Maquoketa Valley Community School Dist. v. Maquoketa Valley Ed. Ass'n

• Decision Date: 21 March 1979
• Docket Number: No. 61337,61337
• Citation: 279 N.W.2d 510
• Parties: 102 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2056 MAQUOKETA VALLEY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. MAQUOKETA VALLEY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 510

279 N.W.2d 510

102 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2056

MAQUOKETA VALLEY COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. MAQUOKETA VALLEY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellee.

No. 61337.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 21, 1979.

Rehearing Denied April 19, 1979.

Joseph E. Day and Mark H. Rettig of Hines, Pence, Day & Powers, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Charles E. Gribble of Dreher, Wilson, Adams & Jensen, Des Moines, for appellee.

Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., Marie Condon, and Hugh J. Perry, Asst. Attys. Gen., Des Moines, for amicus curiae Public Employment Relations Bd.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and LeGRAND, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN and LARSON, JJ.

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

Maquoketa Valley Community School District appeals from a district court judgment validating a collective bargaining arbitration decision rendered pursuant to section 20.22, The Code 1975. We reverse and remand.

Plaintiff District is a public employer within the meaning of the Public Employment Relations Act. Defendant Maquoketa Valley Education Association is the employee organization representing the District's teachers, guidance counselors and librarians.

In September, 1975, the District and Association began negotiations to reach their first collective bargaining agreement. By the end of 1975 the parties had reached agreement on all subjects except salary and supplemental pay. Mediation was unsuccessful. January 31, 1976, the parties went to fact-finding. The Association accepted but the District rejected the fact-finder's findings and recommendations. February 24, the District filed a request with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for binding arbitration.

In compliance with section 20.22 each party filed with PERB its final offer on the impasse items, a copy of the draft of the agreement to the extent agreement was reached, and the name of its arbitrator. The selected arbitrators, Edward Beatty for the District and Patrick Connolly for the Association, appointed Martin E. Conway of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as the third arbitrator and panel chairman.

The panel's first meeting was held March 18. Each party presented evidence and arguments supporting its final offer. During this hearing the parties agreed on supplemental pay and withdrew that subject from the panel's consideration.

Sometime in April but indisputably more than fifteen days after the panel's first meeting, Conway sent the other arbitrators and PERB an "Award of Neutral Chairman." Association arbitrator Connolly by subsequent letter "voted in favor" of Conway's award.

By this action the District sought a declaratory judgment that the arbitration award was invalid because it incorrectly defined "impasse item" and because the decision was rendered more than fifteen days after the panel's first meeting. The District further alleged the panel took no vote and failed to provide the parties with written notice and explanation of its decision.

The Association, by answer and counterclaim, denied the District's contentions and sought enforcement of the agreement as finalized by the arbitration decision.

Each party filed a summary judgment motion supported by affidavits. Trial court sustained the Association's motion, overruled the District's and entered judgment for the Association. Although minor factual disputes are reflected in the pleadings, motions and affidavits, neither party objects to the above procedure. We find no genuine issue of material fact in the dispositive issue. But see Young Plumbing & Heating Co. v. Iowa Natural Resources Council, 276 N.W.2d 377, 381 (Iowa 1979).

I. Appeal from agency action. As a preliminary matter, the District did not

select the proper vehicle for challenging this arbitration decision. We are satisfied arbitration of a collective bargaining impasse is agency action, reviewable only pursuant to section 17A.19, The Code.

PERB is clearly an administrative agency subject to chapter 17A. See § 17A.2(1); Frazee v. Iowa Board of Parole, 248 N.W.2d 80, 82 (Iowa 1976). The several PERA cases which have reached this court have followed the judicial review procedures of section 17A.19. See, e. g., City of Davenport v. PERB, 264 N.W.2d 307 (Iowa 1978).

The legislature has delegated to PERB some of its authority to control conditions of public employment. Determination of employment conditions in the public sector by collective bargaining is a privilege conferred by statute, and is conditioned upon the use of binding arbitration rather than strikes to resolve negotiation deadlocks. Supervision of bargaining and of impasse resolution is delegated to PERB. The legislature has determined, however, that absent agreement of the parties, an impasse shall be resolved by a panel of arbitrators.

"Agency action" means, among other things, all or part of an agency decision or its equivalent. § 17A.2(9). If the arbitration panel was composed of PERB members, officials, or employees, its decision would be agency action. There is no logical reason why the same decision by a panel of arbitrators should be viewed differently.

This conclusion is consistent with the premise underlying constitutional challenges to public employee collective bargaining statutes in other jurisdictions. See Annot., 68 A.L.R.3d 885, at §§ 3, 4 (1976). An examination of the cases there discussed indicates Iowa's PERA delegates legislative authority, through PERB, to arbitrators. We need not consider the constitutionality of this delegation since the parties did not raise it.

In Salsbury Laboratories v. DEQ, 276 N.W.2d 830 (Iowa 1979), we held section 17A.19 provides the exclusive means of obtaining judicial review of agency action. As in that case, we will view the District's timely filed petition as seeking judicial review of final agency action. See § 20.22(13).

There is also a question of mootness in this case. The employment period expired June 30, 1977. We are being asked to declare a collective bargaining arbitration decision invalid due to defects in the arbitration process which under our recent holding in City of Des Moines v. PERB, 275 N.W.2d 753 (Iowa 1979), did not occur until after the mandatory end point of negotiations under chapter 20 and remand for reinstitution of the arbitration process to settle this wage dispute. Of course, the parties can always terminate the matter by settlement.

The late start for arbitration does not moot this case. City of Des Moines was expressly based on a Union's request for arbitration, in which request the employer did not join. Here the District requested arbitration when it was impossible to complete it timely. Both parties took affirmative statutory steps to implement the process. The Association never objected, despite the fact that at the time PERB was holding March 15 to be a bargaining and arbitration deadline. See City of Des Moines, 275 N.W.2d at 760. We took pains in City of Des Moines not to hold the March 15 deadline jurisdictional. Without an objection from one of the parties City of Des Moines simply does not apply; we need not search for a helpful exception. In this case the only objection raised was District's repeated warning that the arbitration must be completed in fifteen days.

Arbitrating a salary schedule for an employment period which has expired may be anomalous, but enforcement of the rights of public employers and employees provided by chapter 20 makes it necessary. Inevitable trial and appellate time sequences will always force courts to consider legal issues produced by negotiations for a contract period already in full swing if not terminated when a final decision is reached. If this case is moot, most appeals from decisions rendered by PERB or arbitration panels will be. This would be an intolerable result.

There is no difference between this situation and our frequent adjudications involving back pay. See, e. g., Kitchen v. Stockman National Life Insurance Co., 192 N.W.2d 796 (Iowa 1971). Of course, a disputed provision in an employment contract cannot always be reduced to a question of dollars and cents. But where it can be, an after-the-fact settlement or arbitration can restore to the prevailing party, via the next budget, whatever benefits were improperly withheld or mandated. In this case the dispute is purely monetary.

II. Definition of "impasse item." On the merits a reversal is mandated by West Des Moines Education Association v. PERB, 266 N.W.2d 118 (Iowa 1978), filed after these parties' briefs were filed.

Section 20.22(11) requires the arbitration panel to select either of the final offers or the fact-finder's recommendations "on each impasse item." In West Des Moines we held "impasse item" means any section 20.9 subject of bargaining on which the parties cannot agree.

In this case, settlement of the supplemental pay item during arbitration left only the impasse item of wages (termed salary schedule by the parties) for the panel's consideration. Within that item there were several points of disagreement. The parties were seventy-five dollars apart on base rate, and they disagreed on the number of time steps in each educational lane. Their maximum salary proposals in each lane differed accordingly. The fact-finder combined the District's base rate with the Association's steps. The District also proposed a lane for non-degree employees and conditioned entry into the master's degree lane upon receiving that degree in the employee's assigned teaching category. Neither the Association's final offer nor the fact-finder's report contained a response to either proposal.

The panel selected the Association's final offer on every aspect of the salary schedule but also installed the non-degree lane proposed by the District. That result is in conflict with West Des Moines and cannot stand. The panel should have selected either of the final offers on salary or the fact-finder's report, In toto.

Upon oral submission the Association urged us to overrule West Des Moines and hold "impasse...