Protest Decisions

OFFICE OF THE ELECTION SUPERVISOR

for the

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS

IN RE: KIMBERLY SCHULTZ,               )           Protest Decision 2016 ESD 227

                                                                        )           Issued: May 31, 2016

            Protestor.                                           )           OES Case No. P-274-043016-SO     

____________________________________)                      

Kimberly Schultz, member of Local Union 2011, 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 2011 refused to update members’ addresses so that they could receive ballots in the rerun election.

Election Supervisor representative Dolores Hall investigated this protest.

Findings of Fact and Analysis

In Schultz, 2016 ESD 156 (April 8, 2016), we found that delegate candidate William Walsh violated the Rules by promoting his slate’s campaign on a Facebook page that had been created by an IBT organizer for Local Union 2011 and that was still titled “IBT Teamsters Local 2011” at the time of the campaign posting, even though Walsh had taken the page over for personal use.  However, we held that the violation did not affect the results of the election.  Accordingly, we denied the protest.

Schultz appealed.  The Election Appeals Master affirmed our finding that the conduct violated the Rules but reversed our ultimate holding and concluded that the violation may have affected the outcome of the election.  Accordingly, the Election Appeals Master ordered that the Local Union 2011 delegates and alternate delegates election be rerun.  Schultz, 16 EAM 17 (April 25, 2016).

Ballots in the rerun election were mailed May 3, 2016.  The protest alleged that several days before that mailing, two members who asserted they did not receive ballot packages in the initial delegates election prepared and submitted address updates to Local Union 2011 but that the local union refused to accept them.  The members submitted their address updates on a form created by Local Union 2011.  The form, titled “Member Information Change Form,” was completed by both members in long-hand, and each member listed her name, address, email address, and phone number in the spaces provided.  Each member also signed the form and dated her signature.  The two members gave their signed, completed forms to protestor Schultz, who served as their union steward.  Schultz scanned the forms and emailed them to the local union.  Local union trustee Ken Wood rejected the address updates received from Schultz, stating that any such updates must be submitted directly to the local union by the member and not via another member.  This protest followed.

            Comparison of the addresses listed for the two members on their address update forms with the addresses shown for the members in Local Union 2011’s membership database showed they were identical in every respect.  The members told our investigator that they had not moved recently and filled out and submitted the address updates solely because they had not received ballots in the initial delegates election.

            We recognize a risk to the integrity of the membership database may be presented when a member submits an address update for another member’s record, and that it is appropriate to confirm that such a change request genuinely comes from the member.  The facts of these requests lead us to conclude that the requests were genuine and that the local union should have reached that conclusion and accepted the changes.  First, the address updates were completed in long-hand on the local union’s required form and were signed by the members who sought to update their addresses.  That is sufficient to show that the members themselves were requesting the updates to the database.  Second, the updates were submitted to a duly authorized steward, who received them in her capacity as the first-line union representative of the members.  Under these circumstances, we hold that the local union’s refusal to accept the address changes merely because the local union received them through Schultz rather than from the members directly constituted an unreasonable impediment to the members’ attempt to insure that the local union database reflected their correct addresses[1].

            Accordingly, we GRANT the protest.  However, because the addresses shown on the address update forms for both members matched in every detail the addresses for those members that already existed in the local union’s database, we order no remedy.

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

            2016 ESD 227

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