674675, 9 L.Ed.2d 547. And see Leedom v. Kyne, 358 U.S. 184, 188189, 79 S.Ct. 180, 183184, 3 L.Ed.2d 210; Public Utilities Comm. of State of California v. United States, 355 U.S. 534, 539540, 78 S.Ct. 446, 450, 2 L.Ed.2d 470. Exhaustion is not required when the administrative remedies are inadequate. Greene v. United States, 376 U.S. 149, 84 S.Ct. 615, 11 L.Ed.2d 576; McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U.S. 668, 83 S.Ct. 1433, 10 L.Ed.2d 622. See generally 3 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 20.07 (1958). When the complaint, as in the instant case, raises a matter that is in the public domain and beyond the internal affairs of the union, the union's internal procedures are, as previously explained, plainly inadequate.
105 Cong.Rec. 15835 (McCormack); id., at 1568915690 (O'Hara); id., at 15563 (Foley).