Beatrice Linscott v. Millers Falls Company

440 F.2d 14, 76 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2994, 1971 U.S. App. LEXIS 11060, 3 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8181, 9 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 266

• Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• Decided: March 29, 1971
• Docket: 7723_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

ALDRICH, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff, Linscott, a Seventh-day Adventist, was employed by defendant Millers Falls Company, hereinafter company, from 1950 until October 1968. In 1968 defendant United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), and its Local 274, hereinafter union, having been certified two years previously by the NLRB, entered into a collective bargaining agreement with the company which contained a provision requiring a union shop. Plaintiff refused to pay initiation fees or dues because her religion forbad contributing financial or other support to a union. There is no question as to the sincerity of her conviction, or of its being a recognized religious belief.¹

Admittedly, under the collective bargaining agreement, plaintiff’s sole obligation to the union was the payment of dues and fees. She had offered to pay the equivalent to a non-religious charity, but the union declined the proposal. The company then discharged her. The present suit is for damages as well as injunctive and declaratory relief, based essentially upon the claim that plaintiff’s discharge deprived her of the right to free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. The district court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, 316 F.Supp. 1369, and plaintiff appeals.

Defendants first contend that plaintiff was discharged as the result of a private arrangement, and that the governmental activity necessary to bring the First Amendment in play was not present. Judge Coffin would subscribe to this.² The majority of the court, however, while acknowledging that the present case may go a little further, finds insufficient basis for distinguishing Railway Employes’ Dep’t v. Hanson, 1956, 351 U.S. 225, 76 S.Ct. 714, 100 L.Ed. 1112. There the Railway Labor Act, as amended, 45 U.S.C. § 152, Eleventh, authorized union shop provisions in collective bargaining agreements. The state constitution contained a so-called “right to work” provision, which prohibited such agreements. Employees of a railroad, who did not wish to join the union, brought suit to enjoin enforcement of the union shop provision of its collective bargaining agreement. In holding that the Railway Labor Act controlled, the Court first considered whether Congress, having merely permitted union shop agreements when entered into by private parties, had given such agreements “the imprimatur of the federal law” so as to prevail over the state statute. The Court concluded that it had. It then turned to the question whether Congress could do this despite the resulting burden put on a dissenting employee’s constitutional rights, deciding in favor of the union shop, see post.

Defendants would distinguish Hanson because, unlike the Railway Labor Act, section 14(b) of the LMRA, 29 U.S.C. § 164(b), allows the state to outlaw union shop agreements. This misapprehends what Hanson basically decided. If federal support attaches to the union shop if and when two parties agree to it, it is the same support, once it attaches, even though the consent of a third party, the state, is a pre-condition. The means by which the agreement is attained does not affect the significant language in Hanson, 351 U.S. at 232, 76 S.Ct. at 718,

“[T]he federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed.”

and note 4 appended thereto,

“4. Once courts enforce the agreement the sanction of government is, of course, put behind them. See Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161; Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24, 68 S.Ct. 847, 92 L.Ed. 1187; Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, 73 S.Ct. 1031, 97 L.Ed. 1586.”

What the cited cases mean, in terms of the present case, is that if the company-declined to discharge the plaintiff, the union could institute a federally supported suit, if not an unfair labor practice charge, for failure to live up to its bargaining agreement. We can attach no weight in this context to the circumstance that section 152 of the Railway Labor Act affirmatively authorizes the union shop, while section 14(b) of the LMRA is cast in terms of empowering the state to outlaw it, by a so-called “right to work” law, a difference noted, without comment, in n. 5 of the Hanson opinion. 351 U.S. at 232, 76 S.Ct. 714. By section 14(b)’s necessary implication, federal approval, and hence federal enforcement, will exist in those states that do not enact such a law. See also section 8(a) (3), § 158(a) (3). We know of no principle that measures governmental action by the frequency or infrequency of its exercise. In the case at bar the union’s demand that the plaintiff be discharged is as federally supported as was the similar demand in Hanson.

The more difficult question is that posed by the First Amendment: whether the governmental interest expressed in the labor legislation can justify this interference with plaintiff’s competing interest in choosing the employment she wishes without cost to her religious convictions. Freedom of exercise of religion is not absolute. Plaintiff concedes, as she must, that there must be a “balancing” and that the governmental interest may be paramount if it is “compelling.” Sherbert v. Verner, 1963, 374 U.S. 398, 403, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965. The elements of such a balancing test include, in addition to the importance of the governmental and religious interests, the degree of interference with the religious practice. See Clark, Guidelines for the Free Exercise Clause, 83 Harv.L.Rev. 327 (1969); Giannella, Religious Liberty, Nonestablishment, and Doctrinal Development, 80 Harv.L.Rev. 1381, 1390 (1967). We turn, therefore, to an appraisal.

A strong governmental interest in the union shop was found in Hanson. Some employees claimed that being obliged to join the union deprived them of freedom of association as guaranteed by the First Amendment, and that compelling the payment of dues violated Fifth Amendment due process. As against these contentions the Court held that “ [industrial peace along the arteries of commerce [as] a legitimate objective,” 351 U.S. at 233, 76 S.Ct. at 719, justified the legislation. Undoubtedly the Court recognized the validity and importance of the congressional purpose to achieve uniform union membership, both to further peaceful labor relations and, as desirable for its own sake, to require a fair sharing of the costs of collective bargaining.

Sherbert v. Verner, to which we will return later, in fact adopted its “compelling state interest” test from freedom of association cases, see Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. at 403, 83 S.Ct. 1790, citing N.A.A.C.P. v. Button, 1963, 371 U.S. 415, 438, 83 S.Ct. 328, 9 L.Ed.2d 405, so that Hanson’s balancing, and thus its conclusion, should be the same in the case before us, since the government’s interest, and the plaintiff’s burden (loss of a union-shop employer) are apparently the same. However, plaintiff points out that Hanson explicitly reserved some First Amendment questions:

“[I]f the exaction of dues, initiation fees, or assessments is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case.” 351 U.S. at 238, 76 S.Ct. at 721.

It is not altogether clear what the Court meant to include by this language. To the extent that it was speaking of dues that were sought to be applied to nonunion objectives, cf. International Ass’n of Machinists v. Street, 1961, 367 U.S. 740, 81 S.Ct. 1784, 6 L.Ed.2d 1141, there is no such suggestion in the case at bar. Nor is the union one that is devoted to forcing its members into ideological molds via membership restrictions, e. g., barring Communists, a problem of which Hanson took note.

However, on the assumption that Hanson faced only with the more general freedom of association issue, is to be read as reserving our present question, we proceed with a balancing of the interests. In plaintiff’s case of Sherbert v. Verner, a Seventh-day Adventist was discharged because she refused, on religious grounds, to work on Saturdays. She found herself unable to secure other employment not requiring Saturday work, and applied for unemployment compensation. The state refused, asserting that she was not involuntarily out of work. Mr. Justice Brennan, speaking for the Court, held the state interest insufficient to justify the interference with plaintiff’s exercise of her religion.

The state interest in Sherbert, in compensating or not compensating single individuals, seems less substantial than the federal interest in Hanson in preserving the principle and broad purposes of the union shop. Here it is plaintiff’s turn to seek to distinguish Hanson on the ground that the LMRA, unlike the Railway Labor Act, permits a state to outlaw the union shop by a “right to work” law. This circumstance, plaintiff says, demonstrates that there is no “compelling state [sic] interest” here to conflict with her religious interest. In our opinion the fact that Congress chose to share the decision, and to give the final say to the state, does not deny a federal interest in the case at bar, any more than leaving the final word to the parties themselves denied it in Hanson. The federal interest attaches if, and when, such action is believed locally to be appropriate as well as in furtherance of the policies behind the LMRA recited in 29 U.S.C. § 151.³ With respect to Sherbert, while the government always has an interest in saving money, its primary concern in connection with unemployment compensation is protection of the disadvantaged person. To deny him physical sustenance because he will not affront his religious convictions would scarcely be considered social legislation. Cf. Barnett v. Rodgers, D.C.Cir., 1969, 133 U.S.App.D.C. 296, 410 F.2d 995. In the present case the interests are not merely that of the plaintiff versus the cost to the fisc; opposed to plaintiff’s interest are both the public and private interests in collective bargaining and industrial peace.

Furthermore, plaintiff’s burden is not as severe as was Sherbert’s. Her alternative is not absolute destitution. The cost to her is being forced to take employment in a nonunion ship — here, less remunerative employment. We conclude that in weighing the burden which falls upon the plaintiff if she would avoid offending her religious convictions, as against the affront which sustaining her position would offer to the congressionally supported principle of the union shop, it is plaintiff who must suffer. We agree with the Fifth Circuit. Gray v. Gulf, Mobile & Ohio RR., n. 1, ante; cf. Cap Santa Vue, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., D.C.Cir., 1970, 424 F.2d 883.⁴

Affirmed.

1 . See Gray v. Gulf, Mobile & Ohio R. R., 5 Cir., 1970, 429 F.2d 1064, 1066 n. 4, cert. denied 400 U.S. 1001, 91 S.Ct. 461, 27 L.Ed.2d 451.

2 . In his concurring opinion Judge Coffin seems to us to neglect the fact that Congress was something more than silent, and that the UMRA’s recognition of the union shop, to the extent not limited by virtue of the permission granted by section 14(b), constitutes governmental endorsement in an area in which Congress makes the rules. When that endorsement is not curtailed in a particular state, it seems no less wlmt he terms “but for” support than is the union shop provision in the Railway Labor Act. Secondly, Judge Coffin’s claim that we are going beyond Shelley v. Kraemer [334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836. 92 L.Ed. 1161] in finding “government action” before there is court enforcement of a private agreement overlooks the fact that Hanson has crossed that bridge. Sufficient potential is furnished by government approval even though it may ultimately be dissipated by a court’s refusal to act.

3 . It is for these reasons, among others, that we cannot accept plaintiff’s argument that because in the total labor force there are so relatively few who share her views the matter is de minimis. We can take ready notice of the disruptive effects of union members being required to share their achievements, and their work, with non-union workers. The impact is substantially different from the minor accommodation that would be required in Dewey v. Reynolds Metals Co., 6 Cir., 1970, 429 F.2d 324, cert. granted 400 U.S. 1008, 91 S.Ct. 566, 27 L.Ed.2d 621.

4 . This decision makes it unnecessary to meet the contention advanced by defendants that plaintiff is precluded from main-taming this action. Defendants’ assertion that the administrative prerequisites of a suit based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5, must be exhausted whenever the suit could have been brought under Title VII, is supported by almost none of the cases cited. It at least seems certain that other, though equivalent, remedies were meant to survive the passage of this equal employment legislation. See, e. g., Waters v. Wisconsin Steel Works of Int’l Harvester Co., 7 Cir., 1970, 427 F.2d 476, cert. denied International Harvester Co. v. Waters, 400 U.S. 911, 91 S.Ct. 137, 27 L.Ed.2d 151 (discriminatory employment action based on 42 U.S.C. § 1981 still exists); United Packinghouse, Food & Allied Workers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO v. N.L.R.B., 1969, 135 U.S.App.D.C. 111, 416 F.2d 1126, 1133 n. 11, cert. denied Farmers’ Cooperative Compress v. United Packinghouse, 396 U.S. 903, 90 S.Ct. 216, 24 L.Ed.2d 179 (concurrent NLRB jurisdiction in this area remains). We doubt that we could, without specific indication from Congress, demand prior resort to the administrative part of the Title VII action before such independent actions may be brought.