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From the April/May 2001 issue of UDR
More about that continuous good standing rule
By Herman Benson
Here we go again with that absurd continuous good standing rule. It came up before the UAW Public Review Board in February.
Many unions, including the UAW, disqualify candidates for office if they have failed to maintain continuous good standing for specified periods. Now, it seems reasonable enough for a union to require aspiring candidates to have been members for some period in order to qualify. Say, a year for local office and, say, two years for international office. The rationale: the candidate should have some familiarity with the union. But that rationale disappears when the union requires continuous good standing for the period, meaning that a candidate who inadvertently falls behind in payment just once in the period is disqualified, even if he or she has been a member for the past 20 years!! Which is exactly what happened in the UAW.
Gary Bryant wanted to run for office in Tennessee Local 2116 but was disqualified because he failed to be in continuous good standing in the one year before nominations. How he fell behind is a long complicated story related to his taking a voluntary layoff and an intricate dispute over whether he was required to pay dues during that period. But that tedious disagreement is irrelevant to the main issue. The point is that he had been a member of the local for 22 years! Experience? Knowledge of company and union affairs? More than 20 years worth, yet he can be disqualified for not being in continuous good standing in the one year before nominations. We will not quarrel with the Public Review Board decision to reject his appeal, because the absurdity lies in the constitutional provision for continuous good standing.
The continuous good standing rule would be absurd, arbitrary, and irrational except for one purpose: it serves to prevent opposition to any established leadership and thereby helps entrench incumbents in office. Clear-cut evidence comes from Teamsters Local 952 whose secretary treasurer ordered business agents to fall behind one month in dues payments so that they could not run. Any competent union establishment can easily circumvent the annoying requirement. They control the dues records, which they can adjust at will. Local officials can get special dispensation from their international.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that requiring more than 24 months of continuous good standing is unreasonable and illegal; but 24 months is O.K., which only proves that the Supreme Court exercises its constitutional right to be irrational, a view which Al Gore probably, although silently, endorses.
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