Court Opinion

ID: 9473057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:18:11.88695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:17.768425
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the decision to affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment. I agree with the majority that federal labor law disfavors the involvement of an employee’s privately retained attorney in disputes in which the union is the exclusive bargaining representative. I write separately to emphasize the limits of our holding that the union did not breach its duty of fair representation in this case by failing to provide Castelli with “appointed or privately retained counsel to represent his interests during the collective bargaining grievance procedures.” Brief of Appellant at 1.
A union serves its members by bringing the organized force of all the workers in the union, the local, or the international, to bear upon the employer on behalf of the individual employee. See generally R.O. Boyer & H.M. Morais, Labor’s Untold Story (3rd ed. 1982). It is this “right to self-organization” that the National Labor Relations Act protects. 29 U.S.C. § 157. See also Cal.Lab.Code § 923 (California public policy to protect the right of workers to organize and select their own representatives.)
The duty of fair representation insures that this collective strength not be denied to a particular worker for arbitrary, discriminatory, or bad faith reasons. Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 190, 87 S.Ct. 903, 916, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967). In certain situations, that collective strength may be best expressed by an attorney.
The cases upon which the majority relies do not contradict this principle; they recognize that an attorney’s representation may be dictated by the duty of fair representation at certain times. See, e.g., National Treasury Employees Union v. Federal Labor Relations Authority, 721 F.2d 1402, 1406-07 (D.C.Cir.1983) (where the union is the exclusive bargaining agent for all employees, it may not limit its provision of *1485attorneys in grievance and other collective bargaining procedures only to union members); Del Casal v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 634 F.2d 295, 301 (5th Cir.) (union’s “discriminatory refusal to allew a staff attorney to represent him at the System Board hearing based upon his nonmember status constituted a breach of [the union’s] duty to fairly represent him”), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 892, 102 S.Ct. 386, 70 L.Ed.2d 206 (1981).
In fact, while a union “has the authority to decide under what conditions an attorney will be supplied to a grievant,” Del Casal, 634 F.2d at 301, this authority, like a union’s other responsibilities, is subject to the duty of fair representation. Id. Even if the union’s attorney is the collective bargaining representative at an arbitration hearing, the union is not relieved of its duty of fair representation. Fair representation remains the standard that must be met. Balestreri v. Western Carloading, 530 F.Supp. 825, 829-31 (N.D.Cal.1980).
Thus, in deciding whether a lawyer or a nonlawyer representative of the union should represent an employee at a particular proceeding, the union must consider various factors. One factor is a state law providing: “No person shall practice law in this State unless he is an active member of the State Bar.” CaLBus. & Prof.Code § 6125. Another factor is whether the union customarily provides attorneys, and thus, whether its denial of an attorney’s representation to a particular employee results from arbitrariness, discrimination, or bad faith. Del Casal, 634 F.2d at 301. Another factor is the nature of the proceeding and the complaint. When knowledge of the particular job or working conditions is crucial to representing the worker, a nonlawyer representative would, of course be fair; when knowledge of first amendment law, however, is crucial, then a lawyer representative is fair.1
To the extent that Grovner v. Georgia Pacific Corp., 625 F.2d 1289 (5th Cir.1980), cited by the majority, tends to insulate from the duty of fair representation the union’s decision about whether or not its representative at a particular grievance, arbitration, or other aspect of the collective bargaining process (see Seymour v. Olin Corp., 666 F.2d 202, 209 (5th Cir.1982)) should be an attorney, I must disagree.

. Judicial review of this decisionmaking process, like judicial review of a union’s other functions, remains circumscribed by the principles enunciated in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 191-92, 87 S.Ct. 903, 917, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967), and its progeny. The integrity and financial soundness of both the collective bargaining process and the union’s representative status depend on limited judicial second-guessing of union tactics regarding grievances and arbitration.