School Dist. of City of Garden City v. Labor Mediation Bd.

• Decision Date: 25 November 1959
• Docket Number: No. 53,53
• Parties: SCHOOL DISTRICT OF the CITY OF GARDEN CITY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. LABOR MEDIATION BOARD, a State Agency, its Mediators, Agents and Employees acting for and on its behalf, Defendants and Appellees.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 485

99 N.W.2d 485

358 Mich. 258

SCHOOL DISTRICT OF the CITY OF GARDEN CITY, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. LABOR MEDIATION BOARD, a State Agency, its Mediators, Agents and Employees acting for and on its behalf Defendants and Appellees.

No. 53.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Nov. 25, 1959.

Roscoe O. Bonisteel and Roscoe O. Bonisteel, Jr., Ann Arbor, for plaintiff and appellant.

Paul L. Adams, Atty. Gen., Samuel J. Torina, Sol. Gen., Lansing, James R. Ramsey, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants and appellees.

Bailey & Robbins, Detroit, amicus curiae.

Before the Entire Bench, except KAVANAGH, J.

EDWARDS, Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree of the Ingham circuit court dismissing a bill of complaint filed by appellant Garden City school district. By the dismissal, the court refused to enjoin the Michigan labor mediation board from mediating a salary dispute between the school board and its teachers.

In June, 1955, 101 classroom teachers of the school district of Garden City addressed a petition to the labor mediation board and sought the intervention of the board in a dispute involving 'salary and other conditions of employment.' The petitioners designated the Garden City Federation of Teachers, Local 999 of the American Federation of Teachers, A. F. of L., as their representatives.

Thereupon the labor mediation board sought certain information from the school district, and sought to arrange a meeting between the parties. The Garden City school district replied, through counsel, by disputing the jurisdiction of the board and the sufficiency of the petition. It also presented the request of 27 teachers, asking that their names be removed from the original petition.

After a hearing, where testimony was presented that there were 135 teachers in the Garden City school district as of April, 1955, the labor mediation board ruled that more than 51% of the Garden City teachers had signed the petition, and further that the board had jurisdiction in the matter.

Thereupon plaintiff and appellant herein, Garden City school district, filed a bill of complaint in Ingham county circuit court reiterating the contentions previously addressed to the board, and seeking to enjoin the board from undertaking mediation in the matter.

The circuit judge who heard the matter summarized the issues accurately thus:

'1. Does the labor mediation board have jurisdiction * * * to mediate disputes relative to salaries and other conditions of employment between a school board and its teachers?

'2. If the answer to this question is 'yes,' then is the petition filed in the matter here involved sufficient to bring the dispute within the jurisdiction of said mediation board?'

The circuit judge answered both questions affirmatively and dismissed the bill of complaint. Plaintiff school district appealed.

We believe that these same issues are presented by this appeal.

The powers of the State labor mediation board were augmented in 1947 by P.A.1947, No. 336. This act forbade strikes of public employees, and provided for mediation of disputes involving public employees.

Section 7 of the act cited is invoked by the petitioners in their effort to secure mediation of their dispute. It provides:

'Upon the request of a majority of any given group of public employees evidenced by a petition signed by said majority and delivered to the labor mediation board, or upon request of any public official in charge of such employees, it shall be the duty of the labor mediation board to forthwith mediate the grievances set forth in said petition or notice, and for the purposes of mediating such grievances, the labor mediation board shall exercise the powers and authority conferred upon said board by section 10 and 11 of Act No. 176 of the Public Acts of 1939.' C.L.1948, § 423.207 (Stat.Ann.1950 Rev. § 17.455 ).*

Obviously, in order for petitioners to invoke the mediation powers of the board set forth insection 7, they must be 'a majority of any given group of public employees.'

Section 2 of the same act (C.L.1948, § 423.202 [Stat.Ann.1950 Rev. § 17.455(2)]) defines 'public employee' in a fashion which leaves no doubt in our minds as to legislative intent to include teachers:

'No person holding a position by appointment or employment in the government of the state of Michigan, or in the government of any 1 or more of the political subdivisions thereof, or in the public school service, or in any public or special district, or in the service of any authority, commission, or board, or in any other branch of the public service, hereinafter called a 'public employee,' shall strike.'

Public school teachers are certainly persons 'holding a position by appointment or employment * * * in the public school service.'

Appellant school board contends, however, that the provisions of the school code of 1955 (C.L.S.1956, § 340.569 [Stat.Ann.1959 Rev. § 15.3569]), by providing that teachers shall be hired by written contract, denies jurisdiction to the labor mediation board for mediation as to any terms which might be included in such contracts.

The written contract provision was first adopted in 1927, and the legislature was certainly familiar with its requirements when it adopted P.A.1947, No. 336, which we have quoted. We read these two acts together as allowing mediation of salary disputes in advance of the determination of the salary provisions of individual teacher contracts. In our opinion, P.A.1947, No. 336, plainly gave the labor mediation board jurisdiction to mediate disputes of the nature of this one.

As to the second question bearing on the sufficiency of the petition, the labor mediation board and the circuit judge found that the petition was not prematurely filed, and that the description of the dispute to be mediated as 'salary and other conditions of employment' was sufficient to invoke mediation under the act.

Section 7 of P.A.1947, No. 336, requires no preliminary steps to invoking mediation other than the filing of the petition or request provided therein. Nor does this section require detailing of 'the grievances' in the petition. The word 'grievance' must be read in the statute in its generally accepted sense, rather than as defined by usage in some contract cases. We know of no grievance more likely to provoke the sort of dispute which the labor mediation board and P.A.1947, No. 336, are designed to avoid than those concerning wages or salary. We find no statutory language which suggests that the petition is deficient on either score referred to above.

Still bearing on the sufficiency of the petition, appellant contends that effect should have been given by the labor mediation board to the subsequent requests to withdraw 27 names signed to the petition, and to subsequent departures from the Garden City school district of 14 teachers who signed the original petition and to the subsequent hiring of 50 new teachers; and further that supervisory personnel of the school district should be counted in determining the majority of the group.

The labor mediation...