Santa Clara Valley Transp. Authority v. Rea

• Decision Date: 28 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. H028841.,H028841.
• Citation: 140 Cal.App.4th 1303,45 Cal.Rptr.3d 511
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: SANTA CLARA VALLEY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John M. REA, as Director, etc. et al., Defendants and Appellants; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 101, AFL-CIO, Real Party in Interest and Appellant.

45 Cal.Rptr.3d 511

140 Cal.App.4th 1303

SANTA CLARA VALLEY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John M. REA, as Director, etc. et al., Defendants and Appellants;

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 101, AFL-CIO, Real Party in Interest and Appellant.

No. H028841.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

June 28, 2006.

Beeson Tayer & Bodine, Sheila K. Sexton, Teague P. Paterson, Oakland, for Petitioner/Appellant.

Department of Industrial Relations Office of the Director-Legal Unit, Vanessa L. Holton, A. Roger Jeanson, for Cross-Respondent/Appellant John M. Rea, as Director, etc.

Suzanne B. Gifford, Richard A. Katzman, San Jose, for Defendant/Respondent Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

PREMO, Acting P.J.

I. INTRODUCTION

The issue in this case is whether state law requires the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) to bargain with a certain labor union when the bargaining unit the union represents includes supervisory and management personnel. Resolution of the issue turns upon interpretation of two arguably contradictory sections of the Public Utilities Code.¹ Section 100301 states that all questions relating to the collective bargaining rights of VTA employees are to be resolved by application of relevant provisions of the federal Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq.) (LMRA). Section 100309 applies to a subset of employees who transferred to VTA from other public entities in 1995 as a result of reorganizing legislation. This section requires VTA to recognize the employee organizations that represented the transferring employees immediately prior to their employment by VTA. The apparent contradiction between the two code sections is that under the LMRA, an employer may not be compelled to bargain with supervisors and managers, but section 100309 appears to require VTA to bargain with a group of supervisory and managerial employees that transferred to VTA in 1995.

We conclude that section 100309, the more recent and more specific of the code sections, granted collective bargaining rights to the entire subset of employees involved in the 1995 reorganization regardless of their position in the employment hierarchy.

II. THE STATUTORY CONTEXT

Analysis of the problem before us requires reference to three separate labor relations schemes. First, there is VTA's scheme. In 1969, the Legislature passed the Santa Clara County Transit District Act (§ 100000 et seq.) (the Act), which created the transit district now known as VTA. (See § 100002.) The Act is one of a number of different acts governing transit districts around the state. (See, e.g., §§ 25051 et seq. [Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District]; 28850 et seq. [San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District]; 30750 et seq. [Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority]; 40120 et seq. [Orange County Transit District]; 98160 et seq. [Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District].) Each of the transit acts contains its own labor relations provisions.

Section 100300 is the Act's grant of collective bargaining rights: "Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection." Section 100302 provides: "Whenever a majority of the employees employed by the district in a unit appropriate for collective bargaining indicate a desire to be represented by a labor organization and upon determining, as provided in Section 100301, that said labor organization represents at least a majority of the employees in the appropriate unit, the board and the accredited representative of employees shall bargain in good faith and make all reasonable efforts to reach agreement on the terms of a written contract governing wages, hours and working conditions." Subsequent sections provide for mediation and arbitration and referral to the State Conciliation Service for resolution of contract disputes. (§§ 100304-100306.)

Questions of representation are resolved by reference to the LMRA. Specifically, section 100301 provides: "Any question which may arise with respect to whether a majority of employees in an appropriate unit desire to be represented by a labor organization shall be submitted to the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations [DIR].[²] In resolving such questions of representation including the determination of the appropriate unit or units, petitions, the conduct of hearings and elections, the [DIR] shall apply the relevant federal law and administrative practice developed under the [LMRA (29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq.)] and for this purpose shall adopt appropriate rules and regulations." (Italics added.) The Act does not define the term "employee."

The LMRA is the comprehensive federal labor law, which, by its terms, is applicable only to labor relations in the private sector. The LMRA defines "employee" as "any employee" except, among other things, any individual "employed as a supervisor" and any individual employed by someone not defined as an employer. (29 U.S.C. § 152(3).) The LMRA further provides that "no employer subject to this subchapter shall be compelled to deem individuals defined herein as supervisors as employees for the purpose of any law, either national or local, relating to collective bargaining." (29 U.S.C. § 164(a).) Managers are also excluded from the rights granted under the LMRA. (NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co. (1974) 416 U.S. 267, 94 S.Ct. 1757, 40 L.Ed.2d 134.) VTA is not an employer under the terms of the LMRA because public entities are not "employers" within the meaning of the federal law. (29 U.S.C. § 152(2).) Application of the LMRA in this case comes about solely as a result of the directive in section 100301.

The third set of labor relations laws pertinent to our analysis is the Myers-Milias-Brown Act (Gov.Code, § 3500 et seq.) (MMBA), which is a state law that defines the collective bargaining rights of public employees. The MMBA definition of "public employee" includes supervisory and management employees. (Organization of Deputy Sheriffs v. County of San Mateo (1975) 48 Cal.App.3d 331, 338, 122 Cal.Rptr. 210; Santa Clara County Counsel Attys. Assn. v. Woodside (1994) 7 Cal.4th 525, 537, 28 Cal.Rptr.2d 617, 869 P.2d 1142; Gov.Code, § 3501, subd. (d).) Although the MMBA applies generally to local public entities, the Act expressly provides that the MMBA does not apply to VTA. (§ 100307, subd. (a).)

III. BACKGROUND

A. History of VTA

VTA was formed to take over the operation of public transportation functions that had historically been provided by private companies. When it was first created, VTA was primarily an operating entity. Its employees were bus drivers, dispatchers, mechanics, and maintenance personnel. Support services such as management, administration, and clerical services were provided by employees of the County of Santa Clara or by the Santa Clara County Congestion Management Agency (collectively, county employees).

In 1994, the Legislature amended the Public Utilities Code, consolidating all transit functions under the VTA umbrella, which meant that the county employees who had been providing services to VTA would become employees of VTA instead. As part of the reorganization, the Legislature passed sections 100308 and 100309, which preserved benefits and rights that the county employees had earned and enjoyed while employed by the county. Among other things, section 100309 required VTA to recognize "those employee organizations which served as the recognized representatives of the former county employees described in Section 100308 immediately prior to their employment by [VTA]" and to "observe all applicable provisions" of existing labor contracts for the remainder of the term of each such contract.

The transfer of employees took place on January 1, 1995. At least two employee organizations represented the county employees at the time: Service Employees International Union Local 715 (SEIU) and County Employees Management Association (CEMA). The group of employees represented by CEMA was identified as the Supervisory-Administrative bargaining unit. This unit included employees classified as supervisors or managers.

After the transfer was accomplished, the union that had been representing the original VTA employees, the Amalgamated Transit Union Division 265(ATU), complained that the transferred employees should be part of the ATU bargaining unit. VTA filed petitions with the DIR, seeking a declaration of its obligations to recognize and bargain with each of the three labor organizations and to resolve a dispute over "which of the Unions is entitled to be the exclusive bargaining representative of which [VTA] employees." The consolidated petitions became case No. 95-1495.

In the decision and award in case No. 95-1495, the DIR concluded that when the Legislature passed the reorganizing legislation, it intended to maintain the status quo with respect to existing labor relationships so that the unions representing the county employees would continue to represent them. Furthermore, the DIR decided that even though section 100309 required VTA to honor the existing labor agreements only until those agreements expired, it required VTA to continue to recognize and bargain with the representatives of the employee organizations (SEIU and CEMA) after expiration of the existing agreements.

The DIR defined the CEMA-represented bargaining unit as: "All classified and unclassified employees in the coded classifications, and the positions held by such employees, in the Supervisory-Administrative bargaining unit, who transferred to the District effective as of January 1, 1995, as a result of the statutory reorganization mandated by Assembly Bill 2442 and who, prior to the transfer, held positions covered...