Court Opinion

ID: 9720365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:28:10.133481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:16.900915
License: Public Domain

CROSBY, J.
I reluctantly concur. Under compulsion of the union patronage dictum of Finnegan v. Leu (1982) 456 U.S. 431 [72 L.Ed.2d 239, 102 S.Ct. 1867], I conclude Tyra’s cause is preempted. Beyond the reach of this plaintiff, California is fast developing a policy of protecting private sector employees at all levels from arbitrary discharge. (Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (1980) 27 Cal.3d 167 [164 Cal.Rptr. 839, 610 P.2d 1330, 9 A.L.R.4th 314]; Pugh v. See’s Candies, Inc. (1981) 116 Cal.App.3d 311 [171 Cal.Rptr. 917]; Cleary v. American Airlines, Inc. (1980) 111 Cal.App.3d 443 [168 Cal.Rptr. 722].) I find it ironic, but nonetheless clear, that the wide scope of federal regulation of labor unions does not permit its potential application to employees of unions.
When a union activity is “arguably” covered by federal labor legislation, states may not interject themselves into its regulation. (United Farm Workers Organizing Committee v. Superior Court (1971) 4 Cal.3d 556, 564 [94 Cal.Rptr. 263, 483 P.2d 1215].) And “with regard to labor disputes, federal preemption of state law is the rule, not the exception.” {Bill Johnson’s Restaurants, Inc. v. N.L.R.B. (1983) 461 U.S. 731, 753 [76 L.Ed.2d 277, 296, 103 S.Ct. 2161, 2176] (conc. opn. of Brennan, J.).) Exceptions have only been found where the activity is of “merely peripheral [federal] concern .... [Citations.] Or where the regulated conduct touched interests so deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility that, in the absence of compelling congressional direction, we could not infer that Congress had *928deprived the States of the power to act.” (San Diego Unions v. Garmon (1959) 359 U.S. 236, 243-244 [3 L.Ed.2d 775, 782, 79 S.Ct. 773].)
No exception applies here, however, because Finnegan tells us there is a “compelling congressional direction” in this case: “[Federal law] does not restrict the freedom of an elected union leader to choose a staff whose views are compatible with his own. [Fn. omitted.] Indeed, neither the language nor the legislative history of the Act suggests that it was intended even to address the issue of union patronage. [Fn. omitted.] To the contrary, the Act’s overriding objective was to ensure that unions would be democratically governed, and responsive to the will of the union membership as expressed in open, periodic elections. [Citation.] Far from being inconsistent with this purpose, the ability of an elected union president to select his own administrators is an integral part of ensuring a union administration’s responsiveness to the mandate of the union election, [f] Here, the presidential election was a vigorous exercise of the democratic processes Congress sought to protect. Petitioners—appointed by the defeated candidate—campaigned openly against respondent Leu, who was elected by a substantial margin. The Union’s bylaws, adopted, and subject to amendment, by a vote of the union membership, grant the President plenary authority to appoint, suspend, discharge, and direct the Union’s business agents, who have significant responsibility for the day-to-day conduct of union affairs. Nothing in the Act evinces a congressional intent to alter the traditional pattern which would permit a union president under these circumstances to appoint agents of his choice to carry out his policies.” {Finnegan v. Leu, supra, 456 U.S. 431, 441-442 [72 L.Ed.2d 239, 247-248].)
In light of the quoted language, I must concede issues touching union patronage are more than “arguably” within the ambit of federal labor regulation, at least in the Supreme Court’s view; but several incongruities occasioned by Finnegan deserve mention. It seems to me odd that patronage, a system of such ill repute in our political history that few elected officials would publicly defend it, is encouraged by the federal government as a laudable feature of union democracy.
Also, Finnegan makes unions, who presumably exist in large part to protect members from arbitrary discipline and discharge by unionized employers, uniquely free to engage in just such conduct with their own employees. Perhaps even more anomalously, under California’s emerging policy, the discharged vice president of an ordinary corporate employer has a potentially viable wrongful termination cause of action, although in all likelihood he holds a policymaking position {Pugh v. See’s Candies, Inc., supra, 116 Cal.App.3d 311); but a union employee with relatively less authority and some seventeen years of service does not.
*929It should be noted Finnegan hints the distinction recognized by my colleagues between policymaking and nonpolicymaking employees might apply on the federal level as well. Two members of the Supreme Court concurred on that very point, and the lead opinion specifically limits the holding to policymaking positions. {Finnegan v. Leu, supra, 456 U.S. 431, 441, fn. 11 [72 L.Ed.2d 239, 247].) Thus, the holding of Cunningham v. Retail Clerks Union, (1983) 149 Cal.App.3d 296 [196 Cal.Rptr. 769] appears doomed to ultimate oblivion in the black hole of union activity “arguably” covered by federal regulation, despite the NLRB’s refusal to intervene on Cunningham’s behalf.
Cunningham, which does not mention Finnegan, seems to me irreconcilable with Finnegan’s drift. Cunningham was a secretary in the union office (allegedly not a policymaking position). And the clear promise of Finnegan, reading the concurring opinion along with the lead opinion’s footnote 11, is that nonpolicymaking employees of unions will be found to enjoy some modicum of federal protection as employees when that question is decided. In other words, Cunningham was probably not entitled to a forum in a California state court because her complaint was also “arguably” covered by the Act and thus federally preempted.
By quoting the NLRB’s rejection of Cunningham’s unfair labor practice complaint and by impliedly characterizing her wrongful discharge cause of action as a “derogation of [an] office procedure guaranteed by contract” (maj. opn., ante, p. 925), the majority chooses to avoid a nasty little problem by simply ignoring it. Cunningham, like Tyra, openly backed the wrong side in the union election, and her $95,000 judgment in the superior court was indisputably based on the union’s exercise of its federally encouraged and protected patronage system: “It may be reasonably inferred from the jury’s verdict they found Vandeveld’s preference for a loyal staff a purely personal vindictive motive rather than a sufficient cause to fire Cunningham.” {Cunningham v. Retail Clerks Union, supra, 149 Cal.App.3d at p. 302.)
Ironically, Tyra actually has a sounder preemption position than Cunningham, for he has no federal cause of action according to Finnegan and she may under the clear implication of the concurring opinion read with footnote eleven of the majority opinion. If Cunningham has a federal remedy, her state court case is clearly preempted. Of course, if the Supreme Court elects to further promote union patronage by extending Finnegan to nonpolicymaking union employees, her claim will also be preempted for the same reason we must conclude this one is.
*930Although troubled by our holding, which allows unions uniquely among the employers of this state to arbitrarily discharge employees of long tenure, I concur.