IN RE: PATRICIA RELLER,
Protest Decision 2001 EAD 347
Issued: May 4, 2001
OEA Case No. PR040513MW
Patricia Reller, a member of Local 2000 and a delegate candidate on the Best choice for Your Voice Base Reps and Members for You slate, filed a pre-election protest pursuant to Article XIII, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the 2000-2001 IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election ("Rules"). She alleges that Local 2000 president Danny Campbell retaliated against her in violation of Article VII, Section 11(g) of the Rules because of her delegate candidacy. Campbell is a candidate on a slate opposed to Reller's.
Election Administrator representatives Lisa Sonia Taylor and Michael Nicholson investigated the protest.
Findings of Fact and Analysis
Local 2000 represents national bargaining units of Northwest Airlines and Sun Country Airlines flight attendants. It maintains ten different "bases" that are staffed by elected "base representatives." Reller was elected as New York City base representative with a term commencing January 2001. As do other bases, the New York base publishes a quarterly newsletter. This newsletter is mailed to the homes of flight attendants who work from the New York base.
Base newsletters are written in draft form by the base representative and then forwarded to Local 2000 Detroit-based staffer Lawana Page for layout in proof form. Then, one of the local's officers reads the draft, suggests changes, and either sends the copy back to the base for further work or approves the issue for publication.
According to Reller, she started working on a draft of her newsletter in February 2001. During this period, she received a letter from Page stating the dates that each base was to publish their newsletter. Reller had missed her deadline. She claims that she was unaware of the schedule for publication, and explains that when she was a base representative from 1991 to 1997 there was never a publishing schedule.
Reller finished her draft of the newsletter and faxed it to Page on March 21, 2001 for set-up and clearance by an officer. However, Page states and Reller concedes that Page was having computer and printer problems that delayed the layout process. On April 3, Page submitted the New York base newsletter to Campbell for his clearance. He looked at it immediately and was concerned about the portion of the draft entitled "A Message From Your Base Representative." Four paragraphs long, this article introduced Reller, gave her experience in union work and her employment history at Northwest, and addressed how she planned to address the concerns of her constituents. The paragraphs did not mention the delegate elections, nor note that Reller was a candidate.
Campbell states that his review of Reller's newsletter raised concerns that the information might be considered improper for publication at that time, given the pendency of the local's delegate elections. Ballots had been mailed on March 29, 2001, and were set to be counted on April 28. Campbell says that he decided he should consult with Local 2000's attorney, Barbara Harvey. In addition, he had Page call Reller on April 3 and tell her there was a question about the base representative article and asked her to call Campbell. She did so the next day.
Reller says Campbell told her that the article was "shameless self-promotion." Campbell denies this, and says that he told Reller that he was having the local's attorney look at the article to determine whether there was a problem in publishing the article at this time. According to Campbell, Reller's response was to hang up after calling Campbell an obscene name.
The next day, Reller filed this protest. Thereafter, Reller consulted with the local's counsel, who advised that the article could be published as part of the newsletter. It was finalized, photocopied and mailed to New York based flight attendants on April 19. In the April 28 ballot count, Reller finished eighteenth among the delegate candidates with 1234 votes. The lowest vote-getter among the twelve delegate candidates that were elected received 1552 votes.
During the investigation, we examined the six other base newsletters that were reviewed by Campbell during the same time period that he reviewed Reller's draft. None contained autobiographical information of the type drafted by Reller that led Campbell to seek legal counsel. One of those newsletters, the March 2001 issue of the Seattle base newsletter, is noted by Reller in her protest. There, Campbell slate co-candidate Andy Damis, the Seattle base representative, says "the first two months in office have been hectic with bylaw amendment proposals, delegate elections, purser program concerns, committee work, grievance reviews, SLIC meetings, meeting agendas/minutes, contract implementation, contract training classes, disciplinary meetings, snowstorms/earthquakes, Base Rep. Training, dealing with U.S. West, setting up my office and getting a file system in place." Another of these six newsletters, from Chicago, contains a short personal greeting, but no biographical information.
During the course of our investigation, we examined other base newsletters that had not been reviewed by Campbell. One, a Seattle newsletter published in February 2001, contains autobiographical information about Damis similar to that contained in Reller's New York base newsletter draft. However, Campbell did not review the February 2001 Seattle newsletter before issuance, and accordingly the similarity in content between it and Reller's draft does not form the basis for sustaining Reller's charge of retaliation by Campbell. Moreover, Campbell's review of the February 2001 Seattle newsletter for the first time during our investigation led to his conclusion that the New York newsletter as submitted by Reller should be published.
Based on the foregoing facts, we DENY the protest because Reller's claim of political retaliation by Campbell is not supported by the facts. The article in question was not campaign literature, but rather a legitimate article by Reller informing her constituents of her accession to the post of base representative, and her background and experience. As Election Appeals Master Conboy explained in Martin, 95 EAM 18 (October 2, 1995):
An incumbent has "a right and responsibility," as a union officer, to "advise and report to the membership on issues of general concern" to the membership, and is "entitled to use union publications to express [his] views." [Citations omitted] …
***
With regard to the tone and content prongs of the inquiry, courts have held that newsworthy articles or articles which contain purely factual information are generally permissible. [Citations omitted] …
On the other hand, there is no right on the part of a subordinate union officer such as Reller to have non-political articles about union business published in union newsletters, and such decisions may properly be left to the principal officer of the local, so long as that officer refrains from favoritism or retaliation based on protected activities under the Rules such as mounting a delegate candidacy.
Here, the facts do not support a finding of retaliatory motive by Campbell. Instead, the investigation showed that Campbell decided to seek legal counsel after review of Reller's draft, in order to determine whether publication was proper under the Rules. This review was conducted, and it resulted in the publication of Reller's article unedited. No retaliation occurred and no evidence of a retaliatory motive was uncovered.
Any interested party not satisfied with this determination may request a hearing before the Election Appeals Master within two (2) working days of receipt of this decision. The parties are reminded that, absent extraordinary circumstances, no party may rely upon evidence that was not presented to the Office of the Election Administrator in any such appeal. Requests for a hearing shall be made in writing, shall specify the basis for the appeal, and shall be served upon:
Kenneth Conboy
Election Appeals Master
Latham & Watkins
Suite 1000
885 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10022
Fax: 212-751-4864
Copies of the request for hearing must be served upon all other parties, as well as upon the Election Administrator for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 727 15th Street NW, Tenth Floor, Washington, DC 20005 (fax: 202-454-1501), all within the time prescribed above. A copy of the protest must accompany the request for hearing.
William A. Wertheimer, Jr.
William A. Wertheimer, Jr.
Election Administrator
cc: Kenneth Conboy
2001 EAD 347
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