Bay City School Dist. v. Bay City Educ. Ass'n, Inc.
| Decision Date | 22 July 1986 |
| Docket Number | Docket Nos. 74148,74698 and 74699 |
| Citation | 425 Mich. 426,390 N.W.2d 159 |
| Parties | , 33 Ed. Law Rep. 1229 BAY CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Bay and Saginaw Counties, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BAY CITY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants, and American Arbitration Association, Defendant. REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Pierce MORAN and Thelma Haney, Defendants-Appellees. William BROWN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. REDFORD TOWNSHIP, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Allsopp, Fitzgerald & Kolka by William W. Allsopp, Bay City, for plaintiff-appellee.
Foster, Swift, Collins & Coey, P.C. by Thomas A Baird, Lansing, for defendants-appellants.
Sachs, Nunn, Kates, Kadushin, O'Hare, Helveston & Waldman, P.C. by Theodore Sachs, Mary Ellen Gurewitz, Detroit, for amici curiae.
Frank A. Guido, Gen. Counsel for Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Ass'n of Michigan, Livonia, for defendants-appellees.
Christopher J. Johnson, Livonia, for plaintiff-appellant.
The issue in these cases, consolidated for argument on appeal, is whether the pendency of unfair labor practice charges before the Michigan Employment Relations Commission precludes arbitration of breach of contract claims where the statutory claims submitted to the MERC and the contractual claims submitted to arbitration arise out of the same controversy.
In Detroit Fire Fighters v. Detroit, 408 Mich. 663, 293 N.W.2d 278 (1980), this Court held that the MERC could not defer consideration of an unfair labor practice charge filed with the MERC pursuant to the public employment relations act, until determination, pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, by arbitration of a grievance arising out of the same controversy that gave rise to the unfair labor practice charge. The instant cases present a different issue, namely, whether pendency of a statutory claim before the MERC precludes arbitration of the contractual claim.
Contractual and statutory claims, whether or not based on the same controversy, generally involve different legal and factual issues that are to be decided in different forums. A collective bargaining agreement may provide benefits to a union or its members not provided in the PERA without conflicting with the PERA. The PERA is not implicated unless the decisions of the MERC and an arbitrator conflict. We conclude that rights arising under the contract may be enforced unless the contract protects what the PERA prohibits or the arbitrator's decision conflicts with a prior MERC decision.
The decision of the Court of Appeals in Bay City School Dist. v. Bay City Ed. Ass'n, 133 Mich.App. 729; 349 N.W.2d 808 (1984), precluding arbitration was erroneous; since an arbitration hearing of the contractual claims has not been held, a conflict in decisions of the MERC and an arbitrator does not appear on this record. The decision in Redford Twp. v. Redford Twp. Civil Service Comm., 136 Mich.App. 65, 356 N.W.2d 270 (1984), in which a different panel of the Court of Appeals held that arbitration was not precluded, is affirmed.
The facts and history of proceedings follow.
In Bay City, the school board for Bay City and Bay and Saginaw counties resolved to transfer its special education program to another school district and began making similar plans for its adult education program. Fearing the loss of jobs and wages, unions representing teachers, secretarial and clerical workers, and other nonacademic employees sought to bargain about the transfers. The school board refused to bargain. The unions filed unfair labor practice charges with the MERC complaining that the school board's actions had violated the unions' rights under Sec. 10(1)(a) and (e) of the PERA. 1 Later in the month, the unions filed grievances alleging that the school board's actions constituted subcontracting prohibited by the collective bargaining agreements. 2
After the unions demanded arbitration, the school board commenced the instant action in the circuit court to obtain an order that arbitration "shall not occur due to the exclusive jurisdiction of MERC." The court granted the unions' motion for summary judgment, stating that "if there's something more that was contracted for in this case than what is available by way of the statute [PERA], then I think the parties have a right to pursue that more." The Court of Appeals, relying on Detroit Fire Fighters, reversed and remanded for entry of a declaratory judgment, "stating that the parties' dispute concerning subcontracting, together with any other issues submitted to MERC, have been placed within MERC's exclusive jurisdiction and are not subject to any private grievance arbitration." 3
In Redford, a mechanic in the Redford sanitation department was suspended for swearing and throwing an object at a supervisor. After receiving notice of the suspension, union stewards, William Brown and Pierce Moran, spoke to the Director of Public Services and threatened an employee walkout the next day if the suspension were not rescinded. The next morning Brown and Moran presented the director with a grievance regarding the suspension. The director said the grievance would be processed through the normal procedures.
The director asked and then ordered the employees to go to work, but they refused. Moran was seen talking to the employees, and when he left the premises they followed. Redford claims that Moran ordered picket signs from a printer and distributed them.
That same morning, Thelma Haney, a union steward for the clerical employees, learned of the work stoppage. After meeting with union leaders, including Moran, she began calling clerical employees in other Redford departments. She instructed the employees that picket lines had been formed and notified them of a provision of the collective bargaining agreement that stated, "It shall not be a violation of this Agreement and it shall not be a cause for a discharge or disciplinary action in the event an employee refuses to enter upon any property involved in a primary labor dispute...."
A week later, the three stewards received notices informing them that their employment was terminated for activity in violation of a provision (art XII, Sec. 1) of the collective bargaining agreement that provided, "No employee, Union member or other agent of the Union shall call or cause any strike, work stoppage or cessation of employment of any kind whatsoever."
The stewards pursued a number of avenues, seeking relief. They requested a hearing before the Redford Township Civil Service Commission, which was subsequently found by the Court of Appeals to lack jurisdiction. 4 They filed grievances and demanded arbitration, claiming that Redford had violated the collective bargaining agreement. Thereafter, they also filed unfair labor practice charges with the MERC claiming that Redford had violated Sec. 10(1)(a) and (c) of the PERA. 5
The arbitrators ordered the three stewards reinstated. The arbitrator who heard the Moran grievance concluded that Moran did not "call or cause any strike, work stoppage or cessation of employment," and thus did not violate the contractual provision relied on by Redford in terminating his employment. "He merely participated in the walkout; he did not instigate it...." As for Haney, the arbitrator who heard her grievance concluded, "In light of [the contractual provision Haney had relied on, her] conduct in making employees knowledgeable of the fact that they would not be punished for refusing to cross the picket line does not amount to calling or causing any strike [or] work stoppage...." The arbitrator added that "even if [that provision] doesn't apply, the discharge cannot stand," because the proof only amounts to suspicion. Brown was also ordered reinstated by the arbitrator who heard his grievance. Brown was found not guilty of calling or causing a strike. His position the day before the walkout was found to have "changed by the following morning." 6
In September, after the arbitrators issued their opinions in the Haney and Moran grievances, but before the arbitrator issued an opinion on the Brown grievance, the MERC found that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that either Moran or Brown had instigated the work stoppage, but that there was sufficient evidence to find that they had assumed a leadership role in the strike as soon as it began. The MERC said that "it is well established that a steward or union officer who instigates, urges participation in, or otherwise assumes a leadership role in an unlawful work stoppage may lawfully be disciplined more severely than employees who merely participate in the work stoppage." The MERC concluded that the discharges were not prohibited by the PERA. The discharge of Thelma Haney was, however, found to violate the PERA, because her actions were not "sufficiently indicative of a leadership role in the unlawful strike to permit Respondent to single her out for discharge."
The circuit court ordered enforcement of the arbitration awards. In the Court of Appeals, Redford claimed that "(1) once Local 214 filed a charge with the MERC, the MERC obtained exclusive jurisdiction over the issues regarding the termination ... and ... (2) the arbitration awards are, in any event, contrary to public policy and should not be enforced." The Court of Appeals concluded that Redford's first argument was based on a misinterpretation of Detroit Fire Fighters. It also said that since "the grounds asserted by Redford for vacating the arbitration awards are inadequate, and since Redford has yet to exercise its Sec. 6 rights, the trial court correctly ordered Redford to comply with the arbitration awards." 7
In Detroit Fire Fighters, this Court, in the context of examining the MERC's policy of deferring "resolution [by the MERC] of statutory unfair labor practice charges to the contract law determinations of a private arbitrator," id. ...
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