Court Opinion

ID: 9459431
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:20:17.553769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:09.474927
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
There is no doubt that the International may under its constitution impose a trusteeship to assure the performance of a collective bargaining agreement, but here the agreement has expired. The question is, then, whether it may impose such a trusteeship — or as it has been called a “labor receivership” — solely to prevent the local from petitioning the Board for disaffiliation or separate certification, on the basis that keeping the local as a part of the International is one of “the legitimate objects” of the International, within § 302 of LMRDA, *61629 U.S.C. § 462. In National Association of Letter Carriers v. Sombrotto, 449 F.2d 915 (2d Cir. 1971), a majority of the panel indicated that a “legitimate object” of the International, enforceable by a trusteeship, was to prevent a local from seeking to disaffiliate “while still maintaining membership in the national union . . . . ” 449 F.2d at 923. But Sombrotto involved a trusteeship imposed to prevent a local’s strike that would have been in violation of a collective bargaining agreement. Its dictum that a trusteeship could be imposed to prevent a local’s disaffiliation was, as the majority of the Sombrotto panel itself seemed to recognize, 449 F.2d at 923, unnecessary to the disposition of that appeal and should be limited to the particular circumstances — the preservation of a collective bargaining agreement —involved therein. Here, however, the majority holds in effect that a local may be “locked in” and forever unable to disaffiliate even absent a collective bargaining agreement.
Not every objective of an International in setting up a trusteeship is necessarily legitimate. In interpreting the broad language of § 302 due weight must be given to other sections of the LMRDA, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners v. Brown, 343 F.2d 872, 882 (10th Cir. 1965) (trusteeship imposed because a local would not affiliate with a District Council or raise its dues is not imposed for a proper purpose within § 302), as well as other aspects of national labor policy.,
As to the latter, extension of Sombrotto to this case would infringe on the local’s specifically guaranteed right as a craft unit to bargain separately. Labor Relations Act § 9(a) & (b)(2), 29 U.S. C. §§ 159(a) & (b)(2). See Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, 162 NLRB 387 (1966). The majority takes the position that the members of the local could go out and start a new local, one which, would not be affiliated with the International. This is, of course, true, but under § 9(b)(2), a craft unit may seek representation separate from the larger unit previously designated by the Board as the appropriate unit for collective bargaining. If doing so amounts to a violation of the International constitution or by-laws, this may be grounds for expulsion of the local from the International. But to permit a trusteeship to be imposed is effectively to prevent the craft unit from enforcing its statutory right to sever.
Furthermore, permitting the trusteeship to be imposed here defeats one of the principal purposes of other provisions of the LMRDA, protecting the democratic process within union organizations. 29 U.S.C. § 401; United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners v. Brown, supra, 343 F.2d at 882-883.
A reading of the relevant legislative history, II Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act 1202 et seq. (1959), establishes that, despite Senator Ervin’s reference to it as “specific,” id. at 1204, the “legitimate objects” clause of § 302 of the Act is plainly ambiguous. I would limit it to a reference that a trusteeship can be imposed only for objects consistent with other legally established rights of a local and thus not extend it to allow the International to keep the local here “locked in.”