International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local Union 1052 v. Public Employment Relations Com'n

• Decision Date: 24 August 1989
• Docket Number: No. 55802-7,55802-7
• Citation: 778 P.2d 32,113 Wn.2d 197
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS, LOCAL UNION 1052, Appellant, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS COMMISSION of the State of Washington, an administrative agency, and The City of Richland, Washington, a municipal corporation, Respondents.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 197

113 Wn.2d 197

778 P.2d 32

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS, LOCAL UNION 1052, Appellant, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS COMMISSION of the State of Washington, an administrative agency, and The City of Richland, Washington, a municipal corporation, Respondents.

No. 55802-7.

Supreme Court of Washington,

En Banc.

Aug. 24, 1989.

Critchlow & Williams, David E. Williams, Richland, and Webster, Mrak & Blumberg, James H. Webster, and Lynn D. Weir, Seattle, for appellant

Kenneth Eikenberry, Atty. Gen. and Richard A. Heath, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, for respondent, the State.

Perkins & Coie, Nancy Williams and J. David Andrews, Seattle, for respondent, Richland.

DURHAM, Justice.

Local 1052 of the International Association of Fire Fighters (Local 1052) is the bargaining representative of employees of the Richland Fire Department. In 1985, Local 1052 engaged in negotiations with the City of Richland (Richland) on the terms of a successor agreement to the collective bargaining agreement that expired at the end of that year. In the course of negotiations, Local 1052 proposed the following article, entitled "Standards of Safety":

The articles of this Agreement, providing compensation to members of the bargaining unit, have been negotiated from a base of known working conditions either in effect or proposed to the Union during negotiations for this Agreement. Included in the known working conditions is the level of safety afforded members of the bargaining unit in the performance of their duties. This level of safety is directly related to the number If the Employer wishes to make changes in the aforementioned standards during the term of this Agreement, they shall first advise the Union of the intended change and shall open the contract, if the Union requests, to negotiate compensation for the impact on the level of safety and other areas which would be affected by the Employer's proposed changes.

                and type of apparatus and the number and rank of personnel responding to alarms.   At this time, the safety of bargaining unit members is afforded at a level, evidenced by the Fire and Emergency Services Department S.O.P. 75-1 as revised January 3, 1980, entitled "First Alarm Assignments", 1 with apparatus referred to in S.O.P. 75-1 manned at the present level which is as follows
                

It shall be understood that the Union does not encourage or condone any actions which increase work hazards for members of the bargaining unit.

This proposal was among several issues referred to interest arbitration by the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) in March 1986. Before arbitration proceedings commenced, however, Richland filed a complaint with PERC charging that Local 1052's insistence on bargaining over its proposed article constituted a refusal to engage in good faith collective bargaining. The complaint requests an order barring Local 1052 from continuing to insist on inclusion of the article and removing the article from interest arbitration. PERC's executive director referred the complaint to a hearing examiner and suspended the interest arbitration proceedings pending disposition of the complaint.

Following an evidentiary hearing, the hearing examiner issued finding of facts and conclusions of law and entered an order dismissing Richland's complaint. Richland v. International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 1052, Pub. Empl. Relations Comm'n Dec. 2448-A-PECB (1987) The present dispute raises a persistent interpretive issue in the law of labor relations. Under the Public Employees' Collective Bargaining Act, RCW 41.56, Richland and Local 1052 are obligated

                (examiner's opinion), reprinted in 4 Wash.Pub.Lab.L.Rptr. 979.   On Richland's appeal, PERC reversed.   Richland v. International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 1052, Pub. Empl.  Relations Comm'n Dec. 2448-B-PECB (1987).   PERC found that Local 1052 had violated its statutory duty to bargain in good faith and ordered Local 1052 to cease and desist from advancing its proposed contract article concerning safety standards.   After this ruling was affirmed and ordered enforced by the Benton County[778 P.2d 34]  Superior Court, Local 1052 brought the present appeal, which we accepted on certification from the Court of Appeals
                

to meet at reasonable times, to confer and negotiate in good faith, and to execute a written agreement with respect to grievance procedures and collective negotiations on personnel matters, including wages, hours and working conditions, which may be peculiar to an appropriate bargaining unit of such public employer ...

RCW 41.56.030(4); see RCW 41.56.140, 41.56.150. The question presented here is whether or not Local 1052's proposed contractual term falls within this mandatory "scope of bargaining".

As defined in RCW 41.56.030(4), the duty to bargain extends to "personnel matters, including wages, hours and working conditions ..." The scope of mandatory bargaining thus is limited to matters of direct concern to employees. Managerial decisions that only remotely affect "personnel matters", and decisions that are predominantly "managerial prerogatives", are classified as nonmandatory subjects. See Klauder v. San Juan Cy. Deputy Sheriffs' Guild, 107 Wash.2d 338, 341, 728 P.2d 1044 (1986); Federal Way Educ. Ass'n v. Board of Directors, Federal Way Sch. Dist. 210, Pub. Empl. Relations Comm'n Dec. 232-A-EDUC (1977), reprinted in 2 Wash. State Pub. Empl. Rel. Rptr. PD-101; see also Spokane Educ. Ass'n v. Barnes, 83 Wash.2d 366, 375, 517 P.2d 1362 (1974); First Nat'l Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, 452 U.S. 666, 101 S.Ct.

                2573, 69 L.Ed.2d 318 (1981).   A party commits an unfair labor practice if it insists to impasse on bargaining over a nonmandatory subject.   See Klauder, 107 Wash.2d at 341-42, 728 P.2d 1044;  see also NLRB v. Wooster Div. of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U.S. 342, 78 S.Ct. 718, 2 L.Ed.2d 823 (1958)
                

In some cases, an employer's decisions on nonmandatory subjects may have effects on mandatory subjects. If the union so requests, such effects must be submitted to negotiation. Thus, for example, while an employer need not bargain with its employees' union concerning an economically motivated decision to terminate a services contract (a nonmandatory subject), it must bargain over how the layoffs necessitated by the contract's termination will occur. See First Nat'l Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, supra 452 U.S. at 681-82, 101 S.Ct. at 2582-83.

Local 1052 contends that its contract proposal falls within the scope of mandatory bargaining in both of the respects described above. First, it contends that a change in the numbers of fire fighters assigned to particular pieces of fire fighting equipment is a mandatory subject of bargaining. Even if this is not a mandatory subject, moreover, Local 1052 defends its proposed demand for a wage reopener tied to equipment staffing level changes as preservative of its rights to bargain over the effects of staffing changes on the mandatory subjects of workload and safety. ²

The hearing examiner declined to decide the merits of Local 1052's first argument, but agreed with the union's second contention. From the evidence presented to him, the In its review of the hearing examiner's findings and conclusions, PERC took a different approach. Equipment staffing, in PERC's view, is a nonmandatory subject of bargaining. PERC is troubled, then, that Local 1052's proposal would require bargaining on this subject, through the device of a wage reopener. Not all changes in staffing levels will affect workload or safety, PERC notes. Thus, in seeking to compel Richland to bargain all such changes, Local 1052 "is attempting to limit a recognized area of management flexibility." Richland v. International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 1052, Pub. Empl. Relations Comm'n Dec. 2448-B-PECB, at 4 (1987).

                hearing examiner found that "a potential exists for staffing decisions to impact workload and safety."   To foreclose bargaining over Local 1052's proposal, he held, "is to foreclose the union opportunity to demonstrate an effect" on these mandatory subjects.   The hearing examiner determined[778 P.2d 35]  also that Local 1052's contract proposal "does not limit the prerogative of management to change minimum staffing levels."   Richland, 4 Wash.Pub.Lab.L.Rptr., at 986-88.
                

The problem with PERC's approach is that it assumes, rather than decides, the dispositive issue in this case: whether Local 1052's proposal regarding equipment staffing and deployment concerns a mandatory subject of bargaining. PERC did not determine from the facts presented to the hearing examiner that the substance of Local 1052's contract proposal properly may be regarded as a nonmandatory subject of bargaining. Rather, it treated the issue as already decided; according to PERC, equipment staffing "has previously been held to be a permissive subject of bargaining." Pub. Empl. Relations Comm'n Dec. 2448-B-PECB, at 3. This approach is inconsistent with PERC's own well-settled practice of determining scope-of-bargaining questions only "after being fully apprised of the facts of each case." Wenatchee v. Wenatchee Police Guild, Pub. Empl. Relations Comm'n Dec. 780-PECB (1980), at 1, reprinted in 2 Wash. State Pub.Empl.Rel.Rptr. PD-780-1; see WAC 391-45-550. It is also inappropriate under the law of public employment collective bargaining.

PERC's policy of case-by-case adjudication of scope-of-bargaining issues permits application of the balancing approach most courts and labor boards generally apply to such issues. See, e.g., First Nat'l Maintenance Corp. v. NLRB, supra; see generally Annot., Bargainable or Negotiable Issues in State Public Employment Labor Relations, 84 A.L.R.3d 242 (1978). On one side of the balance is the relationship the subject bears to "wages, hours and working conditions". On the other side is the extent to which the subject lies " 'at the core of entrepreneurial control' " or is a management prerogative. Spokane Educ....