Detroit Fire Fighters Ass'n 344 v. Detroit
| Decision Date | 23 July 2008 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 131463.,Calendar No. 7. |
| Citation | 482 Mich. 18,753 N.W.2d 579 |
| Parties | DETROIT FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION IAFF LOCAL 344, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF DETROIT, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Bruce A. Campbell, for the city of Detroit.
Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and Richard P. Gartner, Assistant Attorney General, for the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, amicus curiae.
Dykema Gossett, PLLC (by John A. Entenman, Melvin J. Muskovitz, and F. Arthur Jones II), Ann Arbor, for the Michigan Municipal League, amicus curiae.
Nantz, Litowich, Smith, Firard & Hamilton (by John H. Gretzinger), Grand Rapids, for the city of Iron Mountain, amicus curiae.
At issue in this public labor law dispute between plaintiff Detroit Fire Fighters Association and defendant city of Detroit is whether the circuit court properly issued a preliminary injunction to prevent the implementation of defendant's proposed layoff and restructuring plan where plaintiff contends that the plan violates the "status quo" provision of 1969 P.A. 312 (Act 312), MCL 423.243, by, among other things, jeopardizing the safety of the remaining firefighters. We conclude that the injunction was erroneously entered.
Where a party seeks a preliminary injunction to prevent an alleged status quo violation, a two-step process is required. First, the moving party must satisfy the traditional four-part test that is prerequisite for issuance of any preliminary injunction. Second, if the preliminary injunction test is met and the injunction is granted, the circuit court must promptly resolve the merits of the status quo claim. Pursuant to MCR 3.310(A)(5), if a preliminary injunction is granted, a "trial of the action on the merits must be held within 6 months after the injunction is granted, unless good cause is shown or the parties stipulate to a longer period."
The status quo provision of Act 312 prevents either party from altering, without consent, "existing wages, hours, or other conditions of employment," which concern mandatory subjects of bargaining, while Act 312 arbitration is pending. The status quo provision does not prevent parties from exercising their contractual rights if they do not alter an existing wage, hour, or other condition of employment. In this case, it is defendant's implementation of its restructuring and layoff plan that is at issue. Plaintiff claims that it is a change in "existing . . . conditions of employment" because it will jeopardize firefighter safety, which our precedent treats as a "condition of employment" and a mandatory subject of bargaining. Defendant, on the other hand, argues that it has the contractual right to lay off firefighters. Thus, in order for the status quo provision to be violated in this case, it must be determined that the restructuring and layoff plan actually alters a condition of employment, namely firefighter safety.
The question is what standard a circuit court must apply in order for it to determine that an employer's challenged action actually violates the status quo provision by altering this condition of employment. The Court of Appeals in Oak Park Pub Safety Officers Ass'n v. Oak Park1 recently adopted the standard that a staffing proposal must be "inextricably intertwined with safety" to be a mandatory subject of bargaining. We adopt this standard for circuit court review of the type of status quo violation claim presented here. A circuit court must conclude that the employer's challenged plan is so "inextricably intertwined with safety" that its implementation would impermissibly alter the status quo by altering this "condition" of employment. The circuit court must make thorough factual findings supporting such a conclusion.
Here, not only did the circuit court fail to resolve the safety claim on the merits, it entered what amounted to a permanent injunction without applying the traditional injunctive standards. Thus, we hold that the circuit court erroneously granted injunctive relief and the Court of Appeals erroneously affirmed that decision.
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals, vacate the preliminary injunction entered by the circuit court, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision.
Plaintiff is the exclusive bargaining representative of eligible Detroit Fire Department (DFD) employees. Defendant is the employer. Both are parties to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that took effect in 1998 and expired on June 30, 2001. Until a new agreement is forged in the Act 312 arbitration, the parties continue to operate under the old CBA. That CBA states in pertinent part at Article 2.D that
[t]he City reserves the right to lay off personnel for lack of work or funds; or for the occurrence of conditions beyond the control of the Department; or when such continuation of work would be wasteful and unproductive. . . .
In Article 14, the parties agreed that
[w]ages, hours and conditions of employment legally in effect on the effective date of this agreement, shall, except as improved herein, be maintained during the term of this Agreement.
It is not the intent of this Article to restrict, interfere with, prevent or hinder the City from carrying out its duties and responsibilities to the public well being, by way of illustration, but not limitation, those rights, duties and responsibilities enumerated in Article 2 and the Purpose and Intent clause hereof, subject to the City's obligations under PERA [public employment relations act] and other laws.
After the CBA expired in 2001, the parties were unable to agree to a new contract. In December 2002, plaintiff invoked compulsory arbitration under Act 312 to create a successor agreement. Act 312 is meant to provide an "alternate, expeditious, effective, and binding" arbitration process.2 Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, Act 312 requires the arbitrator to call a hearing within 15 days of being appointed,3 conclude the hearing within 30 days of its commencement,4 and issue a written opinion within 30 days of the conclusion of the hearing.5 Here, the parties waived the time limitations that Act 312 imposes on the arbitration process. As a result, the "expeditious" Act 312 arbitration process is still pending after more than five years.
Defendant experienced serious budget shortfalls during the ongoing Act 312 arbitration. These difficult financial circumstances affected the operations of the DFD, leading defendant to implement a restructuring plan and a round of layoffs, effective July 1, 2005. Unfortunately, the budget problems persisted, and defendant announced, in September 2005, an additional plan to restructure the DFD. Under this plan, defendant proposed to lay off 65 firefighters, demote 10 battalion chiefs, and reduce the number of battalions from eight to five. The plan reassigned the battalion chief's duties at "garden variety fires" to the senior officer at the scene, and deactivated five engine and ladder companies.
Plaintiff filed suit in the Wayne Circuit Court on September 12, 2005, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the September 2005 reorganization plan from going into effect while the Act 312 arbitration was pending. Plaintiff argued that unilateral implementation of the restructuring plan violated the status quo provision of Act 312 because it required unilateral alteration of minimum staffing, job duties, seniority, parity, and emergency medical service requirements, all of which affected both firefighter safety and mandatory subjects of bargaining.
The circuit court held hearings beginning in late September, and granted plaintiff's request for a preliminary injunction on October 17, 2005. The court found that there were issues of fact concerning whether the layoffs would have an impact on the safety of the firefighters—a mandatory subject of bargaining under this Court's decision in Local 1277, Metropolitan Council No. 23, AFSCME, AFL-CIO v. City of Center Line6 (Center Line II).
The circuit judge sent the case to the assigned Act 312 arbitrator, Michael P. Long, to decide the safety issue and render his decision by October 27, 2005, at which time the circuit judge would determine if the preliminary injunction would remain in place. Although he held hearings, the arbitrator responded to the circuit court in an October 27, 2005, opinion stating that he was "not able to make any well reasoned determination as to the resolution of this dispute." Arbitrator Long indicated that he lacked jurisdiction to decide the safety issue, observing that "[t]he normal channels were not followed regarding reference of the matter to [Act] 312 arbitration." He sent the case back to the circuit court and recommended that the circuit court order the parties to mediation while keeping the injunction in place until the mediation process concluded.
The circuit court again granted a preliminary injunction in an October 31, 2005, order following another hearing. At this hearing the court reviewed its earlier statements and conceded:
I do want to say for the record after reading the transcript of the previous hearing of the 17th, that I felt that my choice of words was inapt because it sounded like I was making a determination that there was an impact. That is not my place to do that.
However, the circuit judge clarified, "I find that there's a serious question of fact as to whether or not [the restructuring plan] would have an impact on fire fighters' safety, or indeed upon working conditions or working hours." Relying on Center Line II and Detroit Police Officers Ass'n v. Detroit,7 the court found that the reorganization and layoff plan "may implicate mandatory provisions of collective bargaining, namely the...
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