Norwalk Teachers' Ass'n v. Board of Ed. of City of Norwalk

• Decision Date: 31 July 1951
• Citation: 83 A.2d 482,138 Conn. 269
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: , 31 A.L.R.2d 1133 NORWALK TEACHERS' ASS'N v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF NORWALK. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 482

83 A.2d 482

138 Conn. 269, 31 A.L.R.2d 1133

NORWALK TEACHERS' ASS'N v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF CITY OF NORWALK.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 31, 1951.

Sidney Vogel, So. Norwalk, for the plaintiff.

Robert B. Devine, Norwalk, for the defendant.

Before BROWN, C. J., and JENNINGS, BALDWIN, INGLIS and O'SULLIVAN, JJ.

JENNINGS, Justice.

This is a suit between the Norwalk Teachers' Association as plaintiff and the Norwalk board of education as defendant for a declaratory judgment, reserved on the admitted allegations of the complaint for the advice of this court.

The complaint may be summarized as follows: The plaintiff is a voluntary association and an independent labor union to which all but two of the teaching personnel of approximately 300 in the Norwalk school system belong. In April, 1946, there was a dispute between the parties over salary rates. The board of estimate and taxation was also involved. After long negotiations, 230 members of the association rejected the individual contracts of employment tendered them and refused to return to their teaching duties. After further negotiations, in which the governor and the state board of education took part, a contract was entered into between the plaintiff and the defendant, and the teachers returned to their duties. The contracts, subject to conditions precedent therein set forth, recognized the plaintiff as the bargaining agent for all of its members, defined working conditions and set up a grievance procedure and salary schedule. Similar contracts were entered into for the succeeding school years, including 1950-1951. From September, 1946, to the present and particularly with reference to the contract for 1950-1951, much doubt and uncertainty have arisen concerning the rights and duties of the respective parties, the interpretation of the contract and the construction of the state statutes relating to schools, education and boards of education. 'In addition,' the complaint states, 'there has been the possibility of strikes, work stoppage or collective refusals to return to work by the teachers through their organization and the possibility of discharges or suspensions by the defendant by reason of difficult personnel relations, all of which tends to disharmony in the operation of the school system and to the ever present possibility that either, or both, the parties may be unwittingly violating statutes by reason of mistaken or erroneous interpretation thereon.' The parties agreed that the contract for the school year 1949-1950 would govern their relations for the school year 1950-1951, that they would join in this action, and 'that whatever contractual obligations exist will be forthwith modified so soon as they shall have received from the Court judgments and orders declaring their respective rights, privileges, duties and immunities.' The specific points of dispute are stated in the questions reserved, printed in the footnote. ¹

This court is not required to advise on abstract principles of law. See United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 89, 67 S.Ct. 556, 91 L.Ed. 754. In the case at bar, the admitted facts show that Norwalk has suffered from one disrupting teachers' strike. While the complaint is couched in diplomatic language, it is obvious that the city is likely to be faced with another in the fall. Section 249 of the Practice Book authorizes the Superior Court to render declaratory judgment 'as to the existence or nonexistence * * * of any right, power, privilege or immunity'. It is obvious that a determination of the right of the teachers to strike comes within this definition. None of the limitations expressed in § 250 of the Practice Book prevent consideration of the issue. The other questions discussed are governed by the same principle. Question (e) will be considered first.

Under our system, the government is established by and run for all of the people, not for the benefit of any person or group. The profit motive, inherent in the principle of free enterprise, is absent. It should be the aim of every employee of the government to do his or her part to make it function as efficiently and economically as possible. The drastic remedy of the organized strike to enforce the demands of unions of government employees is in direct contravention of this principle. It has been so regarded by the heads of the executive departments of the states and the nation. Most of the text writers refer to one or more of the following statements by three of our recent presidents. They are quoted, for example, in 1 Labor Law Journal 612 (May, 1950): 'There is no right to strike against public safety by anybody anywhere at any time' (Calvin Coolidge on the Boston police strike). This same strike was characterized by President Wilson as 'an intolerable crime against civilization.' President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a letter to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees on August 16, 1937: 'Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. * * * [A] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.' As the author of the article cited says, 'The above statement by President Roosevelt, who certainly was no enemy of labor unions, epitomizes the answer to the problem. It seems to be axiomatic.'

The commentators, generally, subscribe to this proposition. National Institute of Municipal Law Officers Reports No. 76, 116, 129; 1 Teller, Labor Disputes & Collective Bargaining (1947 Sup.) § 171; 18 N.Y.U.L.Q.Rev. 247; 94 U. of Pa.L.Rev. 427. Notwithstanding this fact, Ziskind was able to publish a well-documented book entitled 'One Thousand Strikes of Government Employees,' which contains an elaborate bibliography. See also Spero, Government as Employer. This would indicate that the law on the subject is still in the process of development.

Few cases involving the right of unions of government employees to strike to enforce their demands have reached courts of last resort. That right has usually been tested by an application for an injunction forbidding the strike. The right of the governmental body to this relief has been uniformly upheld. It has been put on various grounds: public policy; interference with governmental function; illegal discrimination against the right of any citizen to apply for government employment (where the union sought a closed ship). The following cases do not necessarily turn on the specific right to strike, but the reasoning indicates that, if faced with that question, the court would be compelled to deny that right to public employees. For example, Perez v. Board of Police Commissioners, 78 Cal.App.2d 638, 178 P.2d 537, held that the board could, by rule, prevent police officers from joining a labor union. If it could to this, it would certainly be upheld in an attempt to enjoin a strike called by the union. City of Cleveland v. Division 268 of Amalgamated Ass'n, Ohio Com. Pl., 90 N.E.2d 711; Los Angeles v. Los Angeles Building & Construction Trades Council, 94 Cal.App.2d 36, 46, 210 P.2d 305; Mugford v. Baltimore, 185 Md. 266, 271, 44 A.2d 745, 162 A.L.R. 1101; Miami Water Works Local No. 654 v. Miami, 157 Fla. 445, 451, 26 So.2d 194, 165 A.L.R. 967; Railway Mail Ass'n v. Murphy, 180 Misc. 868, 875, 44 N.Y.S.2d 601; Congress of Industrial Organizations v. Dallas, Tex.Civ.App., 198 S.W.2d 143, 144; Seattle High School Chapter No. 200 v. Sharples, 159 Wash. 424, 429, 293 P. 994, 72 A.L.R. 1215; People ex rel. Fursman v. Chicago, 278 Ill. 318, 325, 116 N.E. 158, L.R.A.1917E, 1069; see United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 290, 67 S.Ct. 677, 91 L.Ed. 884. Other cases not published in the official reports are discussed in National Institute of Municipal Law Officers Report No. 129 (1949) pp. 20-28. The court puts the matter succinctly in the Miami case, supra [157 Fla. 445, 26 So.2d 197]: 'While strikes are recognized by the statute to be lawful under some circumstances, it would seem that a strike against the city would amount, in effect, to a strike against government itself--a situation difficult to reconcile with all notions of government.'

The plaintiff, recognizing the unreasonableness of its claims in the case of such employees as the militia and the judiciary, seeks to place teachers in a class with employees employed by the municipality in its proprietary capacity. No authority is cited in support of this proposition. 'A town board of education is an agency of the state in charge of education in the town * * *.' Board of Education of Stamford v. Board of Finance, 127 Conn. 345, 349, 16 A.2d 601, 603. In fulfilling its duties as such an agency, it is acting in a governmental, not a proprietary, capacity. Seymour v. Over-River School-District, 53 Conn. 502, 3 A. 552, cited by the plaintiff, does not hold to the contrary. It went no further than to hold that a teacher was not a 'public officer' within the meaning of a statute authorizing the garnishment of wages.

In the American system, sovereignty is inherent in the people. They can delegate it to a government which they create and operate by law. They can give to that government the power and authority to perform certain duties and furnish certain services. The government so created and empowered must employ people to carry on its task. Those people are agents of the government. They exercise some part of the sovereignty entrusted to it. They occupy a status entirely different from those who carry on a private enterprise. They serve the public welfare and not a private purpose. To say that they can strike is the equivalent of saying that they can deny the authority of...