Opinion ID: 198588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: List of Represented Employers

Text: 19 The Local characterizes McCafferty's demand for access to the employer list as a challenge to a general, evenly applied rule rather than a challenge premised on any discriminatory treatment. In the absence of such discriminatory treatment, the sine qua non of a Title I claim, McCafferty's claim would arise exclusively under Title IV of the LMRDA. As discussed above, the only privately enforceable provision in Title IV is the provision of § 481(c), which deals with reasonable requests to mail campaign literature; other provisions of Title IV must be enforced by the Secretary of Labor. See Molina, 762 F.2d at 167. Thus, if the Local were correct in its insistence that McCafferty's employer list claim falls within the exclusive purview of Title IV, the district court should not have addressed the merits of McCafferty's request for access to the employer list. 20 In support of its argument, the Local invokes Calhoon v. Harvey, 379 U.S. 134 (1964), and its progeny. In Calhoon, union members brought a lawsuit, ostensibly under Title I, challenging their union's restrictive policies regulating eligibility for union office. See id. at 136. The union by-laws at issue in Calhoon prohibited a member from nominating anyone but him or herself for union office, and the union's national constitution required, inter alia, membership in the national union for five years to be eligible for union office. See id. The Supreme Court refused to recognize a Title I action in Calhoon because Title IV, not Title I, sets standards for eligibility and qualifications of candidates and officials and provides its own separate and different administrative and judicial procedure for challenging those standards. Id. at 138. The Court emphasized that the complaining union members had not been discriminated against in any way and ha[d] been denied no privilege or right to vote or nominate which the union has granted to others. Id. at 139 (emphasis added); see also Molina, 762 F.2d at 168-69 (holding that because plaintiffs challenged an evenly applied rule as having been activated for an improper purpose their complaint [went] to the overall fairness of the election voting process - the domain of Title IV - rather than to an individual's unequal treatment which would be actionable under Title I). The Local insists that McCafferty, like the plaintiffs in Calhoon and Molina, complains about an evenly applied rule which does not discriminate against any union member. 21 The Local misapprehends the nature of McCafferty's Title I claim, aptly perceived by the court as a claim relating to the conditions of access to the employer list. The Local conceded at the preliminary injunction hearing that incumbent union officials had unlimited access to the employer list. Union members like McCafferty, intent on running for office and perhaps challenging incumbents, could view that list only by appointment and could not copy it. Given the Local's acknowledgment of unlimited incumbent access to the list, the limited access/no-copy rule was tantamount to a rule that incumbents may possess the employer list but other union members may not. The discriminatory effect of that rule on union members seeking nomination for union office is palpable (see note 1, above), and is susceptible to a Title I challenge. 22 The Local also argues the inapplicability of Title I to McCafferty's claim based on McCafferty's efforts to secure a nomination for union office and hence participate in a union election. According to the Local, the court ignored long-standing principles that Title I does not protect the right of candidates or prospective candidates to seek nomination and election. 23 The Local has too limited a view of Title I. Although Title IV focuses on union elections, Title I of the LMRDA was specifically designed to protect the union member's right to seek higher office in the union. Hall v. Cole, 412 U.S. 14 (1973). The rights of union members are not protected exclusively by Title I or by Title IV. As the Supreme Court has recognized, Title IV protects many of the same rights as does Title I. Crowley, 467 U.S. at 539. While Title IV may be the only remedy for rights protected by both Title I and Title IV once an election is completed or underway, the full panoply of Title I rights is available to individual union members 'prior to the conduct' of a union election. Id. at 541. Therefore, if a Local denies equal rights to its members during the nomination process, the Local's conduct may be challenged in court by members of the union pursuant to Title I. McCafferty posed such a challenge, and his claim is cognizable under Title I. 24 In its final challenge to McCafferty's Title I claim, the Local argues that the court wrongly presumed the presence of discrimination from the Local's concession that incumbent officers have unequal access to the employer lists and that Title I requires evidence that incumbents had in fact used their unequal access to their advantage as candidates. See Marshall v. Provision House Workers Union, Local No. 274, 623 F.2d 1322, 1326 (9th Cir. 1980) (finding that unequal access alone does not warrant a finding of 'discrimination'); cf. Reich v. Local 396, Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, 97 F.3d 1269, 1276 (9th Cir. 1996) (recognizing discrimination in challengers' limited access to employer lists where the incumbents exploited their advantage by campaigning at job sites with which they were familiar because of their activities as incumbent union officials). This argument of the Local borders on the frivolous. Its agreement at the preliminary injunction hearing to grant McCafferty substantially the relief he sought with respect to the employer list (posting the list and allowing it to be copied) obviated the need for evidence of actual discrimination on this Title I claim. Having conceded defeat on this claim before the district court, the Local cannot assert error on the basis of insufficient evidence. 25 Given the court's correct determination that McCafferty's employer list claim was cognizable under Title I, we review for abuse of discretion the district court's award of attorney's fees for that claim. See Local 258, Service Employees Int'l Union v. Nonotuck Resource Assocs., Inc., 64 F.3d 735, 737 (1995). As already noted, the Supreme Court has sanctioned the award of attorney's fees to successful litigants under Title I of the LMRDA, reasoning that union members who prevail on Title I claims confer[] substantial benefits on their fellow union members. Hall, 412 U.S. at 5. Local 254 dismisses the relief won by McCafferty as too insubstantial for the court to intuitively conclude that a common 'substantial benefit' was achieved for the members of Local 254, and argues further that there is no evidence in the record that the failure of Local 254 to disseminate a list of Local 254 employers has ever impeded any member's right to seek his/her nomination for Union office. 26 The Local insists on evidence of a substantial benefit that is not required. In the seminal case of Hall v. Cole, the Supreme Court affirmed the award of attorney's fees because by vindicating his own right of free speech guaranteed by . . . Title I of the LMRDA, [the plaintiff] necessarily rendered a substantial service to his union as an institution and to all of its members. Hall, 412 U.S. at 8. The district court concluded that McCafferty's litigation conferred a similar benefit: McCafferty unquestionably procured access to employer and bargaining unit information that far exceeded that which the union had previously offered to provide. This access advanced the equal rights of union members to pursue union office. 5 See id. at 8 ([T]o the extent that [Title I] lawsuits contribute to the preservation of union democracy, they frequently prove beneficial 'not only in the immediate impact of the results achieved but in their implications for the future conduct of the union's affairs.) (quoting Yablonski v. United Mine Workers of America, 466 F.2d 424, 431 (D.C. Cir. 1972)).