San Diego Teachers Assn. v. Superior Court

• Citation: 154 Cal.Rptr. 893,24 Cal.3d 1
• Parties: , 593 P.2d 838, 101 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2461 SAN DIEGO TEACHERS ASSOCIATION et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Respondent. L.A. 30977.
• Decision Date: 10 April 1979
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)

Page 893

154 Cal.Rptr. 893

24 Cal.3d 1, 593 P.2d 838, 101 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2461

SAN DIEGO TEACHERS ASSOCIATION et al., Petitioners, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Respondent.

L.A. 30977.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

April 10, 1979.

Rehearing Denied May 10, 1979.

Howard J. Bechefsky, Christopher J. Schatz, Sheela, Lightner & Castro, San Diego, Peter T. Galiano, Burlingame, and Raymond L. Hansen, Los Angeles, for petitioners.

Geffner & Satzman, Jeff Paule and Leo Geffner, Los Angeles, as amici curiae, on behalf of petitioners.

Donald L. Clark, County Counsel, Betty Evans Boone, Chief Deputy County Counsel, and Robert C. Campbell, Deputy County Counsel, San Diego, for respondent.

Paul M. Loya, Paterson & Taggart, San Jose, Silvia M. Diaz, Carmichael, Kristin A. Jensen, Berkeley, W. Graig Biddle, Robert G. Walters, John L. Bukey, Biddle, Walters & Bukey, Sacramento, O'Melveny & Myers, Richard N. Fisher, Gordon E. Krischer, Los Angeles, and Kenneth S. Stewart, Carmichael, as amici curiae, on behalf of respondent.

NEWMAN, Justice.

In this writ of review proceeding San Diego Teachers Association (SDTA) and Hugh Boyle seek annulment of contempt orders that punish them for conducting a strike against the San Diego Unified School District in violation of a restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Boyle was SDTA's president during events that led to the contempt orders. The strikers' demands arose out of negotiations being conducted on behalf of the district's teachers. SDTA was the exclusive representative under the Education Employment Relations Act (EERA), Government Code sections 3540-3549.3. ¹ When the injunction was issued both SDTA and the district had filed unfair practice charges against each other (§ 3541.5) with the then Educational Employment Relations Board (since Jan. 1, 1978, called the Public Employment Relations Board, herein referred to as PERB). No PERB hearing or other action had ensued.

The main issue is whether the restraining order and injunction are invalid because the district failed to exhaust its EERA remedies. SDTA's unfair practice charge was filed with PERB on May 19, 1977, and alleged that district had refused to discuss certain matters affecting employment and thus had violated section 3543.5, subdivision (c), by "fail(ing) to meet and negotiate in good faith." The district alleged in its charge, filed May 27, that SDTA's own failure to meet and negotiate in good faith (§ 3543.6, subd. (c)) was evidenced by its sponsoring work slowdowns and threatening a strike if no contract were negotiated by June 6. The district also alleged that there had been eight 7-hour negotiating sessions since May 11 and that neither party invoked the impasse procedures of sections 3548-3548.4.

On June 2 the district filed with respondent court a complaint asking that SDTA and its officers be enjoined from conducting a strike. The complaint alleged not only that the strike would be illegal and cause the district and pupils irreparable injury but also that under the EERA the parties had duties to meet and negotiate and had not declared an impasse.

A strike began on June 6; and that day, at the district's request, respondent court issued a restraining order. The application for a preliminary injunction was heard on June 7; the injunction issued on June 8. On June 9 SDTA announced termination of the strike after receiving assurances that the district would negotiate certain issues and not take reprisals against striking teachers.

On June 14 Judge Levitt, who had signed the preliminary injunction, filed a declaration alleging violation of the restraining order and injunction by SDTA and Boyle, and they were ordered to show cause why they should not be held in contempt. Judge Levitt acted on his own motion; the district did not participate in the contempt proceeding and is not now before us.

After trial SDTA was found guilty of three violations of paragraph 5 of the restraining order and six violations of paragraphs 1 and 2 of the injunction and was fined $500 for each violation. Boyle was convicted of three violations of paragraph 5 of the restraining order and five violations of paragraph 2 of the injunction, was fined $4,000, and was sentenced to forty days in jail of which thirty were suspended.

Paragraph 5 of the restraining order enjoined "doing any act either direct or indirect in furtherance of (the) strike. Ordering, coercing, requesting, or otherwise inducing or attempting to induce an employee of (the district) to refrain from performing his employment duties for the (district) as part of a work stoppage, walk out, strike against (the district)." The contempt order specifies violations by SDTA and Boyle as follows: (1) Boyle's announcement on June 6 that the SDTA board had voted to continue the strike notwithstanding the restraining order, (2) a press release of June 7 declaring that "the strike is not illegal," and (3) Boyle's announcement to a mass rally on June 7 that the strike would continue on June 8.

Paragraph 1 of the injunction forbade "(e)ngaging in a work stoppage or strike against the (district), its officers, agents, employees, and the children who attend school within the (district)." SDTA was convicted of having engaged in the strike on June 8 and 9.

Paragraph 2 of the injunction was essentially the same as paragraph 5 of the restraining order. ² SDTA and Boyle were found guilty of (1) adopting on June 8 a board resolution (a) to continue the strike until the district promised no reprisals and "a return to good-faith bargaining," and (b) to urge parents to keep children away from school; (2) Boyle's speech later that day to a mass rally (a) reporting the resolution and the preliminary injunction, (b) arguing that judges do not make laws and the Legislature has made no law against public employee strikes, and (c) calling for continuation of the strike with Ben Franklin's exhortation to hang together or "surely we will hang separately"; (3) announcing to the media on June 9 that a condition to ending the strike would be a "no reprisals" guarantee; and (4) demanding such a guarantee at the district's board meeting on June 9. A violation by Boyle alone was based on a TV interview he gave on June 8 in which he stated that the strike would be honored by the district's bus drivers, encouraged parents to keep children home on June 9, and responded affirmatively to the question whether he would defy the preliminary injunction.

Petitioners' application to the Court of Appeal for a writ to review the contempt order was summarily denied. We granted hearing and ordered issuance of the writ.

Petitioners do not deny the acts the trial court held contemptuous but attack the validity of the restraining order and preliminary injunction. A contempt conviction may be annulled when issuance of the order was beyond the court's authority. (In re Berry (1968) 68 Cal.2d 137, 146-149, 65 Cal.Rptr. 273, 436 P.2d 273.)

The trial court's opinion holding petitioners in contempt based the validity of the order and injunction on the proposition that public employees have no right to strike. (See Pasadena Unified Sch. Dist. v. Pasadena Federation of Teachers (1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 100, 105-107, 140 Cal.Rptr. 41; Los Angeles Unified School Dist. v. United Teachers (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 142, 145, 146, 100 Cal.Rptr. 806; Trustees of Cal. State Colleges v. Local 1352, S.F. State etc. Teachers (1970) 13 Cal.App.3d 863, 867, 92 Cal.Rptr. 134; City of San Diego v. American Federation of State etc. Employees (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 308, 87 Cal.Rptr. 258; Almond v. County of Sacramento (1969) 276 Cal.App.2d 32, 80 Cal.Rptr. 518.) The trial court also relied on section 3549, which states that the EERA "shall not be construed as making the provisions of Section 923 of the Labor Code applicable to public school employees." Labor Code section 923's declaration that workers are to be free from employer interference in "concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection" is generally understood to confer a right to strike. (Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen (1960) 54 Cal.2d 684, 687-688, 8 Cal.Rptr. 1, 355 P.2d 905.)

Petitioners contend that the EERA, though excluding Labor Code section 923' § protection of the right to strike, does not itself prohibit strikes. The exclusion may be explained, it is argued, by a concern that the wholesale introduction of rules protecting collective bargaining in the private sector into the public sector might conflict with tenure and other aspects of public employment that fall outside the negotiating process mandated by the EERA. (§§ 3540, 3540.1, subd. (h).) Petitioners further contend that strikes by public employees have been outlawed in the past because there were no provisions for public employment collective bargaining (see Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, supra, 54 Cal.2d 684, 691, 8 Cal.Rptr. 1, 355 P.2d 905; City of San Diego v. American Federation of State etc. Employees, supra, 8 Cal.App.3d 308, 312, 87 Cal.Rptr. 258). They argue that the EERA's guarantee of the right to participate in organizational activities for "representation on all matters of employer-employee relations" (§ 3543) and for the negotiation of written contracts between public school employers and employee organizations (§ 3540.1, subd. (h)), implies legality of strikes to make the negotiation effective and meaningful.

Responding to Court of Appeal holdings that public employee strikes are illegal, petitioners assert that this court has treated legality as an open question. In Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit, supra, this court declared that "(i)n the absence of legislative authorization public employees in general do not have the right to strike" (54 Cal.2d at p. 687, 8 Cal.Rptr. at 2, 355 P.2d at 906) and went on to hold that a statute...