Court Opinion

ID: 9464428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:32:39.441324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:36.957390
License: Public Domain

ROBERT P. ANDERSON, Circuit Judge
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I concur in those portions of the majority opinion which uphold the district court’s *1204conclusions concerning abstention, standing, ripeness and federal preemption, but I dissent from the holding on the merits and the reversal of the judgment of the district court.
At the trial below, appellants asserted that the City’s restrictive bidding policy served several purposes: (1) to effectuate New York law requiring the payment of the prevailing wage rate to workers under public contract, Labor Law § 220(3); (2) to further the City’s interest in obtaining work of good quality; and (3) to facilitate the policing of printers’ claims for overtime wages. After carefully considering the evidence presented in support of these claims, the district court correctly rejected them.
At no time before or during the trial did appellants argue that the City’s policy was designed to further the federal and state interest in fostering collective bargaining. See National Labor Relations Act § 1, 29 U.S.C. § 151; New York Labor Law § 700. The appellants raised this contention for the first time on appeal, and it is wholly unsupported by any evidence in the record or any offer of proof. See Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 645, 93 S.Ct. 2842, 37 L.Ed.2d 853 (1973). It was presented at oral argument as the principal justification for the policy. The majority accepts this rationale, and, relying on the language of Labor Law § 700, concludes that the City’s pro-union Resolution reflects a considered legislative judgment that such a policy will help to restore equality of bargaining power to printing employees and to lessen the effects of recurrent business depressions. In the absence of supporting proof for these conclusions, the majority’s adoption of appellants’ eleventh hour justification for the restrictive policy is unwarranted. Although legislative economic classifications are presumed to be constitutional, it is not evident that the pro-union Resolution in question here is rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in fostering collective bargaining. There has been no showing that the City’s bidding regulation was intended to or does, in fact, promote this purpose. The preamble to the Executive Order of April 12, 1934, simply states: “Resolved that in order to lend the greatest measure of aid and assistance during the present economic depression to those citizens of our city engaged in the various branches of the printing industry, the following provisions be made a part of each and every contract and open market order issued by the Board of City Record.” (Emphasis added.) As stated in an affidavit submitted by appellants, the policy was enacted to alleviate the high rate of unemployment that confronted union employees in the printing industry in New York City in 1934. No more expansive legislative history accompanied the Resolution; no further explanations of its purposes were offered when subsequent administrations made executive decisions to continue this restrictive practice; and no mention of a desire to promote collective bargaining was ever made in connection with this “union shop only” policy.
Appellants concede that the Resolution is no longer justified by a need to keep printing businesses in New York City or to provide jobs for union workers. See Abie State Bank v. Bryan, 282 U.S. 765, 51 S.Ct. 252, 75 L.Ed. 690 (1931). Instead, they argue that it has other beneficial effects for the City. They attempted to demonstrate its importance at the trial, but failed even to discuss its relationship to the goal of collective bargaining or the purposes of New York Labor Law § 700.
The majority cannot rely upon this state statute, however, because it was not added to the New York Labor Relations Act until 1940 — six years after the promulgation of the pro-union Resolution — and, therefore, an effort to further its purposes cannot be imputed to the signers of the Executive Order. Moreover, it is significant that while § 700 is designed to promote collective bargaining, it makes no effort to preclude non-union shops from bidding on public works contracts. General Municipal Law § 103 makes it clear that, except as otherwise expressly provided by a local law adopted prior to September 1, 1953, contracts for public work, including printing contracts, are to be awarded to the lowest *1205responsible bidder. The “lowest responsible bidder” has been held to include non-union as well as union shops, see Apex Indust. Const. Corp. v. Village of Lake George, 31 A.D.2d 670, 295 N.Y.S.2d 548 (1968); Long Island Signal Corp. v. County of Nassau, 51 Misc.2d 320, 273 N.Y.S.2d 188 (1966); and, therefore, agencies of New York State could not lawfully refuse to award a contract to a successful bidder solely because it employed non-union workers.
When local economic regulations are challenged as violating the Equal Protection Clause, the court will defer to legislative determinations as to the desirability of particular statutory discriminations, provided that the classification challenged is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976); Dan-dridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). In this case, appellants have failed, however, to show that the City’s ban on the use of non-union labor in performing certain public printing contracts has any bearing upon the state’s interest in collective bargaining or the payment of the prevailing wage rate or to the City’s interest in the ability of the printing shops reliably to perform high quality work.1 Cf. Sugarman v. Dougall, supra.
The City is a corporate body and, as such, it may enter into contracts and hold and dispose of property. When it does so, however, it acts as trustee for the people of the City, and it is in this trust capacity that, in the City’s name, it enters into contracts and expends the people’s money through a city government of the people’s own creation. The City, therefore, has an obligation to conserve public funds. To this end, regulations were enacted to govern bidding on public contracts to ensure that such contracts are awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. These regulations are designed to benefit the public, not the bidders. See General Bldg. Contractors v. Bd. of Trustees, 42 A.D.2d 660, 345 N.Y.S.2d 195 (1973); Allen v. Eberling, 24 A.D.2d 594, 262 N.Y.S.2d 121 (1965); Marino v. Town of Ramapo, 68 Misc.2d 44, 326 N.Y.S.2d 162 (1971). They should not be used to promote the interests of labor organizations by forcing printing shops to unionize in order to qualify for city contracts. Both union and nonunion shops have a right to apply for public printing contracts on equal terms. The conditions which must be met to receive the award of such a contract- must be reasonable and related to qualifications for the job to be performed. In this case, appellants’ restrictive, “union shop only” policy fails to meet this test.2
*1206Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.

. Appellants would have this court take judicial notice that union printing shops would be more reliable in meeting contract deadlines than non-union shops because labor disruptions would be minimized. They have introduced no evidence to support this claim and the court should not take it upon itself to attribute irresponsibility in labor matters to the owners of non-union shops where there has been no proof of such conduct. „

. If, instead of having before it the present case, this court were to be presented with an attack by organized labor on the obverse of the city’s present policy, i. e., a policy restricting bidding on city printing contracts to non -union shops only, there is little doubt that the court would hold that such a resolution was inconsistent with state law designed to protect the right of employees to freedom of association and organization, and that it was, therefore, invalid. New York Labor Law § 712; see also, Municipal Home Rule Law § 10; Wholesale Laundry Bd. of Trade, Inc. v. City of New York, 17 A.D.2d 327, 234 N.Y.S.2d 862, affd, 12 N.Y.2d 998, 239 N.Y.S.2d 128, 189 N.E.2d 623 (1962); City of Corning v. Coming Police Dept., 81 Misc.2d 294, 366 N.Y.S.2d 241, affd without opinion, App.Div., 373 N.Y.S.2d 1022 (1975) . State statutes which touch or concern labor relations, however, should be neutral, Lodge 76, International Assn. of Machinists v. Wisconsin Emp. Rel. Commission, 427 U.S. 132, 149-150, 96 S.Ct. 2548, 49 L.Ed.2d 396 (1976) ; New York Tel. Co. v. New York State Dept. of Labor, 566 F.2d 388 at 395 (2d Cir. 1977); and although the New York State Labor Relations Act encourages collective bargaining, it does not mandate it; nor does it require that all labor performed for the state or its subdivisions must be consummated by organized labor and by no one else. By exerting economic pressure on unorganized employees to unionize, the city’s pro-union Resolution interferes, just as significantly as would a “non-union only” policy, with associational freedoms protected by state law; and, therefore, should not be declared lawful. The impartial and evenhanded administration of justice as well as the *1206interests of the public call for a balanced and fair approach which makes neither the union employees nor the non-union employees an ineligible class of bidders.