1631 Local Union 276, et al. v. IEB

Local election committees are without power to add to the qualifications fixed by the UAW Constitution for executive local union offices. A local union may require potential candidates to accept nomination before a certain deadline, but there is no requirement that the nomination itself should be submitted in writing. Even if such a requirement had been included in the local union bylaws, therefore, it would be invalid when applied to candidates for executive offices. This same argument applies to the local union’s requirement that members must resign from any appointed position before accepting nomination to run for an executive office.

Local unions are free to establish eligibility requirements for stewards and committeepersons, but the local union could not adopt a rule requiring Internationally-appointed representatives to resign their positions before accepting nomination to run for local union office because the appointment and removal of such representatives is solely within the discretion of the Vice President of the National Department. The local could require locally-appointed representatives to resign in order to run for committeeperson or steward, but such a requirement would have to be stated unambiguously in the local union’s bylaws and the posted notice of nominations. This local union’s claim that it has required written nomination forms since 1974 does not alter the impropriety of imposing an unwritten requirement. Members have a right to rely on published rules and regulations

Once the IEB determined that the Local 276 Election Committee had improperly disqualified members from running for office, it was permissible and indeed reasonable for it to order all of the affected races rerun in order to provide a range of candidates to the electorate.