Court allows Murdock ballot access but does not clear him of charges, penalties

Charles Murdock can run for office in the 2022 AMO election under a May 13 Federal Court for the Southern District of Florida decision linked to what appears to be a procedural technicality.

In this decision, the court said Murdock had not received sufficient notice of an amendment adding "neglect" by Murdock to a charge of "nonfeasance" in a February 2021 impeachment proceeding, in which the Trial Committee found Murdock had allowed dues delinquency to soar over 400 percent during his tenure as AMO Secretary-Treasurer and had failed to drop AMO members known to have been as much as five years behind in their membership dues obligations to AMO.

However, the court did not void the impeachment charges against Murdock, nullify the findings and recommendations of the Trial Committee, or return Murdock to office. In this specific case, the Trial Committee recommended that Murdock be removed from office and barred from seeking official positions in the 2022 AMO election and in subsequent elections.

Nor did the court overturn the results of the June 2021 union-wide digital referendum in which AMO members voted 657-198 to ratify the Trial Committee's findings in the impeachment case against Murdock, while clearing AMO President Paul Doell and the five remaining AMO Executive Board members. In fact, the court had approved this referendum while it was underway as closer to democratic principle than allowing a relatively small number of AMO members to make such profound decisions during a monthly membership meeting at AMO headquarters at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In its May 13 decision, the court said Murdock "may not be denied access to the Union's election credentialing and eligibility process, or to the election ballot, on the basis of his impeachment. To be clear the court does not hold that Murdock must be placed on any ballot or reinstated to his prior position. Rather, Murdock must be permitted to proceed through the Union's election process without the bar that was placed as the result of an impeachment hearing that did not comply with the due process rights" guaranteed under the 1959 Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.