Many areas of law have their champions — those who have forged accomplished careers with significant contributions to their areas of law that reflect their passion and dedication. Two such champions from Michigan who have had long, accomplished careers hallmarked by significant contributions to labor law come to mind (and one of them also has a special place in the Law Library’s history.)
Harry T. Edwards graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1965 and launched a highly successful career that included the roles of practicing attorney and acclaimed appellate judge. He is currently a professor of law at New York University.1 During his tenure as appellate judge serving on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1980 to 1994, and subsequently as chief judge from 1994 to 2001,2 Edwards heard appeals from numerous cases implicating labor law and labor issues.
One such case he heard as appellate judge for the D.C. Circuit was a case involving a mining accident.3 A mining company, Freeman, and two supervisors it employed petitioned the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review a Federal Mining and Safety and Health Review Commission (FMSHRC) order finding the employer and two of its supervisors liable for civil penalties for violating structural safety regulations after a concrete walkway in the old plant collapsed in June 1993, which injured four employees.
A subsequent investigation concluded the collapse was caused by advanced, ongoing corrosion of the walkway’s metal beams.
The two supervisors argued that the applicable statutory definition of “knowingly” required a showing of actual knowledge or specific intent to violate the law.4 Judge Edwards rejected this argument and upheld the reasonableness of the FMSHRC’s interpretation of “knowingly” under the Chevron standard, noting the range of meanings ascribed to this term under other acts and used by other agencies and by other courts, which at times even imbued both actual and constructive knowledge into its meaning. However, Judge Edwards went a step further and noted that the FMSHRC’s ALJ based the order against the two supervisors on a finding of “high negligence,” which was not sufficient to meet the definition of “knowingly” to impose liability on either of them under the statute. He granted the supervisors’ petition for review and reversed the FMSHRC’s findings of individual liability against them.
In a federal labor sector case,5 a federal agency employer refused to provide the union with information about two terminated employees because the union did not know the identity of those employees and was not asked to represent them in pressing a grievance. Judge Edwards rejected this argument of the employer agency. He noted that the union represents potentially aggrieved employees, represents all members of the bargaining unit, and has a legitimate concern with its own status as the exclusive bargaining representative, making it therefore entitled to the information under the applicable labor statute to assess its representational responsibilities. He reversed the Federal Labor Relations Authority’s (FLRA’s) determination which agreed with the employer’s refusal to furnish the information, and he remanded the matter to the FLRA to determine whether release of the information would be consistent with the Privacy Act, an issue which was addressed at an initial FLRA hearing but was not reached upon subsequent FLRA review.
Edwards has authored several books and several articles on labor law and issues to which the Law Library has access in its print and/ or electronic collections. He is the coauthor of Labor Relations Law in the Public Sector, The Lawyer as Negotiator, and Collective Bargaining and Labor Arbitration.6 In addition, he is the author of several journal articles on subjects such as alternative dispute resolution, the duty to bargain, and labor relations law in the public sector.7
In addition, the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library maintains in its collection the Harry T. Edwards Papers8 which document his tenure as a board member and chairman of Amtrak, his role in University of Michigan Law School affairs, several labor arbitration cases in which he participated, and many other aspects of his illustrious career before being appointed to the federal judiciary by President Carter in 1980. The Library of Congress also has in its collection the Harry T. Edwards Papers which span the years 1940 to 2012.9
In 1998, when writing about the beginning of his teaching career at University of Michigan Law School, he stated he “had the benefit of working with a [new] Dean who was a brilliant scholar and teacher in my fields of interest — labor law, collective bargaining, arbitration, and employment discrimination.”10
That new dean was Theodore J. St. Antoine.
St. Antoine practiced labor law in Washington, DC, and joined the University of Michigan law faculty in 1965, serving as dean of the law school from 1971 to 1978. His teaching specialties included labor and employment law and contract law.11 He has been a labor arbitrator for over 40 years and was a member of the UAW’s Public Review Board for over 35 years, including eight years as its chair.
It was during his term as dean that St. Antoine had a unique problem to tackle: The law school’s library desperately needed room to grow, but the confines of the beautiful Law Quad, completed in 1933, did not have a footprint which would easily accommodate the needed growth. Concerns abounded about maintaining the revered aesthetics of the Law Quad while books continued to be stacked in the basement of Hutchins Hall, piled on the floors and even stored in stairwells. Something needed to be done.
Dean St. Antoine appointed a building committee, which was first tasked with selecting an architect. Many firms submitted their bids. After several interviews with architectural firm partners and visits to buildings from the final two contenders, a firm was finally chosen by the committee.
Subsequently, St. Antoine’s efforts to forge ahead with the construction of a much-needed law library was fraught with ongoing challenges to overcome. A highly ambitious fundraising initiative to fund construction and continually addressing concerns about preserving the beauty of the Law Quad with any new design proposal were among those many challenges.
The new underground law library was finally completed in 1981.12 St. Antoine’s career is hallmarked by significant contributions to labor law. In addition to his teaching at the University of Michigan Law School, he is author of The Common Law of the Workplace: The Views of Arbitrators, Labor Relations Law: Cases and Materials13 and author of substantial scholarly work about aspects of labor law and issues14 which the Law Library is pleased to house within its print and electronic collections.
There are no longer books piled on the floor. The Law Library is not only proud of St. Antoine’s indelible footprint as an inherent part of its establishment but also extremely pleased to house in its collections the authored contributions of both St. Antoine and Edwards that augment our collective knowledge of labor law and labor law pedagogy and history.