Local Union 1287 v. Kansas City Area Transp. Authority

• Decision Date: 23 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 74734,74734
• Citation: 848 S.W.2d 462
• Parties: LOCAL UNION 1287, et al., Respondents, v. KANSAS CITY AREA TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 462

848 S.W.2d 462

LOCAL UNION 1287, et al., Respondents, v. KANSAS CITY AREA TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, Appellant.

No. 74734.

Supreme Court of Missouri,

En Banc.

Feb. 23, 1993.

James R. Willard, Mark A. Thornhill, Elaine D. Koch, Kansas City, for appellant.

Janae L. Schaeffer, Linda K. Knight, John J. Hager, Kansas City, Douglas Taylor, Martin P. Hogan, Washington, DC (Earle W. Putnam, Leo Welzel, Washington, DC, of counsel), for respondents.

COVINGTON, Judge.

Local 1287, Amalgamated Transit Union, and Javier M. Perez, Jr. ("The Union"), sought an order to compel the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority ("KCATA") to engage in interest arbitration to set the wages, terms and conditions of employment to replace an earlier agreement. KCATA opposed the order alleging that to compel KCATA to engage in interest arbitration would violate art. II, § 1, of the Missouri Constitution, that the agreements upon which the Union relied to compel arbitration were no longer in effect, and that the Union had failed to exhaust all reasonable efforts to reach a consensual agreement as required by the documents relied on by the Union. The circuit court denied the Union's request that KCATA be ordered to proceed to arbitration. In its judgment, however, the court stated that KCATA was authorized to delegate its legislative authority to an outside arbitrator to determine wages and other working conditions of its employees and that the delegation does not violate Mo. Const. art. II, § 1. The court also found that the interest arbitration provision of the collective bargaining agreement between the parties survived the termination of the agreement and the termination letter sent by KCATA. KCATA appealed. Affirmed in part; reversed in part and vacated.

KCATA is an independent political subdivision of both Missouri and Kansas. It provides transportation to the general metropolitan region that includes the cities of Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas. KCATA was created by a congressionally approved contract between Missouri and Kansas, and both states enacted identical enabling statutes in 1965. Section 238.010, RSMo 1986; Kan.Stat.Ann. § 12-2524 (1991). The Union is a labor organization that represents the non-supervisory and maintenance employees of KCATA. Javier Perez is an employee of KCATA and, at all pertinent times, was on leave of absence in order to perform duties as an officer of the Union.

The most recent agreement between the parties, setting the terms and conditions of employment for a period of three years, commenced November 15, 1986. On August 1, 1989, KCATA provided written notice of its intent to terminate the agreement pursuant to art. I, § 1.7 of the agreement. Beginning in September of 1989 the Union and KCATA commenced to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.

As of November 13, 1989, the parties had failed to agree upon wages and other terms and conditions of employment for KCATA employees. By letter of November 13, 1989, the Union sought to submit the issues remaining in dispute to final and binding interest arbitration pursuant to certain terms of the agreement. The Union later filed a "Complaint" seeking to have KCATA compelled to submit the unresolved issues between them to interest arbitration.

KCATA refused to submit the unresolved issues to an outside arbitrator because the Missouri Constitution does not permit KCATA to delegate its legislative authority to fix wages and benefits for its employees to an outside arbitrator; because there was no agreement in effect at any relevant time that required KCATA to submit the unresolved issues to arbitration; and because, even if there were a constitutional agreement in effect requiring interest arbitration, the Union had failed to meet the condition precedent to arbitration by exhausting all reasonable efforts to reach agreement.

The circuit court denied the Union's request for an order to compel KCATA to arbitrate because the circuit court determined after a two-day trial that the requirement that the parties must first exhaust all reasonable efforts to agree had not been met. Appellant did not appeal this ruling. The court also found in...