Protest Decisions

OFFICE OF THE ELECTION SUPERVISOR

for the

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS

IN RE: TERRY RAWSON,                                    )           Protest Decision 2016 ESD 225

                                                                        )           Issued: May 27, 2016

            Protestor.                                           )           OES Case No. P-253-040816-MW   

____________________________________)                                                                  

Terry Rawson, member, vice president, and alternate delegate in Local Union 50, filed a pre-election protest pursuant to Article XIII, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the 2015-2016 IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election (“Rules”).  The protest alleged that Local Union 50 impermissibly placed him on automatic honorable withdrawal in retaliation for his alternate delegate candidacy.

Election Supervisor representative Jeffrey Ellison investigated this protest.

Findings of Fact and Analysis

            Local Union 50 is entitled to elect three delegates and one alternate delegate to the IBT convention.  At its nominations meeting held Sunday, February 28, 2016, two full slates and no unaffiliated candidates were nominated.  Rawson was the alternate delegate candidate on one slate; the local union’s principal officer, Steve Alexander, headed the other slate.  Ballots were mailed March 31 and counted April 25, 2016.  All delegate candidates on Alexander’s slate were elected; however, in the alternate delegate’s race, Rawson was elected over the alternate delegate candidate on Alexander’s slate.

            On April 1, 2016, the day after ballots were mailed, the local union placed Rawson on automatic honorable withdrawal in the TITAN system; a withdrawal card was mailed to Rawson on or about the same date.  Rawson received the withdrawal card on April 7, 2016.  He filed this protest the next day, alleging that local union officials retaliated against him for his alternate delegate candidacy by placing him on withdrawal and attempting to render him ineligible for election as alternate delegate.

            In Eligibility of Rawson, 2016 ESD 144 (March 15, 2016), the Local Union 50 secretary-treasurer challenged the eligibility of Rawson to be nominated for alternate delegate.  We found that the local union created the circumstances of Rawson’s purported ineligibility, first by discharging him from employment with the local union, then by failing to deduct from his executive board salary his monthly dues despite an existing checkoff authorization for those deductions, and finally by failing or refusing to pay him his executive board compensation altogether.  We found that the local union’s treatment of Rawson violated the Rules, and we held Rawson eligible for nomination as alternate delegate.

The Local Union dismissed Rawson from his full-time employment as a business agent on or about September 23, 2015.  Thereafter, the local union paid him accrued vacation, which it attributed to specific weeks in October and November 2015.  In Eligibility of Rawson, we held that the local union’s treatment of Rawson as being on vacation in October and November satisfied his employment at the craft requirement for those months.

Following exhaustion of his vacation entitlement, Rawson did not immediately resume employment with any other employer under the jurisdiction of the local union and, on April 1, 2016, the local union issued the withdrawal card pursuant to Article XVIII, Section 6(a) of the IBT constitution.  That provision requires that such a card “must be issued” to a member who becomes unemployed in the jurisdiction “six (6) months after the month in which the member first becomes unemployed, if he is still unemployed at that time.”[1] 

On March 28, 2016, however, Rawson had commenced employment with ET Simonds Co., an employer under the jurisdiction of Local Union 50.  He signed a dues checkoff authorization, and dues have been deducted from his compensation and remitted to the local union.  A dispute exists concerning when the local union learned of Rawson’s employment with Simonds.  Rawson asserts that he gave oral notice to business agent Doug Lamb on March 29, 2016, two days before the withdrawal card was issued.  Lamb denied that Rawson gave him such notice, stating instead that he received oral confirmation of Rawson’s employment directly from Bill Simonds, a principal of Simonds Co., when the two met to discuss labor issues on April 6, 2016, five days after the withdrawal card was issued.

Based on Rawson’s employment with Simonds Co., Rawson’s TITAN record was updated on April 11, 2016 to show that the withdrawal card issued him on April 1 was deposited, effectively taking him off withdrawal and restoring him to membership in good standing.  The ten days Rawson was on withdrawal status has no impact on his eligibility to run for alternate delegate, and no impact on his continuous good standing to stand for any future office in the local union.  IBT constitution, Article II, Section 4(a)(1).

On this basis, we deem this protest RESOLVED.

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:

Kathleen A. Roberts

Election Appeals Master

JAMS

620 Eighth Avenue, 34^th floor

New York, NY 10018

kroberts@jamsadr.com

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, 1050 17^th Street, N.W., Suite 375, Washington, D.C. 20036, all within the time prescribed above.  A copy of the protest must accompany the request for hearing.

                                                                        Richard W. Mark

                                                                        Election Supervisor

cc:        Kathleen A. Roberts

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