Court Opinion

ID: 9732994
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:48:59.86876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:37.095319
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). “The real issue as we view it,” states the majority opinion, is “whether Local 200 is a proper party to bring the action.” The writer agrees the sole issue here is whether the Union had standing to bring a complaint. The unfair labor practice complaint brought by Local 200 against the defendant wrecking company to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission alleged that the wrecking company was not paying the prevailing wages required to be paid by state law (sec. 103.50, Stats.). While Local 200 represents a majority of the truck drivers in the area and industry affected, because it neither represents nor is seeking to represent the employees of the wrecking company, the majority opinion finds Local 200 not to be a “party in interest” entitled under the *407statute to bring such complaint to said commission. The majority concludes that Local 200 had no standing.
To inquire whether Local 200 is a proper “party in interest” is to ask whether or not the bringing of this complaint under these circumstances is within the legitimate “zone of interests to be protected or regulated” 1 by the two statutes involved: the prevailing wage standards law (sec. 103.50, Stats.) and the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act (ch. 111). The reference here to “zone of interests” is not original. It comes from a recent United States Supreme Court decision2 that dealt with whether the petitioners there had standing to challenge a ruling by the national comptroller of the currency. In that case the nation’s high court stated that “. . . The question of standing . . . concerns, apart from the ‘case’ or ‘controversy’ test, the question whether the interest sought to be protected by the complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be protected or regulated by the statute . ...” 3 Whether Local 200 has the standing required to be a “party in interest” under the Employment Peace Act requires an analysis of what is the legitimate “zone of interests” of a trade union particularly in seeking enforcement of the prevailing wage standards law. This phrasing of the issue requires attention to three alternative concepts of the trade union’s “zone of interests” and the determining of whether the state legislature has chosen between them in enacting the prevailing wage and employment peace acts.
There is a concept that the “zone of interests” of a labor organization is limited to that of representing the employees of a particular employer in dealings with *408such employer. Under this approach the union that does not represent or even seek to represent the employees of a particular employer simply has no standing to bring a complaint against such employer. This narrowest defining of the legitimate “zone of interests” of a trade union, followed by the commission and now approved by the majority opinion, would give Local 200 standing to bring a complaint against the wrecking company if, but only if, it came to represent or sought to represent some of the employees of such wrecking company.
Broader is the craft union concept of determining the “zone of interests” sought to be protected by statutes such as the prevailing wage statute and employment peace acts. This craft union concept sees a trade union as legitimately concerned with the interests of the members of a craft or skilled trade, not limited to representing only those of its members as may be working at a particular time for a particular employer. Under this approach laws such as the prevailing wage and employment peace acts were sought and enacted not, as the majority holds, to create only a “private right” of the “employees of the noncomplying employer.” Rather such laws are viewed as intended and designed to protect the prevailing wages and working conditions of all those engaged in a similar craft or trade in a particular locality. Under this approach the noncomplying employer who does not pay statute-required wage levels does more than shortchange the handful of workers of the unfair competitive advantage, and directly and adversely affects all complying employers in the area, as well as invading a legitimate “zone of interests” of craft unions representing the members of the craft in the locality. Under this approach Local 200 had an interest in seeking compliance with the prevailing wage law on the part of the wrecking company even though none of the workers were members *409of the union, because it was protecting legitimate interests of all its truck driver members in the locality.
Broader still is the industrial union concept of labor organization. Industrial unions not only seek to enroll as union members all workers in a particular industry, but assert a right of concern on the part of workers in an industry, or their union, as to noncompliance with laws such as the prevailing wage standards act by any employer in the industry. The “zone of interests” is not limited to members of a particular skill or trade, but seen as affecting all in the industry in the area — be they steel workers, auto workers or brewery workers. Prevailing wage laws, under this concept, are viewed as designed, intended and operating to maintain wages and working conditions for all in a particular industry, not just for those working for a particular employer. Under the industrial union concept, Local 200 would be acting within its legitimate “zone of interests” for noncompliance with the prevailing wage standards act would be seen as having industry-wide consequences.
It is not a part of the judicial function for courts or individual judges to indicate a preference as between the three alternative concepts of trade union operations: the plant-limited independent association, the craft union or the industrial union. The question, rather, is whether the Wisconsin legislature, in enacting the prevailing wage standards law and, more particularly, the Employment Peace Act, did any such picking or choosing. If it did, the courts are bound to follow the limit as to “zone of interests” legislatively determined, be it broad or narrow. Public policy, not constitutional dimension, is involved. But, if it did not, there is neither sound reason nor basis for the courts to select as controlling the narrowest and most restrictive of definitions of legitimate labor union interest or right to complain.
In determining what the legislature intended to do and in fact did in this regard, the writer would not give *410the weight, accorded in the majority opinion, to what is there termed “. . . the existence of their continuing policy in this regard: ...” a reference to the WERC position that a “party in interest” entitled to bring a complaint to it, must be “one who is a party to a ‘controversy as to employment relations/ . . .” and that such controversy “requires ‘the normal concomitants of disputes between labor organizations and managements, i.e., representative status or a claim thereof .. .’ ” There is no gainsaying that in the case before us the WERC would require, to quote the majority opinion, “. . . in effect, that Local 200 at least purport to represent the employees of Gerovae.” Without such purporting the majority agrees the Local 200 is without standing. But the issue is, or should be, what is in the statute, not what has the WERC adopted as its “continuing policy.”
Has the Wisconsin legislature prescribed or authorized a requirement that a trades or labor organization must represent or seek to represent the employees of a particular employer before it is a “party in interest” under the statute and before its dispute with a particular employer as to compliance with the prevailing wage standards law can become a “controversy as to employment relations.” If that is not in the law, the WERC has no more right than this court to put it there. Has the legislature made it a test for the standing of a union to bring a complaint as to violations of the prevailing wage standards law that such union have or seek to have members in the work force of the employer complained against? When the legislature used the phrase, “controversy as to employment relations,” did they limit such controversy to a dispute between an individual employer and his employees, or their designated representative? The writer thinks not, particularly in view of sec. 111.02 (3), Stats., stating that the term, “employee,” as used in the subchapter:
*411“. . . shall not be limited to the employes of a particular employer unless the context clearly indicates otherwise; . . .”
Did the legislature intend or provide that an employee organization, representing the larger number of area workmen in a particular craft or industry, had no standing to bring a complaint to the WERC of an employer’s noncompliance with the prevailing wage law unless or until it represented or sought to represent one or more of the workmen being underpaid? The writer thinks not, in light of the sweeping declaration of policy in sec. 111.01, Stats., wherein the legislature states:
“(1) . . . there are three major interests involved, namely: That of the public, the employe, and the employer. ... It is the policy of the state to protect and promote each of these interests with due regard to the situation and to the rights of the others.”
“(2) . . . regular and adequate income for the employe . . . are promotive of all of these interests. . . .”
“(4) It is the policy of the state ... to provide a convenient, expeditious and impartial tribunal by which these interests may have their respective rights and obligations adjudicated. . . .”
Additionally, in sec. 111.04, Stats., employees are given the right to “. . . engage in lawful, concerted activities for the purpose of . . . mutual aid or protection; . . .” The writer concurs with the trial court’s reading of the governing statutes as giving employees in this state the right to engage in lawful, concerted activities for the purpose of mutual aid or protection, and agrees that it is reasonable that such lawful, concerted activity include the bringing of a complaint to the WERC charging failure to comply with prevailing wage laws by a particular employer or contractor. To assure the maintenance of labor standards by protecting the wage rate required by law to be paid in a craft, industry or locality *412is, as the writer sees, within the express language and declared purpose of ch. 111.
By its unreasonably narrow construction of the phrase, “party in interest,” the majority opinion does violence to the overriding purposes of the Employment Peace Act. This court has said that this act (ch. Ill, Stats.) “. . . should be liberally construed to secure the objectives stated in the declaration of policy set forth in sec. 111.01. . . .” 4 Sec. 111.01 (2), Stats., in turn declares that “ [i] ndustrial peace, regular and adequate income for the employe, and uninterrupted production . . . are largely dependent upon the maintenance of fair, . . . employment relations and the availability of suitable machinery for the peaceful adjustment of whatever controversies may arise. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) The construction given “party in interest” by the majority certainly is not one that makes suitable machinery available “for the peaceful adjustment of whatever controversies may arise.”
In seeking to avoid a less narrow construction of what the legislature did and intended to do, the majority opinion notes that “. . . a large union such as that of the Teamsters (of which Local 200 is a part) covers many industries, from supermarkets to highway construction. They then would be ‘interested’ in the wages paid to retail clerks and street workers. . . .” Where the sole purpose sought or served is that of procuring compliance with a valid state law, what is disturbing about holding .a union legitimately interested in the enforcement of social legislation affecting any of its members? The public policy involved is for the legislature to determine. Where the sole purpose served or end sought is to secure compliance with the law, the maximizing of options to secure compliance with the law is not against the public interest unless the legis*413lature declares it so to be. More frightening is the majority’s narrowed construction of the phrase, “party in interest,” so as to weaken one law — the prevailing wage standards act — and make unavailable in most situations another — the Employment Peace Act. Neither logic nor sound rules of statutory construction support the route traveled and the result reached by the court majority. The writer would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Bruce F. Beilfuss and Mr. Justice Nathan S. Heffernan join in this dissent.

 Data Processing Service v. Camp (1970), 397 U. S. 150, 153, 90 Sup. Ct. 827, 25 L. Ed. 2d 184.

 Id.

 Id. at page 153.

 Dunphy Boat Corp. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board (1954), 267 Wis. 316, 323, 324, 64 N. W. 2d 866.