IN RE: SANDY POPE 2011, Protestor.
Protest Decision 2011 ESD 205
Issued: April 7, 2011
OES Case No. P-246-040511-FW
Sandy Pope 2011 filed a pre-election protest pursuant to Article XIII, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the 2010-2011 IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election ("Rules"). The protest alleged that the membership list Pope received upon achieving accreditation as a candidate for International office did not include a large segment of the members of Local Union 2010, in violation of the Rules. As a result, the protest contended that Pope was denied the right to meaningful access to those members to advance her candidacy.
Election Supervisor representatives Kathryn A. Naylor, Paul Dever and Christine Mrak investigated this protest.
Findings of Fact and Analysis
Article VII, Section 3(a) of the Rules requires the International Union to prepare a membership list for the Election Supervisor, who in turn is authorized to release the list to accredited or nominated candidates for International office. Each such candidate may use the membership list solely to advance his/her campaign for nomination and/or election.
The IBT membership list prepared for distribution by the Election Supervisor is to include all IBT members. The vast majority of IBT members are listed in the IBT's TITAN system, and the names, addresses and local union numbers of members listed there are provided to accredited candidates. A small minority of local unions are not on the TITAN system; the membership lists of those unions are provided to accredited candidates separately from the TITAN list.
The IBT prepared a membership list current as of October 20, 2010, and that list was subsequently distributed, as requested, to the campaigns for James Hoffa and Sandy Pope, after they achieved accreditation as candidates for International office, respectively, on October 21, 2010 and January 7, 2011.
Although Local Union 2010 had 3,746 members when the IBT prepared its list, only 737 members of that local union were included on the October 20 list the IBT prepared for the Election Supervisor.
Local Union 2010 is a newly chartered IBT local union. In May 2010, members of the Coalition of University Employees (CUE) at the University of California (UC) voted to affiliate with the IBT. CUE represents a large bargaining unit of clerical employees, medical assistants and allied service employees at 11 university campuses across California, including UC medical centers and national laboratories. In August 2010, the California Public Employment Relations Board rejected challenges to and upheld the affiliation vote with the IBT. The IBT's General Executive Board approved the affiliation agreement with the CUE in the summer of 2010 and established it as Local Union 2010. At that time, CUE's members became members of the IBT.
The affiliation agreement granted the CUE all the benefits and privileges of a newly chartered IBT local union, including the right to full participation in the 2011 IBT Convention. The approved local union election plan permitted CUE - now Local Union 2010 - to elect four delegates and four alternate delegates. Final delegate strength calculations have raised the local union's entitlement to five delegates.
Our review of the October 20, 2010 membership list distributed to accredited candidates confirmed the protest's claim that the list contained mailing addresses for only 737 out of 3,746 members of Local Union 2010. Investigation revealed that prior to its affiliation with the IBT, CUE communicated exclusively with its membership via campus-wide email system and through its website. As a result, CUE had not historically maintained a record of home addresses for communicating with its membership. Further, UC does not release an employee's address to the local union where that employee has expressly requested that such information be maintained as confidential. Following its affiliation with the IBT, the local union and the IBT have taken steps toward obtaining members' residential addresses so that the local union could comply with TITAN requirements and its obligations under the approved local union election plan to mail nomination notices and ballots to its members. To date, investigation shows there are more than 3,500 addresses for Local Union 2010's membership in TITAN, considerably more than the 737 addresses in the October 2010 list provided to accredited candidates.
We find that the list of Local Union 2010 members included in the October 20, 2010 list the IBT prepared for delivery to accredited candidates was substantially incomplete because it contained only a small portion of the persons who were then members of that local union.
Accordingly, we GRANT the protest. As remedy, we direct the IBT to prepare and deliver to the Election Supervisor the membership list for Local Union 2010, current as April 7, 2011. We in turn will provide that list forthwith to accredited candidates Pope and Hoffa.
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 Supervisor 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
885 Third Avenue, Suite 1000
New York, New York 10022
Fax: (212) 751-4864
Copies of the request for hearing must be served upon the parties, as well as upon the Election Supervisor for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 1801 K Street, N.W., Suite 421 L, Washington, D.C. 20006, all within the time prescribed above. A copy of the protest must accompany the request for hearing.
Richard W. Mark
Election Supervisor
cc: Kenneth Conboy
2011 ESD 205
DISTRIBUTION LIST (BY EMAIL UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED):
Bradley T. Raymond, General Counsel
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
25 Louisiana Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
braymond@teamster.org
David J. Hoffa
Hoffa Hall 2011
1100 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Ste. 730
Washington, D.C. 20036
hoffadav@hotmail.com
Ken Paff
Teamsters for a Democratic Union
P.O. Box 10128
Detroit, MI 48210-0128
ken@tdu.org
Barbara Harvey
1394 E. Jefferson Avenue
Detroit, MI 48207
blmharvey@sbcglobal.net
Fred Gegare
P.O. Box 9663
Green Bay, WI 54308-9663
kirchmanb@yahoo.com
Scott D. Soldon
3541 N. Summit Avenue
Shorewood, WI 53211
scottsoldon@gmail.com
Fred Zuckerman, President
Teamsters Local Union 89
3813 Taylor Blvd.
Louisville, KY 40215
fredzuckerman@aol.com
Robert M. Colone, Esq.
P.O. Box 272
Sellersburg, IN 47172-0272
rmcolone@hotmail.com
Carl Biers
Box 424, 315 Flatbush Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
info@SandyPope2011.org
Julian Gonzalez
Lewis, Clifton & Nikolaidis, P.C.
350 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1800
New York, NY 10001-5013
jgonzalez@lcnlaw.com
Anytra Henderson
Teamsters Local Union 2010
2855 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 301
Berkeley, CA 94705
clericals@cueunion.org
2357 Hobart Avenue, SW
Seattle, WA 98116
chrismrak@gmail.com
Susan White
swwchristian@sbcglobal.net
Maria Ho
Office of the Election Supervisor
1801 K Street, N.W., Suite 421 L
Washington, D.C. 20006
mho@ibtvote.org
Kathryn Naylor
Office of the Election Supervisor
1801 K Street, N.W., Suite 421 L
Washington, D.C. 20006
knaylor@ibtvote.org
Jeffrey Ellison
214 S. Main Street, Ste. 210
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
EllisonEsq@aol.com
