Finnie

This case raises the question whether a district court has jurisdiction under § 301(a) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. § 185 (a), over an action brought by an individual against his union alleging violation of the union constitution but failing to allege that the dispute has a potentially significant impact upon labor-management relations or industrial peace. The Court finds that it does not have jurisdiction and remands the case to the state court.

I

This action arose out of an intra-union dispute in 1979 that resulted in plaintiff’s expulsion from defendant union. Plaintiff, a qualified ship’s engineer and a longtime member of the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (the “Union”), was offered the position of chief engineer on the S/S Valerie F. The ship’s regular officers, all of whom were members of the Union, had been locked out of their jobs in a labor dispute and had been replaced by members of a rival union, the Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union which, faced with a shortage of qualified officers, offered the chief engineer’s position to plaintiff. Despite being requested not to sail on the Valerie F by a member of the Union, plaintiff did so, and boarded…