Tell a friend about this article
Previous Article: Think of AUD when your write -- or rewrite -- your will
Next Article:
IAM election needless. All
20 officers coast in
Please give what you can.
AUDHome--> Union Democracy Review--> Articles
SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review!
From the September-October 2009 issue of Union Democracy Review #181
IAM Maine shipyard local reminds us: It's hard to resist a repressive trusteeship
By Herman BensonA Federal judge peremptorily dismissed the complaint filed by members of Machinists Local S6 and upheld the trusteeship imposed by the IAM international on this 3,400-member local of shipyard workers at the Bath Iron Works in Maine. The decision is a blunt reminder of how difficult it is to resist an arbitrary trusteeship imposed by an authoritarian international upon a dissident local union; and it reveals a serious flaw in the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Title III of the LMRDA was intended to provide recourse against repressive trusteeships; the case of IAM Local S6 is the most recent case that shows how and why Title III has failed to fulfill its promise.
In a persuasively argued brief, Leon Rosenblatt, attorney for the complainants, demonstrated that the real reason for the trusteeship was the determination of the IAM officialdom to oust the local S6 officers who had refused to bow to their will. Michael Keenan, Troy Osgood, Michael Cyr, and Cathy London --- the local leadership -- had been generally critical of the top IAM leadership. Keenan had been elected president in 2001 and reelected every three years thereafter. When the district officers demanded that the local kick in to an IAM's political fund (Machinists Nonpartisan League Education Fund) the local officers insisted on their right to submit the issue to a referendum of the local members, who rejected making the payment. That resistance to their authority enraged the IAM officialdom.
When the Keenan team was reelected in 2007, the international voided the election and supported an opposing slate in the 2008 rerun. The Keenan team won again, this time with an even larger margin. (London, who had been defeated for trustee in 2007, was elected in 2008.) Just one month after the 2008 election, the international struck again. In March, IAM International President Buffenbarger imposed a trusteeship over the local and removed all the recalcitrant local officers.
None of this background affected District Federal Judge Singal's decision in upholding the trusteeship without trial, by summary judgment. In defending the trusteeship, Buffenbarger avoided reference to those sensitive political matters and compiled a list of what attorney Rosenblatt argued were irrelevant pretexts. Buffenbarger came up with four charges, but he could have saved himself trouble. The judge needed only one to validate the trusteeship, and that gets back to the flawed nature of LMRDA Title III.
Title III provides that any trusteeship shall be presumed valid for the first 18 months. And so, the union officials are not required to prove that the trusteeship is justified; but the victim must prove that it is illegal. As the judge noted, "This statutory presumption may be overcome only 'upon clear and convincing proof that the trusteeship was not established or maintained in good faith for a proper purpose.' " Difficult as it may be, providing that proof is even harder than it seems. As the judge noted, quoting from a higher court decision, "as long as the trusteeship is supported by at least one proper purpose, it is immaterial that the labor union which imposed the trusteeship also may have had an impermissible motive." And so, to legalize the most outrageous trusteeship, they need only hit upon a single plausible pretext. Note also that they do not have to prove that the substance of that pretextual charge is valid, only that its purpose is valid! That is, for example, if they accuse officers of stealing money, they don't necessarily have to prove to the judge that the theft actually occurred, only that their purpose in preventing theft is valid.
In this case, the single ground asserted by the judge for validating the trusteeship was as flimsy as you can get. After the trusteeship had already been imposed, an auditor dispatched by the international reported --- according to Buffenbarger's charge --- that the books could not account for an inventory shortage of $26,000 in union label clothing, a shortage that was recorded back in 2002, a time when Keenan had already taken office. But, attorney Rosenblatt noted, the shortfall had actually occurred in the previous local administration, before Keenan was voted in.
Deploying the "normal" means of pressure an international leadership fails to bring an independent-minded local leadership to heel. It clamps a trusteeship over the local, removes its elected leadership and fishes through local records to devise a plausible "purpose" for a trusteeship it has already imposed. That process, according to one federal judge or another, is perfectly permissible under Title III of the LMRDA. Is that what the framers had in mind when they adopted the statute?
Articles on the IAM:
IAM election needless. All 20 officers
coast in
IAM Maine
shipyard local reminds us: It's hard to resist a repressive trusteeship
Relentless
attack on democracy in the Machinists Union
IAM
Local 2339N: Nasty aftermath to a Trusteeship
Maine
shipbuilders protest vs. IAM trusteeship
Court to IAM:
Inform members of their rights
U.S. Appeals Court says:
Let your people know!
Update:
Still Subverting Union Democracy in 2005
SHORTS:
photocopying hiring hall records, longshore reform victory, peace pipe
for SEIU and CNA? and more.
Links
to IAM member websites
Previous Article: Think of AUD when your write -- or rewrite -- your will
Next Article: IAM election needless. All 20 officers coast in
This website is made possible by contributions from union members and supporters like you. Please help us build the movement for union democracy, join or contribute to AUD.
AUDHome; Legal Rights; Education; Union Democracy Review; Books; AUDLinks
Page designed by Matt Noyes, National
Writers Union/UAW, and Rachel Szekely
The Association for Union Democracy. www.uniondemocracy.org
104 Montgomery Street, Brooklyn,
New York, 11225; USA; 718-564-1114; info@uniondemocracy.org
This work is licensed
under a Creative
Commons License.
Use
the following credit line on the materials you use:
"From the
website of the Association for Union Democracy. www.uniondemocracy.org. Email:
info@uniondemocracy.org. 104 Montgomery Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11225; USA;
718-564-1114"
Please notify us at websteward@uniondemocracy.org when you use material from the site.
Send comments or suggestions on the website to websteward@uniondemocracy.org.