Providence Teachers Union, Local 958, Am. Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO v. School Committee of City of Providence

• Decision Date: 23 April 1971
• Docket Number: No. 1185-A,AFL-CIO,1185-A
• Citation: 276 A.2d 762,108 R.I. 444
• Parties: , 77 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2530, 65 Lab.Cas. P 52,540 PROVIDENCE TEACHERS UNION, LOCAL 958, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS,v. SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 762

276 A.2d 762

108 R.I. 444, 77 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2530, 65 Lab.Cas. P 52,540

PROVIDENCE TEACHERS UNION, LOCAL 958, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL-CIO v. SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF the CITY OF PROVIDENCE et al.

No. 1185-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 23, 1971.

Reargument Denied May 20, 1971.

Henry J. Almagno, Providence, Grady & Kaplan, James T. Grady, Boston, for plaintiff

Vincent J. Piccirilli (for School Committee of the City of Providence), Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

This is an appeal by the School Committee of the City of Providence from an order of the Superior Court confirming an award made by an arbitration board.

Local 958 represents all certified teaching personnel employed in the Providence public schools. On May 13, 1968 the union and the school committee then in office entered into a collective bargaining agreement covering the year ¹ beginning September 1, 1968, and ending August 31, 1969. Article 3 of this agreement deals with sick leave and various leaves of absence. This article states that during the ensuing year the more experienced teachers (those with more than three years service) are to be entitled to 20 full days of of paid sick leave. A less experienced teacher is afforded an annual paid sick leave of 10 full days. This article also contains a schedule of paid half-days of sick leave. Section 3-3 provides that a teacher can accrue a maximum of 90 full and 200 one-half days of paid sick leave. Section 3-22 reads as follows:

'All teachers at the time of retirement after thirty-five (35) years of service in the Providence Public School Department shall be entitled to a maximum severance pay equal to ninety (90) full days and two hundred (200) half days provided no absences have occurred during the last thirty-five (35) years of service. All absences charged against the teacher's sick leave reserve during the last thirty-five (35) years of service shall be deducted from the maximum severance allotment in the determination of individual severance allowances.'

On June 20, 1968, P.L.1968, chap. 203 became effective. This Act allowed the city's qualified electors to choose a method of selecting a new school committee. They could have selected either an elected school committee having the power to raise its own funds by the imposition of a tax or a committee appointed by the mayor with the appointments being subject to confirmation by the city council. The appointed committee would have no fiscal autonomy. It would receive an annual appropriation provided by the council.

The committee that negotiated the contract with Local 958 was an elected committee. It received an annual appropriation from the city council. A special election was held on August 20, 1968. The voters expressed a distinct preference for an appointed school committee. Sometime thereafter the mayor appointed a new school committee and the council approved his appointments. When the new appointees took office, the terms of the old school committee expired. On October 10, 1968, the new committee adopted a resolution wherein it repudiated the severance pay provisions of the union's contract because of an unavailability of funds. ²

The union challenged the committee's disavowal by invoking the appropriate provisions of article 7 of the agreement which sets forth a very detailed procedure for the adjustment and determination of grievances. This article defines a grievance as 'a violation, inequitable application, misrepresentation, or misinterpretation' of the collective bargaining agreement. All unresolved grievances were to be submitted to a three-member board of arbitrators. The arbitrators' decision, absent fraud, is binding on the parties. The arbitrators were appointed. An extensive hearing was conducted and a majority of the board ordered the payment of the retirement benefits. This is the action that is now being challenged by the school committee. ³

Here, as in the Superior Court, the committee argues that its predecessor had no specific legislative authority to enter into a collective bargaining agreement containing a provision for binding arbitration. In making this contention, the committee points to the presence in the Fire Fighters' and the Policemen's Arbitration Acts and the corresponding absence in the School Teachers' Arbitration Act of a specific language which says that 'a method of arbitration of disputes is hereby established.' This difference in the three acts in our opinion is attributable solely to a difference in legislative draftsmen and nothing else.

It must be kept in mind that when each of these three acts first appeared on the statute books, all three were speaking of the arbitration of unresolved issues which, when determined, would become part and parcel of the proposed contract. In their original form all three acts said that the decision of the arbitrators would be binding on all matters except those involving the expenditure of money. It was not until 1968, when the General Assembly decided that all unresolved contract negotiations, including money matters, between a municipality and a bargaining agent representing the municipality's policemen or fire fighters would be subject to binding arbitration.

The committee claims that since the Legislature has not afforded the teachers with the advantages of 'binding' arbitration, it is not obligated by the decision rendered by the arbitrarors in the case before us. It is perfectly clear that the only issues any of the three acts expressly authorize to be submitted to arbitration are those unresolved at the bargaining table. Depending on the arbitrators' decision, they may or may not be embodied in the signed contract. None of the three arbitration acts specifically speak about the determination of controversies which may arise once the collective bargaining agreement has been executed. The school committee fails to distinguish between arbitration as a means of deciding the substantive terms of a new contract, which resolves a bargaining impasse, and arbitration as a method of settling disputes over the interpretation of an existing contract.

When it enacted the School Teachers' Arbitration Act, the Legislature declared in plain and unequivocal language that it is the public policy of this state for certified public school teachers to organize, to be represented by an association or labor organization and to bargain collectively concerning hours, working conditions and 'other terms of professional employment.' The Act goes on specifically to proclaim that nothing contained therein 'shall be construed to accord to certified public school teachers the right to strike.' It is obvious that the Legislature intended that the certified personnel of the state's public schools would be accorded many of the well-recognized rights enjoyed by those employed in the private sector of our economy. If this court is to effectuate this legislative purpose, we cannot look at the School Teachers' Arbitration Act in a vacuum. We shall do what the court did in Rockland Professional Fire Fighters Ass'n v. City of Rockland, Me., 261 A.2d 418, and look at other labor legislation that is in pari materia with the Act before us. Statutes which are not inconsistent with one another and which relate to the same subject matter are in pari materia and should be considered together so that they will harmonize with each other and be consistent with their general object and scope, even though they contain no reference to one another and were passed at different times. Smith v. Higinbothom, 187 Md. 115, 48 A.2d 754.

Applying the in pari materia rule we need look no further than chap. 9, title 28 which sets up a legislative framework for the arbitration of labor controversies. Section 28-9-1 provides that a written provision in a written contract between an employer and a union or association of employees to settle any controversy shall be valid, irrevocable and enforceable except upon such grounds as exist in law or in equity for the revocation of such contract. It is quite apparent that the Legislature when it enacted the School Teachers' Arbitration Act intended that a group such as Local 958 would have the same rights as any other labor organization except those as might be specifically withheld. We therefore hold that the provisions of chap. 9, title 28 give the union the right to provide in its contract with the school committee for the arbitration of grievances arising out of the May 1968 contract and that the school committee was bound to submit the 'severance' pay dispute to arbitration as provided in article 7 of the contract.

Since title 28-9 authorizes the arbitration of the controversy involving section 3-22, it also...