Court Opinion

ID: 9431511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:27.802325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.740753
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
dissenting.
I am persuaded that the 6-month statute of limitations prescribed by § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 *335U. S. C. § 160(b), should govern this action brought under § 101 of Title I of the Labor-Manangement Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 29 U. S. C. § 411. Title I was part of a statute the purpose of which was to require that unions and employers adhere to high standards of responsibility and ethical conduct in order to protect employee rights to organize and bargain collectively. Title I was thus necessary to eliminate or prevent improper practices on the part of labor unions and employers that “distort and defeat” the policies of the labor laws. §§401(a)-(c). It is not readily apparent to me that Congress was simply moving to enforce the First Amendment rather than to ensure that unions were truly and effectively the representatives of their members for the purpose of collective bargaining. I therefore do not think that the 42 U. S. C. § 1983 rule furnishes a closer analogy than does § 10(b); neither does it serve the policies of the labor laws nor further the interests of consistency and repose that are involved in the early settlement of disputes between unions and their members.
Undeniably, Congress made it an unfair labor practice for a union to restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their organizational and collective-bargaining rights, 29 U. S. C. § 158(a), thus seeking to protect the same interests furthered by Title I, yet insisting that such charges be aired and decided in prompt fashion. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that a great many alleged violations of Title I could be filed with the Board as unfair labor practices subject to the 6-month limitations period of § 10(b). I find nothing of real substance in the Court’s opinion to justify borrowing the much longer state statute that was not designed with the interests of the federal labor laws in mind.
Respectfully, I dissent.