1773 Barrett v. Local Union 212 Executive Board

It was a violation of the rules governing UAW elections for the election committee to relinquish unsupervised custody of the challenged ballots to an employee of the local union who had no official role in the electoral process. The IEB’s hearing officer questioned the local union’s employee about this period and was satisfied that her testimony adequately addressed the challengers’ concerns about the security of the challenged ballots after they were taken upstairs. As an appellate body, we must rely on the findings of fact made by those who have heard the testimony of witnesses and examined the evidence unless there is compelling evidence to contradict those findings. At the same time, if the hearing officer had found it necessary to rerun the chairperson’s election in order to reassure the membership about the integrity of the process, such an order would not have been out of line, despite the presumption of validity.