Charles City Community School Dist. v. Public Employment Relations Bd.

• Decision Date: 21 February 1979
• Docket Number: No. 61780,61780
• Parties: 100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3163 CHARLES CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 766

275 N.W.2d 766

100 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3163

CHARLES CITY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellee, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS BOARD, Appellant.

No. 61780.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 21, 1979.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Carlton G. Salmons, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Nancy D. Powers, of the Public Employment Relations Bd., Des Moines, for appellant.

Ralph F. McCartney and Judith M. O'Donohoe, of McCartney & Erb, Charles City, for appellee.

Charles E. Gribble, of Dreher, Wilson, Adams & Jensen, Des Moines, for amicus curiae, Iowa State Ed. Ass'n.

Edgar H. Bittle, of Belin, Harris, Helmick & Lovrien, Des Moines, for amicus curiae, Iowa Ass'n of School Boards.

Considered en banc.

McGIVERIN, Justice.

In this appeal we must decide whether two contract proposals made by a public employee organization in collective bargaining negotiations with a public employer are mandatory subjects for bargaining under § 20.9 of the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), Chapter 20, The Code, 1977. The trial court ruled they were not mandatory subjects. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Petitioner Charles City Community School District, a public employer within the meaning of § 20.3(1), has been engaged in collective bargaining with an "employee organization" within the meaning of § 20.3(4). During negotiations the parties disagreed as to whether certain proposals by the employee bargaining representative were mandatory subjects of bargaining under § 20.9. The employees claimed the proposals were mandatory subjects of bargaining and therefore the negotiation of the proposals was a condition precedent to a collective bargaining agreement. The District did not voluntarily negotiate on the proposals and claimed that, since the proposals were outside the scope of bargaining set forth in § 20.9, there was no statutory obligation to negotiate.

A prohibited practice complaint was filed by the public employer under § 20.11 with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). The complaint alleged the insistence upon inclusion in the collective bargaining agreement of permissive subjects violated §§ 20.10(3)(b) and (c). In a recommended decision and order a PERB hearing officer ruled the proposals are mandatory subjects of bargaining. On appeal the Board sustained the ruling and held the two proposals are mandatory subjects for bargaining.

The public employer petitioned in district court under § 17A.19 for judicial review of the respondent Board's ruling. The court reversed the Board's decision and held the two proposals are not mandatory subjects for bargaining under § 20.9.

The Board has appealed under § 17A.20.

Section 20.9 provides in part as follows:

Scope of negotiations. The public employer and the employee organization shall meet at reasonable times, including meetings reasonably in advance of the public employer's budget-making process, to negotiate in good faith with respect to Wages, hours, vacations, insurance, holidays, leaves of absence, shift differentials, overtime compensation, supplemental pay, seniority, transfer procedures, job classifications, health and safety matters, evaluation procedures, procedures for staff reduction, in-service training and other matters mutually agreed upon. Negotiations shall also include terms authorizing dues checkoff for members of the employee organization and grievance procedures for resolving any questions arising under the agreement, which shall be embodied in a written agreement and signed by the parties. If an agreement provides for dues checkoff, a member's dues may be checked off only upon the member's written request and the member may terminate the dues checkoff at any time by giving thirty days' written notice. Such obligation to negotiate in good faith does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or make a concession. (Emphasis added.)

The two proposals in question are:

1. That medical and health insurance coverage be provided by the employer for family members and dependents of employees.

2. That grievance committee members of the employees organization be allowed to investigate and process grievances of employees during working hours and without loss of pay by the committee members while so acting.

Our inquiry on appeal is limited to a determination of whether either or both of the proposals are mandatory subjects of negotiation under § 20.9. Although the PERA provisions governing the duty to bargain became effective July 1, 1975, we have been asked only recently to rule on the scope of the duty to bargain outlined in § 20.9. Compare City of Fort Dodge v. Iowa Public Employment Relations Board, 275 N.W.2d 393 (Iowa 1979).

Subjects of bargaining are divided into three categories. There are mandatory subjects on which bargaining is required if requested; ¹ permissive subjects on which bargaining is permitted but not required; and illegal subjects on which bargaining is precluded by law. The list of subjects set out in § 20.9 constitutes mandatory subjects on which the parties are required to bargain if requested.

We do not decide whether a particular contract proposal is fair or financially reasonable and leave those determinations to the parties or the arbitrator, if the parties cannot reach agreement on terms. We look only at the subject matter and not the merits of the proposals at issue.

Although we give weight to the interpretation by the Board, we are not bound by Board interpretations of law and must make an independent determination of the meaning of the statute. Iowa State Education Association v. PERB, 269 N.W.2d 446, 447 (Iowa 1978); West Des Moines Education Association v. PERB, 266 N.W.2d 118, 124-125 (Iowa 1978).

I. Background and perspective. In contrast to private sector collective bargaining, public sector collective bargaining is a relatively new area in the field of economic interaction. Courts in may jurisdictions have examined public employment relations statutes over only a brief period of time. At this early stage of analysis of public employment relations acts, however, there have emerged divergent views on how the statutes should be construed. The divergence of views centers, at least in part, on the appropriate degree of limitation to be placed on the scope of subjects mandatorily includable in the bargaining process.

The ideological differences between those who advocate a carefully limited scope of negotiations and those who advocate a broad scope of negotiations were recently stated in Note, The Scope of Negotiations under the Iowa Public Employment Relations Act, 63 Iowa L.Rev. 649, 653-660 (1978). The positions of each ideological camp were summarized, in part as follows:

The proponents of a carefully delimited scope of negotiations for the public sector maintain that a broad range of bargaining subjects would work in derogation of the public interest. It is feared that unless the scope of bargaining is limited, public employee unions will gain disproportionate political power. There is also concern that traditional methods of political control over and accountability for the management of "public benefit conferral" will be distorted. Although most scope limiters accept, at least begrudgingly, the need for collective determination of some aspects of the public employment relationship, they contend that the reasons warranting the imposition of public employment collective bargaining in the first instance do not justify negotiations over a wide range of subjects. The differences between the public and private sectors are perceived as making inapplicable for public bargaining the private sector experience of a fairly broad scope of bargaining determined and interpreted primarily by adjudicatory bodies.

At the core of the attitudes of those who favor a limited scope is a view of the democratic process that emphasizes that decisions concerning public programs should be made by persons accountable to the public. A broad scope of negotiations is felt to threaten the control of public officials and the accountability attendant to that control. It also changes existing methods of decision making, and the outcomes of that decision making, to a greater extent than is acceptable. Before public sector bargaining, the working conditions and wage-related benefits of public employees were unilaterally determined by public sector employers. The governmental nature of the enterprises suggests to scope limiters that the method of determination of certain aspects of the public employment relationship is at least theoretically suited to the democratic process. Government employers are responsible to a broad range of interest groups, and resource allocation of decisions usually must reflect more than simple consideration of economic criteria.

In contrast to those commentators who view the differences between the public and private sectors as necessitating a legislatively limited scope of negotiations for public sector collective bargaining, the opposing side of the debate favors adoption of the private sector model. These private sector advocates recognize sector differences, but take the view that employees of the public are "primarily employees" and only secondarily government employees. It is believed that the fact that the government is the employer should not inhibit employees' legitimate aspirations for a voice in the determination of working conditions.

Advocates of a broad scope of negotiation challenge, though seldom explicitly, the notion that public enterprise management absent collective bargaining is meaningfully accountable to the public will. The tendency of bureaucracy to insulate public officials' acts from public control . . . and the low level of public interest in many matters of local governmental policy all work against the existence of significant accountability. Because the existence of meaningful accountability is questioned, fewer positive values are seen as threatened by allowing the determination of a...