[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 145 (Tuesday, October 13, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2107-E2109]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


       THE DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS FOR UNION MEMBERS ACT OF 1998 (DRUM)

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HARRIS W. FAWELL

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 13, 1998

  Mr. FAWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Democratic Rights 
for Union Members Act of 1998. I am gratified that one of my last acts 
as a member of Congress, and as Chairman of the Employer-Employee 
Relations Subcommittee, is to present and discuss legislation which I 
trust is a first step in amending one of the nation's most important 
labor laws.
  Four decades have passed since the enactment of the Labor-Management 
Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), also known as the 
Landrum-Griffin Act. The LMRDA is the only law governing the 
relationship between labor leaders and their rank-and-file membership. 
When my Subcommittee began hearings in May on the issue of union 
democracy, our purpose was to determine the status of union democracy 
under the LMRDA and to see if the democratic principles guaranteed by 
federal law are being upheld in union activities throughout the United 
States. We also wanted to identify possible legislative remedies to 
improve the law if it were falling short in protecting the rights of 
hardworking men and women who belong to unions.
  Since May, the Subcommittee has held four hearings in the union 
democracy series. In May, we heard from a variety of local union 
officials and rank-and-file, including those from the Carpenters, 
Laborers, and Boilermakers unions. We were also privileged to hear from 
one of the country's foremost expert in union democracy law, Professor 
Clyde Summers. It was Summers, who, forty years ago, at Senator John F. 
Kennedy's request, fashioned a ``bill of rights'' for union members 
which became Title I of the LMRDA.
  Our June hearing featured Herman Benson, a founder and enduring 
leader of the Association of Union Democracy, as well as the 
Carpenter's union rank-and-file and their president, Douglas McCarron. 
This hearing centered on the right to a direct vote which was abrogated 
by the implementation of a nationwide restructuring of the union 
resulting in unilateral dissolution and merging of locals.
  Hearings in August and September focused on election irregularities 
and the lack of financial disclosure in the American Radio Association, 
a small union illustrating the ease with which democratic principles 
can be lost.
  Union democracy is a bi-partisan issue. Even in 1959, the LMRDA was 
passed because two sides without much in common came together for the 
good of the rank and file. My Subcommittee has conducted the union 
democracy hearings in a bi-partisan manner. I hope Congress can repeat 
history by passing another bill to amend the LMRDA and further 
strengthen its principles.
  In 1959, labor leaders opposed the LMRDA. In the vanguard of those 
who led the successful effort to pass the Act were Professor Summers 
and Herman Benson. Both of these men have been outstanding advocates 
for unions and the labor movement. Both recognize that you cannot have 
a strong, healthy labor movement unless rank-and-file members have 
democratic rights within that movement. As Professor Summers has 
written, ``workers gain no voice in the decision of their working life 
if they have no voice in the decisions of the union which represents 
them.''
  If I had to draw a conclusion from the union democracy hearings held 
so far this year, I would assume that labor leaders would once again 
oppose any changes to the Act. It would seem that labor leaders have 
found the ``Loopholes'' in the LMRDA and have not voiced, as of yet, 
any concerns about how the law operates in practice. Rather, it is the 
rank-and-file members who have recounted endless accounts of violence, 
intimidation, abuse and other examples of an erosion of democratic 
principles in this country's unions.
  The next Congress has much work to do on this issue. However, the 
bill I introduce today is a good start. This legislation makes two 
necessary amendments to the LMRDA, important first steps, proposed by 
Professor Summers and Mr. Benson. As I have indicated, these men are 
pioneers in the field of union democracy law and I implore members from 
both sides of the aisle to recognize the wisdom of their proposals.
  Professor Summers began studying and writing about the rights of 
union members in 1945 after receiving his law degree. In 1952, he wrote 
``Democracy in Labor Union,'' a policy statement adopted by the 
American Civil Liberties Union. He has been teaching, writing, and 
lecturing on union democracy law ever since, always with an emphasis on 
employee rights and industrial democracy. His writings include more 
than 100 law review articles. To this day, Professor Summers is a 
tireless advocate of union democracy and served on the board of 
directors for the Association of Union Democracy.

  The Subcommittee also received testimony and assistance from Herman 
Benson, another of the nation's foremost experts in this field. Mr. 
Benson is a retired toolmaker and machinist and member of various 
unions over the years, including United Auto Workers, International 
Union of Electricians, and United Rubber Workers. From 1959 to 1972, he 
edited and published ``Union Democracy in Action.'' He co-founded the 
Association for Union Democracy and continues to serve as editor of 
``Union Democracy Review.'' Mr. Benson has devoted his professional 
career to battling against corruption or authoritarianism in unions. I 
request that their written statements in support of the bill be placed 
in the record following the bill and my remarks.
  Two basic rights, rooted in democracy, are addressed by my bill. The 
two provisions address voting rights and trusteeships. Both Professor 
Summers and Herman Benson strongly believe these steps should be taken. 
As to the first amendment, the LMRDA permits election of local union 
officers by a direct vote, but officers of district councils and other 
intermediate bodies can be elected by delegates. My bill, DRUM, 
provides that in instances where an intermediate union body assumes the 
basic responsibilities customarily performed at the local union level--
such as collective bargaining and the running of hiring halls, for 
example--in these instances, the members would have the right to a 
direct, secret ballot vote to elect officers of that intermediate body. 
This is the same right members currently have with respect to electing 
their local union officers. It is important that officers be elected by 
direct vote if the vitality of democratic control is to be preserved.
  As to the second amendment, the LMRDA intended that local unions 
could be placed under trusteeship in the event of corruption or other 
abuse. Unfortunately, trusteeships are sometimes used to eliminate 
local dissidents and to destroy local autonomy, contrary to the 
democracy ensured by LMRDA. Moreover, once the trusteeship is imposed, 
the trusteeship is presumed valid for 18 months. Litigation to remove 
the trusteeship can take months or year longer. DRUM provides for the 
removal of this 18 month presumption of the trusteeship's validity. 
Removal of this presumption opens the door to legitimate challenges to 
the imposition of a trusteeship. This is the kind of due process any 
decent union would provide before destroying the local autonomy upon 
which LMRDA is founded.
  These basic individual liberties embody the democratic principles on 
which this country is founded. These are rights that should be enjoyed 
by all Americans, and certainly American union workers. I urge all of 
my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, to join me in 
supporting these important amendments to the LMRDA, and I urge members 
of the 106th Congress to build upon this small, but important 
beginning.

                     Statement of Clyde W. Summers

       My name is Clyde W. Summers, and I am Professor of Law at 
     the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
       In considering the proposed bill, we must first set out the 
     underlying premises on which it must rest.
       When the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, one of the basic 
     purposes of the statute was to give workers an effective 
     voice, through collective bargaining, in decisions which 
     govern their working lives. In the words of that time, to 
     provide for a measure of industrial democracy.
       Collective bargaining, however, can serve the purpose of 
     industrial democracy only if the unions which represent the 
     workers are democratic. For workers to have an effective 
     voice in the decisions of the workplace, they must have an 
     effective voice in the decisions of the union which speaks 
     for them. For collective bargaining to serve fully its social 
     and political function in a democratic society, unions must 
     be democratic.
       This was the basic premise of the Landrum-Griffin Act. Its 
     fundamental purpose is to guarantee union members their 
     democratic rights within their union and an effective voice 
     within their union. The union would then be responsive to the 
     felt needs and desires of those for whom the union spoke.
       The Landrum-Griffin Act has served this purpose in 
     substantial measure. It has provided members a Bill of 
     Rights; it has increased transparency and responsibility in 
     union finances; it has established standards

[[Page E2108]]

     for fair elections; and it has articulated the fiduciary 
     obligations of union officers. It has enriched the democratic 
     processes in union government, has encouraged union members 
     to make their voices heard.
       This does not mean that the statute is without its flaws, 
     or that it has fully realized its purposes. Forty years of 
     experience under the statute has revealed limitations of 
     foresight and unforseen gaps that permit practices which can 
     defeat its purposes.
       I will discuss only the two problems which the proposed 
     bill addresses, both of which focus on substantial gaps and 
     defects. I fully support these proposals because I believe 
     that they are needed for the statute to fulfill its purposes.
       Section 4 proposes a modest but important change in Title 
     III dealing with trusteeships. At the outset, it must be 
     recognized that when an international union imposes a 
     trusteeship over a local union, the officers elected by the 
     local union members are removed from office and replaced by a 
     trustee appointed by the international officers. Local union 
     meetings may be suspended, union members may have little or 
     no voice in the decisions of the union, and the local union 
     looses all control over local union funds. In short, a 
     trusteeship is a total denial of the democratic process in 
     the local union.
       Title III sets out the standards for imposing a trusteeship 
     and the procedures for challenging the trusteeship in the 
     courts. The Title has been visibly inadequate almost from the 
     time the statute was passed.
       Section 403(g) presently provides that during the first 18 
     months, the trusteeship should be presumed valid, and after 
     18 presumption of validity has meant, for practical purposes, 
     that trusteeships are immune from challenge for the first 18 
     months. Indeed, the likelihood of succeeding in such a suit 
     is so slight that suits are seldom brought during this 
     period.
       Where the trusteeship has its roots in political 
     differences between local and international officers, the 
     officers elected by the local union members are ousted and 
     replaced by those chosen by the international officers. After 
     18 months the trustee appointed by the international and his 
     supporters have solidly entrenched themselves in control of 
     the administrative structure of the local union and have the 
     great advantage of incumbency, if and when an election is 
     held. The originally elected officers may be permanently 
     displaced.
       In view of the serious impact of trusteeship on the 
     democratic rights of local union members, a presumption of 
     validity can not be justified. In those cases where 
     suspending the democratic process is justified, the 
     international officers should be able to prove the need by at 
     least a preponderance of the evidence. After 18 months, the 
     need for the continuation of the trusteeship should be proved 
     by clear and convincing evidence.
       I believe that these changes in the burden of proof 
     provided in the proposed bill will appropriately reduce the 
     stifling of the democratic process at the local union level.
       Frequently, when the trusteeship is declared ended and 
     union meeting resumed, the person named as trustee continues 
     as the presiding officer and in effective control of the 
     local union until the next scheduling election, which may be 
     a year or more later. During that period, the members do not 
     have officers of their choosing, and during that period the 
     trustee is able to more solidly entrench himself in control 
     so that the originally elected officers or others will be at 
     a substantial disadvantage.
       In my view, it would be preferable to provide that the 
     elected officers should be reinstated in office unless they 
     have been tried and found guilty of conduct justifying their 
     removal from office. It they are not reinstated, then a new 
     election should be held as promptly as possible.
       Section 5 of the proposed bill fills a gap which was 
     overlooked when the statute was drafted. Title IV governing 
     elections provided in Section 401 that local union officers 
     should be elected by direct vote of the members, as 
     contrasted with election by delegates which was permitted for 
     international officers. Direct election was required even in 
     so-called amalgamated local unions which had separate 
     sections in a number of separate establishments.
       The requirement of direct elections recognized 
     traditionally that the representative functions in most 
     unions of negotiating collective agreements and handling 
     grievances was carried on primarily at the local level. It 
     was here that members could most effectively exercise their 
     voice; it was here that members most actively participated; 
     it was here that the union should be most responsive. Direct 
     elections gave the employees a more effective voice than 
     indirect election by delegates.
       In the drafting of Landrum-Griffin, little attention was 
     given to the intermediate bodies such as general committees, 
     system boards, joint boards and joint councils. In part, this 
     was because many of them did not perform functions which 
     directly impacted on the members' working lives. With little 
     reflection, section 401 (d) of title IV provided that such 
     intermediate bodies could elect their officers by indirect 
     vote of delegates.
       In the intervening years, the trend toward centralization 
     in unions has led to giving some of these intermediate bodies 
     increased functions in negotiating collective agreements, 
     appointing business agents, and handling grievances, with an 
     inevitable increase in control of union funds. In some cases, 
     these intermediate bodies have, for practical purposes, 
     supplanted the local unions, leaving the local unions little 
     more than empty shells.
       It would be futile to set our faces against centralization 
     because it may be necessary for effective representation. 
     However, this should not deprive union members of a direct 
     and effective voice in electing officers performing these 
     functions. Election by delegates significantly muffles the 
     members' voice and makes these bodies less responsive to the 
     needs and desires of the members.
       Where an intermediate body performs the traditional 
     functions of a local union, negotiating collective 
     agreements, naming business agents, and administering 
     agreements, then they should be treated as local unions for 
     purposes of election of officers. The officers of such 
     intermediate bodies should be elected by direct membership 
     vote. Section 5 of the proposed bill accomplishes this 
     purpose.
       In closing, I would like to emphasize that the proposed 
     amendments here make no basic changes in the statute. They 
     do, however, preserve and reinforce the democratic process at 
     the point where the union most directly affects the members' 
     working lives.
       Historically, the democratic process of unions has had its 
     greatest vitality at the local or base level of the union 
     structure. It has been at this level that union members have 
     looked to the union for representation; and it has been at 
     this level that union members have been most active in making 
     their voices heard. It is this level where the law should 
     give primary attention to protecting and promoting the 
     democratic process.
       I am a founder and secretary treasurer of the Association 
     for Union Democracy, established in 1969 to promote the 
     principles and practices of internal union democracy in the 
     American labor movement; including free speech, fair 
     elections, and fair trial procedures, precisely the kind of 
     rights written into federal law in the Labor-Management 
     Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. We believe that strong 
     labor unions are essential to democracy in the nation. I, 
     myself, have been a toolmaker by trade and at various times a 
     member of the United Auto Workers, the United Rubber Workers, 
     and International Union of Electrical Workers. I still am a 
     member of the UAW.
       In the course of the last 50 years, I have been in touch 
     with tens of thousands of unionists, individual rank and 
     filers, organized caucuses, and elected officers in most 
     major unions in the United States.
       The adoption of the LMRDA in 1959 has, over the years, 
     effected a sea change in the state of union democracy in the 
     United States. Before LMRDA, members were expelled for 
     criticizing their officers--usually on charges of slander; 
     they could be expelled for suing the court or for complaining 
     to authorized government agencies. In some unions they could 
     be expelled for organized campaigning for union office or 
     even for circulating petitions on union business within their 
     own unions. Now all that is illegal because the basic rights 
     of civil liberties in unions are written into federal law. 
     The LMRDA has strengthened the labor movement by 
     strengthening the rights of members in their unions.
       In time, however, some union officials have discovered 
     certain weaknesses, or more precisely loopholes, in the law 
     which have enabled them to evade or circumvent its aims and, 
     in some respects, to turn the clock back to the days before 
     LMRDA. The proposed amendments are intended to strengthen the 
     effectiveness of the law by closing two of the most 
     egregiously abused loopholes.
     The direct election of officers of certain ``intermediate'' 
         bodies:
       The central aim of the LMRDA was to protect the basic right 
     of union members to choose their own leaders and to enable 
     them to correct abuses by strengthening their right to elect 
     or to replace those officers. Since the local union has 
     generally been the main source of grassroots power, the place 
     where collective bargaining agreements were negotiated and 
     enforced, the union unit which impinged most directly on the 
     life of workers, the LMRDA was careful to establish explicit 
     measures to assure the rights of members in their locals. 
     Terms of office were limited to three years. Local officers 
     had to be elected by direct secret ballot of the membership. 
     In short, union members were assured direct control over 
     their own officers.
       However, in this respect, the law is being evaded in wide 
     sections of the labor movement, particularly in the building 
     trades. Locals are being consolidated into district councils. 
     The councils take over all the collective bargaining rights 
     and responsibilities formerly the province of the locals: the 
     councils, not the locals, negotiate and sign agreements with 
     the employers, appoint the business agents, implement and 
     enforce the contracts and grievance procedures, control 
     hiring halls and job referrals. By losing control over the 
     collective bargaining process, locals are reduced to mere 
     administrative shells. The members continue to elect local 
     officers, but these officers are essentially powerless. Real 
     power passes into the hands of district officers.
       But the district council setup permits officers to evade 
     the provisions of the law for direct elections because the 
     law now permits officers by such ``intermediate'' bodies to 
     elect their officers, not by direct membership vote, but by 
     vote of council delegates (``Intermediate'' bodies are those 
     units above the local level but below the international 
     level.)

[[Page E2109]]

       Under this structure, the officers of a district council 
     with, say, 10,000 members could be subject to election by a 
     council consisting of perhaps 100 delegates from locals, 
     which means that anyone who could control the votes of at 
     least 51 delegates could dominate the affairs of 10,000 
     members. The reality of union politics (and perhaps most 
     politics) is that an international union has ample powers and 
     resources to control, win over, some might even say to buy 
     off, a handful of delegates by a myriad of means: union staff 
     jobs, favored treatment, junkets, moral and practical support 
     in their locals, etc.
       Direct election by local members allows the rank and file 
     to control their officers. Election by council delegates, 
     allows the international to control the delegates and the 
     officers; the LMRDA is eviscerated.
       One proposed amendment would simply restore the rights 
     originally intended by the LMRDA. In essence it means that 
     the officers of those intermediate bodies which have taken 
     over the rights and functions of locals in collective 
     bargaining will be elected by direct membership vote, just as 
     in the locals, thereby restoring the right of members 
     directly to control their own officers. However, where 
     intermediate bodies still exist essentially as administrative 
     units outside the collective bargaining process, they will 
     continue to have the right to elect offices by delegate vote.
       Union spokesmen and others argue that it is necessary to 
     centralize power in the hands of district organizations in 
     order to strengthen the unions in their dealing with employer 
     conglomerates and to make them more efficient in organizing 
     the unorganized. I would not quarrel with that contention. 
     However, the aim of ``modernizing'' unions does not justify 
     the proposed restrictions on membership rights, especially 
     the right to elect officers by direct membership vote. Quite 
     the contrary. The more centralization becomes necessary, the 
     more necessary it becomes to strengthen democratic rights as 
     a counterweight to the bureaucratic tendencies inevitable in 
     all centralization. The adoption of a new U.S. Constitution 
     was necessary to strengthen the United States by giving 
     powers to a central national authority. But precisely because 
     that move was essential to national welfare, it was 
     necessary, at the same time, to bolster democratic rights by 
     adding the Bill of Rights to the new Constitution. Some of 
     our union officers want the authority and the centralization 
     but without the saving salt of democracy.
     Recourse against improper trusteeships
       One of the glaring abuses revealed at hearings of the 
     McClellan Committee in the late fifties was the practice by 
     various international unions of arbitrarily lifting the 
     autonomous rights of locals and other subordinate bodies and 
     subjecting them to control by appointed trustees. In many 
     instances, international officials used the trusteeship 
     device to loot local treasuries, to eliminate independent-
     minded critics, even to prevent the replacement of corrupt 
     officials by reformers, and to manipulate the votes of locals 
     in referendums and at conventions.
       Title III of the LMRDA aimed to provide recourse against 
     these abuses. At the time, this section of the law was 
     considered so important that it was one of the few major 
     provisions that allowed for alternate means of enforcement: 
     either by private suit or by a complaint to the Labor 
     Department.
       As written, the provision has had some positive effect. At 
     the time the LMRDA was adopted in 1959, the Labor Department 
     reported, 487 trusteeships were current. In June 1998, 
     thirty-nine years later, 311 trusteeships were reported. [see 
     Union Democracy Review, No. 120]. The law has made it much 
     more impossible. The law does restrict the ability to 
     manipulate the local's votes. But it has not succeeded in 
     preventing an international union from misusing the 
     trusteeship device to undermine and repress members rights, 
     to discredit and destroy critics of the top officials. The 
     trouble is that, as time passed, those who use trusteeships 
     for devious aims have learned how to thwart and evade the 
     purposes of Title III, which is why it needs strengthening.
       Title III permits trusteeships to be imposed for certain 
     legitimate reasons; and, if unions actually obeyed the law, 
     there would be little problem. However, to evade the 
     requirements of Title III, a union officialdom need only 
     learn how to fill out the required reporting form. If the 
     real purpose of a trusteeship is illegitimate, the 
     international can easily conceal that fact simply by listing 
     a legitimate, but vaguely formulated, purpose permitted by 
     the law. Over the years, union officials have discovered 
     that they can do this with impunity because the 
     enforcement provisions of Title III are ineffective.
       The Labor Department has no incentive for checking the 
     validity of the Title III reporting forms because the law 
     authorizes it to investigate the validity of a trusteeship 
     only upon the complaint of a union member. Moreover, the law 
     presumes a trusteeship valid for 18 months. In no single case 
     known to me has the Labor Department ever challenged a 
     trusteeship in court before the lapse of 18 months, even 
     after union members have submitted persuasive complaints to 
     it. The same problem faces complainants in Federal court, 
     where judges routinely dismiss complaints against 
     trusteeships on procedural grounds before the 18-month period 
     has expired.
       It is not difficult for a complaining union member to 
     succeed in lifting a trusteeship once the 18 months is up and 
     the presumption of validity has been removed. At that point, 
     judges and the Labor Department offer recourse, but by that 
     time it is too often too late to revive any momentum for 
     democracy that has been lost.
       It is true that sometimes trusteeships are imposed for 
     legitimate reasons: to root out corruption or to restore 
     orderly democratic procedure; and nothing in the proposed 
     LMRDA amendments will eliminate that power. Unfortunately, 
     there are other cases, too many, where trusteeships are 
     imposed, on one pretext or another, to suppress challenge 
     from below to the officialdom above. In such instances, 
     trustees utilize that 18-month period, during which their 
     power is virtually immune from challenge, to undermine their 
     rivals or critics. Elected local officers are usually 
     suspended or removed. Local meetings are often abandoned, 
     sometimes collective bargaining contracts are imposed upon 
     the membership without their consent, local bylaws are 
     revised arbitrarily. Meanwhile, by fear or favor, the power 
     of the trustee is employed to construct a local political 
     machine loyal to the top officialdom. This kind of maneuver 
     is quite possible, because the trustee controls the local's 
     finances, grievance procedures, and--sometimes--hiring hall 
     referrals. He normally has the power to hire and fire paid 
     staff.
       After living under these conditions for 18 months, any 
     independent opposition is easily demoralized and tends to 
     disintegrate. At that point, the trustee can call for new 
     elections, supervised by a committee chosen by him or his 
     cronies, fairly confident that no effective challenge is 
     likely to survive.
       The proposed amendment will not prevent any fair-minded 
     union leadership, where necessary, from trusteeing a local 
     under conditions specified under Title III. Wide latitude is 
     permitted by the statute which authorizes trusteeships, among 
     other specific conditions, for ``otherwise carrying out the 
     legitimate objects of such labor organization.''
       What the proposed amendment would do is quite simple.
       1. It would fill an urgent need by providing, for the first 
     time, the possibility of effective recourse against arbitrary 
     trusteeships. By removing the 18-month presumption of 
     validity, it would encourage the courts and the Labor 
     Department to seriously consider complaints from unionists, 
     look beyond what the union lists on reporting forms, and 
     consider whether the actual operations of any trusteeship are 
     lawful.
       2. It provides for a specific additional assurance of fair 
     treatment in the immediate aftermath of an improper 
     trusteeship. If a union resists the lifting of the 
     trusteeship and a complaining unionist or the Labor 
     Department is forced to file suit in Federal court and the 
     court orders the dissolution of the trusteeship, it would be 
     anomalous to permit the trustee to dominate the process of 
     choosing the self-governing local leadership for the post-
     trusteeship period. The amendment would require either the 
     reinstatement of the local officers previously elected by the 
     membership or a new election under supervision of the court, 
     assuring them of the right to a leadership of their own 
     choosing in a fair election.
       In summary, the proposed amendments are modest and clear, 
     they impose no burdens upon the labor movement, and they 
     would substantially strengthen the rights of members in their 
     unions.

     

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