Opinion ID: 568491
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unions as Fee Awardees Under the Back Pay Act

Text: 20 To say, as the dissent does, that labor unions and their lawyers who assist employee personnel litigation are beyond the pale of the Back Pay Act's attorneys' fee prescription is first to defy the strong current of contemporary interpretation. The Supreme Court has twice confirmed the entitlement of nonprofit legal service organizations to fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 54 though it speaks only of fees for the prevailing party. 55 In this circuit, under statutes worded no more definitively or comprehensively, we have done the same with respect not only to a similar entity 56 but also to labor unions. 57 The Ninth Circuit has ruled explicitly that market-rate fees sought for a union's legal services fund are allowable under the Back Pay Act. 58 Both the Claims Court 59 and MSPB 60 have bottomed cost-based fees for union lawyers on that legislation, and FLRA has rested awards of both types thereon. 61 The Federal Circuit 62 and MSPB 63 held that unions may stand on Section 7701(g)(1)'s conditional authorization of awards of reasonable attorney fees incurred by an employee or applicant for employment 64 in their quests for remuneration incidental to representation of those individuals by union counsel. 21 Precedent, then, both judicial and administrative, points singularly in the direction of the availability of fees under the Back Pay Act to a labor union whose attorney has served the cause of an aggrieved employee in a grievance or unfair labor practice matter. We have not been referred to, nor have we found, any authority supporting the position taken in dissent; indeed, we have not encountered any other case in which the objection interposed by the dissent was even urged. We realize, of course, that some decisions favoring unions and union counsel have limited them to cost-based fees, a consideration we later address. 65 The important point for present purposes, however, is that they recognize that unions and their lawyers qualify for fees in some amount when the statutory elements stated are present. 22 There is abundant reason for this well-nigh universal understanding of the Back Pay Act. Whether or not a union may solicit attorneys' fees as a matter of independent entitlement, the victorious employee surely can, 66 and the representative character of the union and its lawyers in the litigation for which fees are sought must be taken fully into account. In the cases before us it cannot be doubted that they acted in that capacity throughout the grievance and unfair labor practice proceedings, a fact noted in the decision under review: 23 As the [administrative law] Judge found, the Union and its counsel filed the charge in this case and were at all relevant times prosecuting the case primarily, if not solely, on behalf of employee Frontera. Frontera was the sole person who suffered whatever harm was occasioned by the Agency's commission of an unfair labor practice. The remedy sought, and eventually obtained, through the administrative and judicial process was personal to Frontera. 67 24 We see no reason why the union and union counsel could not continue equally with other counsel in their representative roles when it became appropriate to request attorneys' fees, and the Act has been administratively interpreted to permit precisely that to be done. Congress wrote into the Back Pay Act a direction to OPM to prescribe regulations to carry out this section 68 and OPM has issued a regulation allowing [a]n employee or an employee's personal representative [to] request payment of reasonable attorney fees under the act. 69 As OPM has explained, [t]his provision does not address the question of who may receive payment for reasonable attorney fees. Rather, it provides that an employee's personal representative may request payment of reasonable attorney fees on the employee's behalf. 70 We believe the phrase employee's personal representative encompasses a union and its salaried attorney who have represented the employee. 71 Once requested and granted,, the fees can be allocated among the union, union counsel and the employee as their respective interests may appear--the process utilized in many contexts all of the time. 25 OPM's regulation is significant as an authoritative interpretation of the Back Pay Act. Congress has not specified any procedure to be followed in asking for fees, even when the employee is the applicant. As the Supreme Court has taught,  '[t]he power of an administrative agency to administer a congressionally created ... program necessarily requires the formulation of policy and the making of rules to fill any gap left, implicitly or explicitly, by Congress.'  72 And when, as here, the legislative delegation to an agency on a particular question is implicit rather than explicit[,] ... a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency. 73 26 This body of judicial and administrative precedent and the logic supporting it weighs heavily on the side of the union. The dissent, on its part, offers no more than a literal reading of the statutory language. The Supreme Court has repeatedly warned against the dangers of an approach to statutory construction which confines itself to the bare words of a statute, ... for 'literalness may strangle meaning.'  74 That, we think, the dissent has let be done here. 27
28 When we examine the structure of the Back Pay Act's fee section and its legislative history, it becomes even more evident that Congress did not intend to banish unions or their salaried lawyers from the realm of reasonable remuneration. 29 One of the major accomplishments of the Civil Service Reform Act was statutory protection of the right of employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their own choosing in decisions which affect them. 75 Labor organizations ... in the civil service, Congress declared, are in the public interest, 76 and the Act allots various functions to them. 77 Of special interest to us are those defining the role of unions in grievances and unfair labor practice actions. 30 Agencies must accord exclusive recognition to unions selected by unit employees as their representatives. 78 The union chosen becomes the exclusive representative of the employees in the unit it represents and is entitled to act for, and negotiate collective bargaining agreements covering, all employees in the unit. 79 With exceptions not applicable here, collective bargaining agreements must provide procedures for the settlement of grievances, including questions of arbitrability, 80 which are the exclusive procedures for resolving grievances which fall within [their] coverage. 81 All grievance procedures thus negotiated must 31 include procedures that-- 32 (A) assure an exclusive representative the right, in its own behalf or on behalf of any employee in the unit represented by the exclusive representative, to present and process grievances; 33 (B) assure such an employee the right to present a grievance on the employee's own behalf, and assure the exclusive representative the right to be present during the grievance proceeding; and 34 (C) provide that any grievance not satisfactorily settled under the negotiated grievance procedure shall be subject to binding arbitration which may be invoked by either the exclusive representative or the agency. 82 35 The interplay of these provisions is well illustrated by the events transpiring in the cases at bar. The union, as exclusive representative of the employees in Frontera's bargaining unit, worked out with the Bureau of Prisons a collective bargaining agreement specifying procedures for processing and resolving grievances. The union later represented Frontera in his individual grievance proceeding, assigning two of its staff attorneys to the effort. When the parties deadlocked, the union called for arbitration and won an order favorable to Frontera. Thereafter, when the Bureau refused to obey the arbitral order, the union prosecuted an unfair labor practice action to a successful conclusion. Union counsel then sought compensation for the services they rendered in Frontera's behalf and invoked the Back Pay Act as the statutory foundation for an allowance thereof. Our dissenting colleague says that they must be rebuffed because the Act authorizes an attorneys' fee award only to an employee, which the union and its lawyers definitely were not. 36 We would be greatly surprised to learn that they must be turned down if that were to become the case. Attorneys' fees are for the asking when employees are permissibly represented by privately-retained counsel and the statutory prerequisites are satisfied. 83 It is inconceivable that Congress, after imposing vital representational duties on unions, meant to deny fee awards when union lawyers served employees in like fashion. We need not, however, rest our decision upon this consideration alone, for specific features of the Act demonstrate beyond cavil that Congress did not intend that result. 37 An employee subjected to disciplinary action 84 may elect either to appeal to MSPB 85 or to utilize an available negotiated grievance procedure. 86 If the employee picks the latter, the union has the right to present and process the grievance on behalf of the employee 87 and, if the grievance is not satisfactorily settled by negotiation, the union or the agency may require submission of the dispute to binding arbitration. 88 While it is the employee's decision whether to use the negotiated grievance procedure at all, 89 the Supreme Court reminds us that [t]he union and the agency possess the exclusive power to invoke the arbitral process.... 90 So it was in the instant case that the union was formally a party to the arbitration and Frontera, the real party in interest, was not. 38 When we examine the dissent's position against this statutory backdrop, we find it totally at war with the Back Pay Act. As we have seen, the Act expressly authorizes attorneys' fee awards for services furnished in grievance or unfair labor practice proceedings on behalf of employees adversely affected by unjustified or unwarranted personnel actions. 91 This was the upshot of congressional dissatisfaction with the 1966 version of the Act, which had left the expense of legal representation wholly upon employees, even when they were successful in their efforts. 92 Grievances usually wind up in arbitration, which unions must invoke and service; 93 many are resolved in unfair labor practice actions, which ordinarily are handled by union lawyers; 94 and employees cannot be represented by outside counsel when, as here, negotiated grievance and unfair labor practice procedures are utilized. 95 So, while the Act supplies the promise and the means of compensating union counsel, the dissent would snatch this opportunity away on the theory that union counsel cannot benefit from the Act. 39 After imposing upon unions and their lawyers the responsibility of employee representation in areas vital in the scheme of the Civil Service Reform Act, it would have been the height of irony for Congress to deny them the blessing of the Back Pay Act. We are unwilling to attribute such a purpose to Congress. Moreover, it is a cardinal rule of statutory construction that, to the extent possible, a legislative enactment is to be so read as to give operation to all of its parts, 96 and we are not prepared to disregard this salutary canon of interpretation.