Court Supports Union Defectors : Bans Fining Those Who Quit, Cross Picket Lines

WASHINGTON —  In a sharp setback for organized labor, a closely divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that unions may not take disciplinary action against members for resigning and returning to work during a strike.

The court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that prevented a union in the Midwest from imposing fines on members who had defected during a strike in 1977.

The NLRB properly upheld the intent of the Taft-Hartley Act to protect “voluntary unionism,” the justices said. “By allowing employees to resign from a union at any time, (the act) protects the employee whose views come to diverge from those of his union,” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote for the court.

In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, joined by Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall, said that the decision upset the “balance of power” between labor and management and represented “an affront to the autonomy of the American worker.” Justice John Paul Stevens dissented separately.

The decision was seen as weakening the ability of unions to maintain discipline in strikes that lack full and enthusiastic support by members. Union prohibitions against resignations during strikes--at one time quite rare--have been adopted increasingly in recent years in an effort to ensure solidarity.

The ruling was issued at a time when unions are suffering declining membership and have frequently been forced to make concessions during collective bargaining.

The AFL-CIO, in a statement, acknowledged that the ruling “will make it more difficult to conduct effective strikes.” Murray Seeger, a spokesman for the organization, called the decision a “serious but not devastating” defeat. “In a good strong union, with a popular strike, it won’t make that much difference,” he said.

Lawyers for business organizations praised the court’s ruling, saying that it would protect workers from being forced into staying on strike.

“The court has vindicated employee freedom of choice,” Raymond J. LaJeunesse Jr., staff counsel for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund, said. “In situations where unions are having difficulty maintaining a strike, they shouldn’t be able to dragoon members into staying.”

Glenn Summers, representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the decision would bar “coercive” tactics by unions. “The success of a strike will depend now on how much support there really is in the ranks,” he said.

The case involved a strike by the Pattern Makers’ League of North America, a national union, against manufacturing companies in Illinois and Wisconsin. One striking member submitted a letter of resignation, saying he thought the union “was no longer acting in the best interest of the men,” and went back to work. Ten others followed suit.

After the strike was settled, the union, citing prohibitions in its constitution against resigning during strikes, notified the workers that their resignations would not be accepted and that they would be subject to court-enforceable fines. The employers brought an action before the NLRB, charging the union with an unfair labor practice.

The NLRB found that the union had improperly “restrained or coerced” members to take part in collective bargaining activity. A federal appeals court in Chicago upheld the board. But, later, a federal appeals court in San Francisco rejected the board’s position in a different case.

The Supreme Court accepted the NLRB’s interpretation of the law (Pattern Makers vs. NLRB, 83-1894). Powell noted that Congress had effectively eliminated compulsory union membership by banning the closed shop--and that, although workers may be required to pay union dues, they may not be discharged for refusing to follow union rules with which they disagree. The law allows workers to resign from the union at any time, thus “protecting the employee whose views come to diverge from those of his union,” Powell wrote.

Justice Byron R. White, although joining the majority opinion, wrote separately that the board’s interpretation of the law was “permissible” and should be upheld but that a contrary interpretation could have been acceptable as well.

Blackmun, in his dissent, said that union restrictions on resigning were justifiable as a means of ensuring solidarity. “A dissenting individual’s decision to return to work predictably could have a snowballing effect . . . causing the strike to lose its effectiveness,” he said.

In other action, the justices:

--Limited the ability of plaintiffs who win federal civil rights suits to collect attorneys’ fees from the losing side. Such fees are authorized in more than 100 federal statutes and often exceed the amount awarded for the rights violation itself. The court, in a 6-3 decision, said that plaintiffs may not collect for fees they incur after rejecting a settlement offer for more money than they eventually win. The decision gives defendants an additional weapon to obtain out-of-court settlements--and could deter some civil rights suits (Marek vs. Chesny, 83-1437).

--Upheld collective bargaining agreements obtained from Atlantic and Gulf Coast shippers by the International Longshoremen’s Assn. to help save dockworker jobs that were threatened by the increasing use of containerized cargo. The court, in a 6-3 ruling, said that the agreements were a permissible way of preserving work, even if the workers were not needed in the wake of technological advances (NLRB vs. ILA, 84-861).