International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. City of Gridley

• Decision Date: 01 August 1983
• Docket Number: S.F. 24331
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 666 P.2d 960, 113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3729 INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL UNION 1245, et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. CITY OF GRIDLEY, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Page 518

193 Cal.Rptr. 518

34 Cal.3d 191, 666 P.2d 960, 113 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3729

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS, LOCAL UNION 1245, et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. CITY OF GRIDLEY, et al., Defendants and Respondents.

S.F. 24331.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Aug. 1, 1983.

Peter Nussbaum, Neyhart, Anderson, Nussbaum, Reilly & Freitas, San Francisco, Tom Dalzell, Salinas, Harry M. Marsh, Maureen C. Whelan and Marsh, Mastagni & Marsh, Chico, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Cecil W. Marr, Robert J. Loew, Loew & Marr, Los Angeles, Davis, Cowell & Bowe, Alan C. Davis, William T. Payne, San Francisco, Kirsten L. Zerger, Salinas, Raymond L. Hansen, Diane Ross, Winn Newman, Edith Barnett, Michael Mauer, Reich, Adell & Crost, Los Angeles, Christopher D. Burdick, William H. Sortor and Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, San Francisco, as amici curiae on behalf of plaintiffs and appellants.

Robert Millington, Millington & Millington, Gridley, Richard S. Whitmore, William F. Kay, M. Carol Stevens, Janice Johnson, Whitmore & Kay, Palo Alto, William A. Ward and Leverenz & Ward, Chico, for defendants and respondents.

John M. Powers, City Atty., Vallejo, as amici curiae on behalf of defendants and respondents.

KAUS, Justice.

Plaintiffs, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 1245 (union) and some of its members, appeal from a judgment denying their petition for writ of mandate and complaint for injunctive relief. They seek mandate to compel defendant, the City of Gridley (city), to meet and confer with the union regarding wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment and an injunction requiring the city to reinstate union members' employment until or unless they are discharged for cause pursuant to adequate pretermination notice and hearing.

This case presents two issues: (1) May a local government, consistent with the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (Gov.Code, § 3500 et seq., hereinafter MMBA or the act), ¹ revoke the recognition of a public employee union because the union has instigated a strike? and (2) Are noncivil service employees who have engaged in a strike entitled to notice and hearing before dismissal, when city personnel rules provide that discharge must be "for stated cause," and the city has discretion to impose sanctions less severe than dismissal? We conclude that the MMBA's protection of employees' rights to participate in organizations of their own choosing, and the purposes of the MMBA--to foster employee-employer communication and improve management-personnel relations--bar the city from revoking recognition of the union under these circumstances. We also conclude that the dismissed employees were entitled to predismissal safeguards.

I

In January 1974, at a time when there was no recognized employee organization representing its employees, the City of Gridley adopted two resolutions (Nos. 2 and 3) to govern relations with its employees. Resolution No. 2 established, inter alia, a procedure by which city employees could select an exclusive bargaining representative to meet and confer with the city. ² Resolution No. 3 provided that (1) "participation by any employee in a strike ... is unlawful and shall subject the employee to disciplinary action, up to and including discharge," and (2) "if a recognized employee organization ... encourage[s], or condone[s] a strike ... in addition to any other lawful remedies or disciplinary actions, the Municipal Employee Relations Officer may suspend or revoke the recognition granted to such ... organization ...."

In March 1974, the union was elected as the city employees' exclusive representative and was formally recognized by the city in April. Negotiations between the union and the city resulted in a three-year agreement effective July 1, 1975. The agreement did not contain a no-strike clause, stating only that "the City and Union recognize their mutual obligation for the continuous rendition and availability of ... service." Nor did the agreement discuss strike sanctions. It did provide that it did not "abrogate or reduce the scope of any present plan or rule, which is not specifically covered...." Notice of resolutions Nos. 2 and 3 had been mailed to the union prior to its selection by the employees as their bargaining representative.

In March 1978, negotiations for a new agreement began, but by August 22, 1978, an impasse had developed. At the union's request, a meeting was held before the city council on September 18 and, when no agreement was reached, another meeting before the council was scheduled for October 2.

On Friday, September 22, however, 18 employees of the city's public works, fire and finance departments went on strike, apparently with the knowledge and encouragement of the union. With the exception of two employees on vacation, these employees constituted the entire staffs of the affected departments. The city immediately notified the union that it considered the strike illegal. On Friday afternoon, the city's municipal employee relations officer mailed a notice to the striking workers demanding that they return to work at their next regular shift assignment or be discharged; the next regular shift for all but one of the employees was Monday, September 25. On Friday afternoon, the officer also notified the union that he had revoked its recognition as bargaining representative.

Saturday morning, the city council met in emergency session and, after learning that the one striking employee who had been assigned to work that day had failed to report for duty, immediately dismissed all 18 striking employees, rescinding the employee relations officer's previous notice and demand. On Sunday, the union notified the city that all employees would return to work on Monday, but the city refused to accept them.

The following day petitioners filed the instant action seeking (1) a writ of mandate ordering the city to meet and confer with the union and (2) an injunction compelling the city to reinstate the employees. After the union and employees exhausted the available administrative remedies, the trial court ruled in favor of the city, concluding that the city was authorized by its resolutions to revoke the union's recognized status and to dismiss the employees summarily without any predismissal procedures. By the time of the trial court's ruling, 17 of the 18 employees had been reinstated.

II

The MMBA neither authorizes nor prohibits in express terms revocation of recognition for any particular cause, let alone as a sanction for strikes by public employees. ³ However, as the following analysis of the MMBA suggests, the sanction of revocation is clearly inconsistent with its provisions guaranteeing public employees the right to be represented by organizations of their own choosing and with the stated purposes of the MMBA: to encourage communication and improve relations between local governments and their employees.

Enacted in 1968, the MMBA furnishes only a "sketchy and frequently vague framework of employer-employee relations for California's local government agencies." (Organization of Deputy Sheriffs v. County of San Mateo (1975) 48 Cal.App.3d 331, 336, 122 Cal.Rptr. 210.) A product of political compromise, the provisions of the act are confusing, and, at times, contradictory. Unlike the Educational Employment Relations Act, enacted in 1975, the MMBA does not establish an administrative agency such as the Public Employee Relations Board to regulate local labor relations. Rather, the act leaves to local government agencies the power to establish and enforce rules governing relations with their own employees. (See generally Grodin, Public Employee Bargaining in California: The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act in the Courts (1972) 23 Hastings L.J. 719; Comment, The Collective Bargaining Process at the Municipal Level Lingers in its Chrysalis Stage (1974) 14 Santa Clara Law. 397; Ross, Implementation of the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act by California's Counties and Larger Cities, supra, 8 Cal.Pub.Emp.Rel. No. 6.)

The extent of local government powers under the act was a subject of early dispute, spurred by language in the preamble which, if read literally, might have suggested that the statute was not intended to be binding on local governments that chose to adopt rules and regulations contrary to its provisions. ⁴ (See Grodin, supra, at pp. 723-725.) However, as Professor (now Justice) Grodin explained, "Such an interpretation is inconsistent with the general objectives of the statute as declared [elsewhere] in the preamble and with the mandatory language which appears in many of the sections." (Id., at p. 724, fn. omitted.) Accordingly, it is now well settled that the Legislature intended that the MMBA "set forth reasonable, proper and necessary principles which public agencies must follow in their rules and regulations for administering their employer-employee relations ...." and that "if the rules and regulations of a public agency do not meet the standard established by the Legislature, the deficiencies of those rules and regulations as to rights, duties and obligations of the employer, the employee, and the employee organization, are supplied by the appropriate provisions of the act." (Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014 v. City of Monrovia (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 289, 295, 101 Cal.Rptr. 78, quoted in Huntington Beach Police Officers' Assn. v. City of Huntington Beach (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 492, 502, 129 Cal.Rptr. 893, see also Los Angeles County Civil Service Com. v. Superior Court (1978) 23 Cal.3d 55, 63, 151 Cal.Rptr. 547, 588 P.2d 249; Public Employees of Riverside County, Inc. v. County of Riverside (1977) 75 Cal.App.3d 882, 890, 142 Cal.Rptr. 521.) ⁵

Notwithstanding its otherwise "sketchy" provisions, the act contains strong protection for the rights of public employees to join and participate in the activities of employee organizations, and for the rights of those organizations to...