City of Worcester v. Labor Relations Commission

• Decision Date: 27 November 2002
• Citation: 438 Mass. 177,779 NE 2d 630
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: CITY OF WORCESTER & another v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.

438 Mass. 177

779 NE 2d 630

CITY OF WORCESTER & another¹ v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

September 5, 2002.

November 27, 2002.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.

Keith Alan Hood for city of Worcester.

Marjorie F. Wittner for the defendant.

Richard K. Sullivan for International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 378.

SOSMAN, J.

The Labor Relations Commission (commission) determined that the city of Worcester had engaged in a prohibited labor practice when it failed to bargain about the impacts of its order requiring that police officers take certain measures to combat school truancy. Both the city and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 378 (union) appealed from that determination. The Appeals Court held that the commission's decision and order were insufficient, in that they required the city to bargain only over the impacts of the decision, whereas the city also had a duty to bargain over the decision itself. Worcester v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 53 Mass. App. Ct. 106 (2001). We granted the city's application for further appellate review. For the following reasons, we hold that the city is not required to bargain over the decision to assign truancy enforcement duties to its police officers, and we affirm the commission's order.

1. Facts and commission proceedings. The commission found the following facts. The union is the exclusive bargaining representative of a unit consisting of all full-time officers below the rank of sergeant employed by the city's police department. The union and the city were parties to a collective bargaining agreement at all relevant times. On September 16, 1996, the chief of police advised all commanding officers of a special order to be implemented immediately. The union was not given notice and an opportunity to bargain concerning that special order, its impact, or its implementation.

The special order recited that, on August 26, 1996, the city manager had designated all police officers as "supervisors of attendance with the authority to exercise the duties specified in G. L. c. 76, §§ 19 and 20, which include the power to apprehend and take to school without a warrant any truant or absentee found wandering in the streets or public places." The special order proceeded to announce certain mandatory procedures for officer interactions with truants. Whenever an officer encountered a student outside school premises during school hours, the officer was to inquire whether the student was in fact truant, obtaining the student's name and school. The officer was then to contact the dispatcher, who would in turn contact the school to ascertain the student's status.² If the school confirmed the truancy, the officer was to offer the student transportation to a student attendance center (or, in the case of a vocational school student, to a specified administrative office). If the student accepted the offer of transportation, the student was to be transported by cruiser (not patrol wagon) and without restraints. A patfrisk was to be performed if there was reasonable suspicion that the student was armed, and items in the student's possession were to be kept on the front passenger seat. After transporting the student, the officer was to file an incident report, including the student's name, address, age, and date of birth; location of the contact; and the name of the person to whom the student was delivered.

These procedures applied only to those students who voluntarily accepted the offer of transportation. If the student declined the offer, or otherwise resisted or fled, the officer was to discontinue the contact, unless the officer had some lawful basis for an arrest or reasonable suspicion that the student was committing or was about to commit an unlawful act.³ If the officer broke off the encounter with a truant student, the officer was to supply the center or administrative office with the student's name and a report of the circumstances surrounding the contact.

Prior to the issuance of this special order, officers had discretion to investigate whether youths they encountered were truant from school. If the officer chose to investigate, the normal practice was to identify the potential truant, confirm the youth's status through the dispatcher's contact with the school, and, if the truant agreed, to transport the truant to the school. Thus, while the steps were similar (the only difference being that formerly a truant student was transported to school whereas under the special order such students would be transported to a center or administrative office), the officer's discretion to investigate a suspected truancy was transformed into a requirement to investigate all cases of suspected truancy.

The contacts with truants required by the special order could last from forty-five minutes to one and one-half hours, and the process of transporting a truant might require an officer to leave that officer's normal patrol route. In such instances, there would be no coverage on the patrol route, as only one patrol car was ordinarily assigned to a patrol route.

The union filed a complaint alleging that the city had engaged in a prohibited practice by requiring the officers to perform these truancy investigation and transportation duties without giving the union notice and an opportunity to bargain. See G. L. c. 150E, § 10 (a) (5). Based on the above facts, the commission determined that the decision to require police investigation of suspected truants was a core managerial decision concerning where to deploy public services. That decision was not subject to mandatory bargaining under G. L. c. 150E, § 6, and therefore, the city's failure to bargain over that decision was not a violation of G. L. c. 150E, § 10 (a) (5). However, the commission held that there remained an obligation to bargain over the impact of such management decisions, and the special order had an impact on the "workload" of officers when it required them to take measures that had previously been left up to an officer's discretion. Thus, the city had violated G. L. c. 150E, § 10 (a) (5), and, derivatively, § 10 (a) (1), when it issued the special order without giving the union notice and an opportunity to bargain concerning the impact of the decision to require officers to investigate suspected truancies.

2. Discussion. Judicial review of commission decisions is to be conducted in accordance with G. L. c. 30A, § 14. G. L. c. 150E, § 11. We therefore must accord deference to the commission's specialized knowledge and expertise, and to its interpretation of the applicable statutory provisions. See MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. Department of Telecommunications & Energy, 435 Mass. 144, 150-151 (2001), and cases cited.

Pursuant to G. L. c. 150E, § 6, public employers must "negotiate in good faith with respect to wages, hours, standards or productivity and performance, and any other terms and conditions of employment." However, from that expansively defined category of mandatory bargaining subjects, we have exempted certain types of managerial decisions that must, as a matter of policy, be reserved to the public employer's discretion. "[I]n instances where a negotiation requirement would unduly impinge on a public employer's freedom to perform its public functions, G. L. c. 150E, § 6, does not mandate bargaining over a decision directly affecting the employment relationship." Local 346, Int'l Bhd. of Police Officers v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 391 Mass. 429, 437 (1984). See Boston v. Boston Police Patrolmen's Ass'n, 403 Mass. 680, 684 (1989); Burlington v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 390 Mass. 157, 164 (1983); Lynn v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 43 Mass. App. Ct. 172, 178-179 (1997). "[T]he inquiry has been directed towards defining the boundary between subjects that by statute, by tradition, or by common sense must be reserved to the sole discretion of the public employer so as to preserve the intended role of the governmental agency and its accountability in the political process." Id. at 178. "[T]he crucial factor in determining whether a given issue is a mandatory subject of bargaining is whether resolution of the issue at the bargaining table is deemed to conflict with perceived requirements of public policy." Greenbaum, The Scope of Mandatory Bargaining Under Massachusetts Public Sector Labor Relations Law, 72 Mass. L. Rev. 102, 103 (1987).

Thus, for example, a school committee may decide to reduce its level of custodial staffing, School Comm. of Newton v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 388 Mass. 557, 561-562 (1983), or a police commissioner may decide that only one officer, not two, is to be assigned to each marked cruiser, Boston v. Boston Police Patrolmen's Ass'n, supra at 684, or a police chief may require officers suspected of criminal conduct to take a polygraph examination, Local 346, Int'l Bhd. of Police Officers v. Labor Relations Comm'n, supra at 439-440, without bargaining over such decisions. "The list of factors so fundamental to the effective operation of an enterprise as to be exempt from mandatory bargaining requirements will of necessity vary with the nature of the employer," id. at 438, and the inquiry as to whether a particular decision falls within that sphere of core managerial prerogatives must therefore be made on a case-by-case basis, Burlington v. Labor Relations Comm'n, supra at 164.

The present case implicates the city's ability to set its law enforcement priorities. Children between certain ages are required to attend school, and parents may be prosecuted and fined for failing to cause their child to attend school. G. L. c. 76, §§ 1, 2. See Commonwealth v. Renfrew, 332 Mass. 492 (1955). See also G. L. c. 76, § 4 (crime of inducing or attempting to induce minor to absent himself from school, or employing or harboring minor who is unlawfully absent from school). That other mechanisms for addressing...