DC 37's Dangerous Game

If District Council 37 wasn't already embarrassed by the fact that about 17 percent of the employees it represents are not considered union members, it has cause to be after a candidate to head one of its locals decided to drop a lawsuit arising from that issue.

Fitz Reid, who lost an election for president of DC 37's Local 768 by just two votes, had sued because eight ballots submitted by persons who figured to support him were disqualified without being opened by the local's election committee, which ruled that they were agency fee-payers who never became union members.

Mr. Reid sued, alleging that more than 20 percent of those paying dues to Local 768 were nonmembers and that this was due not to their choosing that option but because of a political calculation by past and present heads of the local.

He dropped the suit when U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao intervened, fearing that she might win a ruling that could ultimately restrict how DC 37 could spend the dues money of nonmembers.

Some DC 37 officials believe they have the best of both worlds - a way to limit the number of voting members to protect their political bases while still collecting dues from nonmembers under the state's Agency Shop Law. They are abusing the law and the system. If the Bush Administration uses those abuses to win court restrictions on the spending of agency fee-payers' money, the entire labor movement will suffer.

If that isn't clear to DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, other city union leaders should get the message across that it's time to cut the nonsense and sign up every dues-payer who wants membership status and the voting rights that go with it.