Opinion ID: 187157
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reimbursement of FICA Payroll Taxes

Text: Noble's second challenge is to the union's reimbursement of the officers' FICA payroll taxes. In December 1980, the Executive Council decided to reimburse all full-time officers and staff for each employee's share of FICA taxes, which is comprised of an employee's mandatory Social Security and Medicare contributions. The Council made this expenditure under the authority of NALC Const. art. 9, § 11(e)(4) (1980), which authorized the council to establish such benefits as may be required to attract and retain competent personnel, including but not limited to annuity, welfare, vacations, holidays, severance pay, tuition or scholarship, and insurance benefits. The council took this action because all union staff and officers, even while working away from their letter carrier positions with the U.S. Postal Service, were required to pay a fixed percentage of their income into CSRS. CSRS-covered employees did not then contribute into, nor were covered by, Social Security. By law, Social Security retirement benefits are only payable to those who have paid a minimum amount into the system for at least ten years. See 42 U.S.C. § 414. Thus, when letter carriers took full-time positions with the NALC, they found themselves compelled to pay into two different retirement systems  one of which, unless they remained in NALC's employ for ten years or had held another job that paid into Social Security, might never provide them any benefits. The district court found that Article 9, § 11(e)(4) provided the Executive Council with authority to make this reimbursement an employment benefit, reasoning that the move satisfied that constitutional provision's intent of attracting and retaining competent personnel by lessen[ing] the financial burden on individuals who chose to hold appointed or elected position within NALC. Noble, slip op. at 17-18. Here, as below, Noble challenges this reimbursement as a violation of NALC's constitution, which fixes the salaries that each Executive Council member receives. We cannot say that the Executive Council's interpretation conflicted with the stark and unambiguous language of the constitution. Loretangeli, 853 F.2d at 194-95. Because the Executive Council's interpretation of the constitution permitting the FICA tax reimbursement as a benefit under Article 9, § 11(e)(4) was neither unreasonable nor made in bad faith, the district court properly deferred to that interpretation. Where, as here, the union constitution explicitly incorporates policy concerns into the Board's grant of authority by directing the Board to establish benefits as required to attract and retain competent personnel, a given benefit's wisdom as a policy matter is germane to the Board's constitutional authority to authorize it. We see no reason to disturb the district court's dismissal of this claim.