Opinion ID: 470969
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Amendments to Sec. 302

Text: 51 Section 302 of the LMRA has been amended several times since 1947, and the amendments and their legislative history are consistent with the view that Congress did not intend that section to be read as prohibiting no-docking provisions such as the one at issue here. In enacting amendments in 1959, which put subsections (a) and (b) in their present form, and in 1969 and 1973, which added categories of exemptions to subsection (c), Congress reaffirmed the purpose of Sec. 302 as the limited one of prevent[ing] bribery, extortion, shakedowns, and other corrupt practices. H.R.Rep. No. 286, 91st Cong. 1st Sess. 1-2, reprinted in 1969 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News at 1159-60; see S.Rep. No. 139, 93d Cong., 1st Sess. 1, reprinted in 1973 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2004; see also S.Rep. No. 187, 86th Cong. 1st Sess. 13, reprinted in 1959 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2318, 2329 (to prohibit all forms of extortion and bribery in labor-management relations). We have found in the legislative history of these amendments no congressional criticism of the employer practice of granting employee union officials paid time for the purpose of conducting union business. 52 The most recent amendment to Sec. 302, enacted as part of the Labor Management Cooperation Act of 1978, added another new exception to subsection (c), allowing employers to make payments to joint labor-management committees established for purposes of improv[ing] communication between representatives of labor and management; ... enhanc[ing] the involvement of workers in making decisions that affect their working lives; ... [and] expand[ing] and improv[ing] working relationships between workers and managers. Pub.L. No. 95-524, Sec. 6, 92 Stat. 1909, 2020-21 (1978). These purposes are little different from those underlying no-docking provisions.