Court Opinion

ID: 9731900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:01:03.543778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.858740
License: Public Domain

*756Danhof, C.J.,
(concurring in part, dissenting in part). The majority has followed the lead of the complaint and the trial court in concluding that the TAP fund maintained by the defendant unions is "illegal”. Reasoning from this premise, my colleagues have joined the trial court to declare that no member of GREA’s bargaining unit may be "compelled” to contribute to the fund and have reversed the trial court by holding that the plaintiff may maintain a class action on behalf of all bargaining unit members. The opinion apparently holds that the unions must refund TAP assessments to any teacher who "opts in” to the class action. The majority has made a finding that the TAP fund is maintained solely for the purpose of mounting economic strikes against school districts and has utilized that factual proposition as the basis of a broad condemnation of the unions’ TAP activities. I believe that this is the product of a fundamental oversight with regard to the posture in which the case has come to judgment, and thus cannot join my colleagues.
This case was decided in the lower court on cross motions for summary judgment brought pursuant to GCR 1963, 117.2(3). The record upon which those motions were decided is comprised of the pleadings, affidavits, admissions, answers to interrogatories, and a stipulation of facts. Throughout the litigation, the plaintiff has insisted that the TAP fund is a "strike fund”, held for the sole purpose of helping teachers to weather their participation in illegal strikes. With equal steadfastness, the unions have maintained that the support of striking teachers is only one of the fund’s designated purposes and that its operating guidelines contemplate several permissible applications, most notably the financial support of teach*757ers who are idled by lockouts or strikes by other school employees. The parties have so shaped their litigation that the destination and purpose of TAP dollars is the major contested issue between them.
However strongly the unions’ literature suggests that the Teachers Assistance Program is nothing more than a strike fund, the unions’ unrelenting denial that this is true makes it improper to conclude at this stage of the litigation that the plaintiffs characterization is correct. By uncritically treating the TAP fund as a "strike fund” the majority and the trial court have in effect resolved that which they believe to be a significant factual dispute in a summary judgment proceeding designed merely to determine whether such a dispute exists. See Rizzo v Kretschmer, 389 Mich 363; 207 NW2d 316 (1973), Bilicki v W T Grant Co, 382 Mich 319; 170 NW2d 30 (1969). I believe that a proper consideration of the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment must accept as true the unions’ assertions that while TAP money has been spent to support striking teachers it is also available for completely legal purposes. Recognizing this discipline, I am unable to join the majority in resolving this case on the efficient but uncritical premise that the TAP fund is "illegal”. What is demanded by this appeal is a more detailed examination of the real disputes involved and the rights of the parties, including those of the defendant unions.
The interest and rights of the plaintiff are easily recognized: He has rights in his employment, a right to decline union membership, and a right to withhold his support from an organization to which he is hostile. In the face of these important individual rights, it is too easy to overlook the fact that the unions are expressions of the rights con*758ferred on their members by the public employment relations act and the First Amendment. See MCL 423.209; MSA 17.455(9), and Thomas v Collins, 323 US 516; 65 S Ct 315; 89 L Ed 430 (1945), Beilan v Board of Public Education of Philadelphia, 357 US 399; 78 S Ct 1317; 2 L Ed 2d 1414 (1958). Until some abuse is shown, the right of GREA and MEA members to form and support their organizations is at least the equal of the plaintiffs right to shun them. However difficult to attain, our task in this action is simply stated to be the protection of the rights of each party with the smallest possible damage to the rights of the others. The logical place to start is the actual dispute between the plaintiff and the defendants that is the foundation of his demand for declaratory judgment.
That dispute is of relatively narrow dimensions. Claiming that the plaintiff must support it with a "financial responsibility fee” equal to the dues it assesses its members, GREA has sought to oust the plaintiff from his employment, applying to this purpose the agency shop agreement it has made with the plaintiffs employer. By the terms of the agreement this is proper, for the plaintiff has refused to pay the fee in full. He claims that he cannot be compelled to pay the $10 portion of the annual fee that the unions reserve to their TAP fund. If it appears that the plaintiff need not pay his $10 yearly TAP assessment, his rights will be fully protected and the whole of his dispute with the unions will be resolved. The plaintiffs obligation to the TAP fund may be measured without reference to the "legality” of the fund itself, by applying the principles set forth in Abood v Detroit Board of Education, 431 US 209; 97 S Ct 1782; 52 L Ed 2d 261 (1977).
In Abood, the Court observed that compulsory *759support of an exclusive collective bargaining representative is virtually certain to have an adverse impact on employees’ First Amendment freedoms:
"To compel employees financially to support their collective-bargaining representative has an impact upon their First Amendment interests. An employee may very well have ideological objections to a wide variety of activities undertaken by the union in its role as exclusive representative. His moral or religious views about the desirability of abortion may not square with the union’s policy in negotiating a medical benefits plan. One individual might disagree with a union policy of negotiating limits on the right to strike, believing that to be the road to serfdom for the working class, while another might have economic or political objections to unionism itself. An employee might object to the union’s wage policy because it violates guidelines designed to limit inflation, or might object to the union’s seeking a clause in the collective-bargaining agreement proscribing racial discrimination. The examples could be multiplied. To be required to help finance the union as a collective-bargaining agent might well be thought, therefore, to interfere in some way with an employee’s freedom to associate for the advancement of ideas, or to refrain from doing so, as he sees fit. But the judgment clearly made in Hanson [Railway Employees’ Dept v Hanson, 351 US 225; 76 S Ct 714; 100 L Ed 1112 (1956)] and Street is that such interference as exists is constitutionally justified by the legislative assessment of the important contribution of the union shop to the system of labor relations established by Congress. 'The furtherance of the common cause leaves some leeway for the leadership of the group. As long as they act to promote the cause which justified bringing the group together, the individual cannot withdraw his financial support merely because he disagrees with the group’s strategy. If that were allowed, we would be reversing the Hanson case, sub silentio.’ Machinists v Street, 367 US [740], at 778 [81 S Ct 1784, 6 L Ed 2d 1141] (Douglas, J., concurring).” (Footnote omitted.) 431 US at 222-223.
*760"The cause which [justifies] bringing the group together” is explained by the Court to be the employees’ collective desire for the services of a labor organization in "collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment”. 431 US at 225-226.
The principles developed in Abood compel the conclusion that, with employees’ personal First Amendment rights at stake, a labor representative’s power to compel the support of would-be "free riders” is justified only by the collective bargaining, contract administration and grievance adjustment services it is required to provide to all members of its bargaining unit. See International Ass’n of Machinists v Street, 367 US 740; 81 S Ct 1784; 6 L Ed 2d 1141 (1961). A representative’s application to other purposes of money extracted from an unwilling employee is an abuse of the employee’s rights and exceeds the power that the government may properly bestow upon the representative. Our statute plainly declares that economic strikes are not a legitimate incident of collective bargaining in the public sector. MCL 423.202; MSA 17.455(2). It follows that a labor organization may not compel a dissenting public employee who is not a member of the organization to support that activity.
The burden of pleading and proving what part of a mandatory assessment is to be applied to proper uses rests with the labor organization that is seeking to enforce the assessment. See Brotherhood of Railway & Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers, Express & Station Employees v Allen, 373 US 113; 83 S Ct 1158; 10 L Ed 2d 235 (1963). While the unions in the case at bar have not admitted that the entire TAP assessment is to be used to support illegal strikes, neither have they at*761tempted to show that some measured part of it is destined for proper applications. In the context of this case, it is proper to assume that the entire TAP assessment demanded of the plaintiff is an exaction for the support of teacher strikes. I thus agree with the majority that the plaintiff may not be compelled to pay the TAP assessment, and would join them to affirm the summary judgment declaring that the agency shop provision of the collective bargaining agreement may not be used to enforce the plaintiff’s contribution to the TAP fund.
The complaint in this action also demanded a declaration that no member of the Grand Rapids bargaining unit may be "compelled” to make TAP contribution and sought to recover of the unions all the contributions that have been made. The "common fund” thus generated was to be first applied to the payment of the plaintiff’s attorney fees. The plaintiff presented these demands as a request to proceed as the representative of a class comprised of all Grand Rapids teachers. From the trial court or the majority, the plaintiff has received all of this relief, provided only that a sufficient number of potential class members "opt in” to the action for restoration of the money.
It is in the resolution of the class action issue that the majority’s treatment of the TAP fund as a tangible "illegal” entity most confounds the case and disables analysis. The unions’ placement of the TAP assessments in an identifiable fund has aided the resolution of the plaintiff’s own confrontation with them. However, this case otherwise presents nothing more than the unions’ admitted intent to use a portion of their resources for purposes that are illegal. Our real concerns with the fund and the unions’ designs for it are not that *762they exist, but that improper action might ensue. In such an event, the legality of the expenditure may be evaluated, perhaps, if the strikers to whom assistance is given are acting in violation of an injunction, in contempt proceedings against the disbursing union. I cannot agree, however, that a labor organization’s possession of its own money, even with a more or less settled intent to apply it in the future to illegal ends, is an act of any independent legal significance.
The majority’s belief that the TAP fund is simply "illegal” has led it to hold that any contributor may obtain relief against it and that the plaintiff, a noncontributor, may pursue a class action on behalf of all. Bridging the narrow gap from premise to conclusion is the observation that membership in the union does not, in any individual’s case, imply "support for illegal strike activities”. Despite its obvious truth, this notion ignores the fact that any union member so opposed to the unions’ policies may relinquish his membership and join the plaintiff in the haven Abood has created for dissenters. More than 99% of the teachers in this bargaining unit are union members, and the record does not show that any have defected in response to the creation of the teacher assistance program. These 1800 putative dissenters continue to support the unions — which are defendants not plaintiffs.
Meaningful consideration of the class action claim must begin with a hard look at the legal and associational standing of the potential class members and the unions, for the class action prerequisites set forth in Grigg v Michigan National Bank, 405 Mich 148; 274 NW2d 752 (1979), cannot be applied in a legal vacuum. Plaintiff Male and his fellow nonunion teachers are financially tied to *763the defendant unions only by the agency shop arrangement contained in the collective bargaining agreement under which they work. The unions’ power under that statutorily-authorized agreement is limited by Abood, supra. To the unions’ demand for that portion of the plaintiffs "financial responsibility fee” that is destined for use in the teacher assistance program or other purposes not related to the unions’ duties to the plaintiff, Abood is a complete defense.
Against those of their members who would dissent by withholding dues, however, the unions’ power is not so limited. My brief research has disclosed that unions may assess dues and make rules to govern their members, and may enforce those decisions by suspension of union privileges, expulsion, and other sanctions. See Barker Painting Co v Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers of America, 57 US App DC 322; 23 F2d 743 (1927), cert den, 276 US 631; 48 S Ct 324; 72 L Ed 741 (1927), National Labor Relations Board v Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co, 388 US 175; 87 S Ct 2001; 18 L Ed 2d 1123 (1967), and Scofield v National Labor Relations Board, 394 US 423; 89 S Ct 1154; 22 L Ed 2d 385 (1969). Dissenting members endure the decisions of the whole membership because they prefer that endurance to resignation from their organization. Abood’s protections are not available to persons who would also retain their union cards. Whatever we may surmise regarding individual members’ opinions of the teachers assistance program, we must assume that the operation of the program reflects the real support of most union members and, at least, a begrudging acceptance of those remaining. Members of the latter group have at least concluded that their best interests lie with the unions and its *764programs. Even such a reluctant choice is protected by statute and constitution, and we may not ignore it for presumed lack of enthusiasm.
One of the Grigg criteria for allowing a litigant to proceed on behalf of a class is that "[t]he interests of the class [will] be adequately represented”. 405 Mich 148, 167. This means more than mere competence and enthusiasm, whether that enthusiasm be generated by ideology or the promise of attorney fees from the "common fund” waiting at the end of the litigation. It is clear to me that even in a "permissive joinder” or "spurious” class action, the would-be representative must have a personal legal interest in the issues he seeks to litigate for the class. "[W]hen it appears that the [representative] plaintiffs will not be the present or future beneficiaries of their action, the class action device is being abused.” Grigg v Robinson Furniture Co, 78 Mich App 712, 731; 260 NW2d 898 (1977). I am unable to discern what benefit will befall the plaintiff from this attack on the relationship. between the unions and their membership. I am also unable to discover a cause of action that Mr. Male could successfully assert against the union to compel it to modify its dues schedule or to give money to its members. This Court has held that "’a plaintiff may not accomplish by class representation that which he cannot assert (as) a cause of action in individual litigation.’ ” Stutelberg v Practical Management Co, 70 Mich App 325, 341; 245 NW2d 737, lv den 398 Mich 804 (1976).
The majority has also held that the plaintiff is a member of the class he seeks to represent, a related class action prerequisite set forth in Grigg v Michigan National Bank, supra. If the TAP fund were simply "illegal” as to all persons, this might *765be true. However, in light of the legal issues involved, the plaintiffs claim to class membership appears less substantial to me than it does to my colleagues. In fact, the plaintiff is seeking to represent two classes: one comprised of himself and perhaps the other nonunion teachers, and the other comprised of all those teachers who, for reasons we should not examine or evaluate, continue to support the unions with their membership. The plaintiff seeks to attack an action of the organizations that his would-be class members continue to support. If any litigants in this action may be deemed to hold interests common to the class of union members, it is the unions themselves. See Gray v Reuther, 99 F Supp 992 (ED Mich, 1951), aff’d 201 F2d 54 (CA 6, 1952), and Giordini v Radio Corporation of America, 183 F2d 558 (CA 3, 1950).
A class litigant should not be allowed to "represent” two classes with significant different legal interests or a class to whose interests he is antagonistic. See State v Laramie Rivers Co, 59 Wyo 9; 136 P2d 487 (1943), Shulman v Ritzenberg, 47 FRD 202 (D DC, 1969). This proposition has been differently formulated in a holding that "class members” whose interests are at war with their "representative” are not members at all. Weeks v Bareco Oil Co, 125 F2d 84 (CA 7, 1941). I believe that it is improper to inquire whether a representative belongs to his class without also asking whether his membership is the product of his legal position or merely of his litigational objectives.
The adequate representation and class membership concepts are grounded in the same fundamental considerations that deny standing to sue to persons who have suffered no injury at the hands of their defendants, Inglis v Public School Employ*766ees Retirement Board, 374 Mich 10; 131 NW2d 54 (1964), and require an "actual dispute” as a condition for declaratory relief, GCR 1963, 521.1, Shavers v Attorney General, 402 Mich 554; 267 NW2d 72 (1978). It is simply not the policy of our courts to open their doors to persons seeking to tamper with others’ rights to no benefit of their own. The advisory opinion cautiously authorized by Const 1963, art 3, § 8 is our state’s only exception to the principle that cases are not to be decided merely for the sake of precedent. The class action device must not allow avoidance of that principle. Cf., Dee-El Garage, Inc v Korzen, 53 Ill 2d 1; 289 NE2d 431 (1972).
I believe that the plaintiffs attempt to "condemn” a sum of money in which he has no interest on behalf of a class comprised almost exclusively of persons who do have an interest and who apparently are satisfied to leave it untouched is an abuse of the class action device. I would deny him leave to engage in that adventure. Litigation of the members’ rights against their unions should await the advent of a representative who is actually within that class of potential plaintiffs.
I would affirm the summary judgment only with respect to the plaintiffs personal dispute with the defendants.