Hogan v. Labor Relations Commission

• Decision Date: 20 January 2000
• Citation: 430 Mass. 611,722 NE 2d 446
• Parties: MARY HOGAN v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

430 Mass. 611

722 NE 2d 446

MARY HOGAN v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

December 9, 1999.

January 20, 2000.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., ABRAMS, LYNCH, GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, & COWIN, JJ.

Bruce N. Cameron for the plaintiff.

John B. Cochran for the defendant.

ABRAMS, J.

The plaintiff, Mary Hogan, appeals from a decision of the defendant, Labor Relations Commission (commission), which concluded that a public employer does not commit a prohibited labor practice under G. L. c. 150E by proposing to suspend an employee for nonpayment of an agency service fee because the union used improper procedures to collect that fee. We granted the plaintiff's application for direct appellate review. We affirm the decision of the commission.

When the dispute arose, Hogan was employed by the school committee of Springfield (school committee) in the Springfield public schools as a clerk. The school committee and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 93, AFL-CIO, local 3556 (union), were parties to a collective bargaining agreement that required employees covered by the agreement, including Hogan, either to join the union or to pay an agency service fee. In the fall of 1996, the union invited Hogan to join, but Hogan declined. On December 20, the union sent Hogan an agency fee demand.

By letter dated February 7, 1997, the union notified the school committee of employees who had failed to pay either union dues or a service fee. The union requested that the school committee impose the penalty for refusal to pay as prescribed in the agency service fee provision in the parties' collective bargaining agreement. In response, the school committee sent a letter to Hogan advising her that she would be suspended for five school days without gross pay if she failed to pay union dues or the service fee. On May 5, the school committee sent a second letter to Hogan informing her that she would be suspended between May 19 and May 23.

On May 13, Hogan filed a prohibited labor practice charge with the commission alleging that the school committee violated G. L. c. 150E, §§ 10 (a) (1), 10 (a) (3), and 12.¹ In this charge, she based her complaint on the failure of the school committee and the union to provide information required pursuant to the pertinent regulations.

The commission conducted an investigation and dismissed the charge on October 16 because it did not find probable cause to believe that the school committee had violated G. L. c. 150E. The commission refused to find probable cause in light of a previous decision in which it concluded that "it would not extend responsibility to employers under [G. L. c.] 150E for failing to ensure that the [u]nion employed adequate procedural safeguards before the employer enforced an agency fee provision in a collective bargaining agreement." See West Springfield & Janet Leonard, 21 M.L.C. 2116 (1994), aff'd sub nom. Leonard v. Labor Relations Comm'n, 42 Mass. App. Ct. 1112 (1997).

Hogan filed a request for reconsideration of the dismissal pursuant to 456 Code Mass. Regs. § 15.04. The commission affirmed its prior dismissal. Hogan filed a second request for reconsideration on December 24 because the prior ruling was based, in part, on evidence that did not exist at the time of the investigation. The commission took the unusual step of reconsidering its probable cause determination a second time and affirmed its prior dismissal, on modified grounds. The commission stated that it affirmed the dismissal "on the sole ground that a public employer does not engage in a prohibited labor practice under [G. L. c.] 150E [by failing to ensure that] a union has used []proper procedures to collect an agency service fee." Hogan filed a timely notice of appeal from the commission's probable cause determination. We granted her application for direct appellate review.

We grant "due weight to the experience, technical competence, and specialized knowledge of the agency, as well as to the discretionary authority conferred upon it." G. L. c. 30A, § 14 (7). However, where an agency's decision is based on a question of law, we review the commission's interpretation de novo. G. L. c. 30A, § 14 (7). See Protective Life Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 425 Mass. 615, 618 (1997); Raytheon Co. v. Director of the Div. of Employment Sec., 364 Mass. 593, 595 (1974).

General Laws c. 150E, § 12, requires a union to follow certain procedures when imposing and collecting a service fee. Before imposing a fee, the union must formally execute the collective bargaining agreement imposing the fee by vote. Id. The union cannot receive fees until it has established procedures by which employees may seek rebates of certain expenditures. Id. When a union issues a demand for payment of a service fee, it must follow constitutional requirements outlined in case law, see, e.g., Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Educ., 431 U.S. 209 (1977); School Comm. of Greenfield v. Greenfield Educ. Ass'n, 385 Mass. 70 (1982), and certain rules, see 456 Code Mass. Regs. §§ 17.00-17.16. A union failing to abide by these procedural requirements has committed a prohibited labor practice. See G. L. c. 150E, § 10 (b) (1).

By contrast, an employer does not issue a service fee demand and, thus, is not required to follow these procedural safeguards. Further, nothing in G. L. c. 150E suggests that an employer must ensure that the union has made a proper agency service fee demand before the employer proposes to suspend an employee for nonpayment of an agency service fee. In fact, after a collective bargaining agreement requiring payment of an agency fee by nonunion employees has been properly ratified by a union, an employer is statutorily obliged to have nonunion employees pay the service fee as a condition of employment. G. L. c. 150E, § 12. An employer who does not fulfil this requirement has committed a prohibited labor practice. G. L. c. 150E, § 10 (a) (5) &...