ST. CLAIR CTY. INTERMEDIATE SCH. DIST. v. ST. CLAIR CTY. EDUC. ASS'N
| Decision Date | 27 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 218135. |
| Citation | 630 N.W.2d 909,245 Mich. App. 498 |
| Parties | ST. CLAIR COUNTY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, and Academy for Plastics Manufacturing Technology, Cross-Appellee, v. ST. CLAIR COUNTY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Appellee/Cross-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Amberg, McNenly, Firestone and Lee, P.C. (by Joseph H. Firestone), Southfield, for the St. Clair County Education Association.
Scott C. Moeller, Port Huron, for the St. Clair County Intermediate School District.
Fletcher DeGrow, P.C. (by Gary A. Fletcher and John D. Tomlinson), Port Huron, for the Academy for Plastics Manufacturing Technology.
Before MARILYN J. KELLY, P.J., and WHITBECK and COLLINS, JJ. WHITBECK, Judge.
The St. Clair Intermediate School District (ISD) appeals as of right and challenges the decision of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission (MERC) to affirm one of two unfair labor practice charges brought by the St. Clair County Education Association (the union). The union cross appeals the MERC's decision to dismiss the second unfair labor practice charge, its petition for unit clarification, and its motion to reopen the record. We affirm the MERC decision with regard to the appeal and the cross appeal.
Jane Johnson has been a registered nurse at the ISD's Woodland Development Center, a center for mentally and physically impaired students, for approximately seventeen years. She is the only registered nurse the ISD employs. Johnson repeatedly sought to have her position included among the positions for which the union would bargain in contract negotiations. The union shared Johnson's goal of having her position added to the bargaining unit. The union's efforts to bargain on this issue were, however, unsuccessful.
According to ISD Superintendent Joe Caimi, several years ago Johnson had asked him for teacher's pay, but he denied her request. Johnson was always paid the same salary as teachers in the bargaining unit and had received all across-the-board pay increases that teachers in the unit received. However, Johnson, whose pay was equivalent to a teacher at step three, received no step increases in pay. Apparently, if Johnson had received these step pay increases, she would be paid at least $16,000 more a year.
In May 1997, the union and the ISD began negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The union presented its initial proposals to the ISD, including a proposal to bring Johnson's nursing position into the bargaining unit. Shortly thereafter, Caimi discussed the proposal with Janice Frederick, the ISD's director of special education and Johnson's supervisor. Caimi assumed that Johnson wanted to join the bargaining unit because she believed that unit membership would bring her a teacher's pay. Caimi told Frederick that Johnson needed to know that this was not necessarily true; Caimi evidently wanted to make sure that "no one was deluded into thinking" that the ISD was going to agree to pay Johnson the same salary as a teacher. Caimi also said that "if it became an issue," the ISD might have to terminate Johnson's position and contract for services with a local hospital. Caimi asked Frederick to meet with Johnson to convey this information. According to Caimi and Frederick, there was no discussion between them about Caimi's opinion of unions.
In late May 1997, Frederick approached Kenneth Adams, who was then the president of the union. According to Adams, Frederick told him that Caimi said that if Johnson's position were included in the bargaining unit, it would be "jobbed out" and that Johnson would be laid off. However, Frederick said, she told Adams that if Johnson were successful in her attempt to be admitted to the union and receive a teacher's pay, her wage would be out of the range for registered nurses in the county and she might "place herself out of a position."
Frederick denied saying anything to Johnson about Caimi's opinion of unions.
The union and the ISD finally agreed to a new contract that did not cover Johnson or her position. The union subsequently brought an unfair labor practice charge against the ISD, alleging that the ISD violated subsection 10(1)(a) of the public employment relations act (PERA)1 by telling Johnson that she would lose her job if she joined the union. Subsection 10(1)(a) of the PERA makes it "unlawful for a public employer or an officer or agent of a public employer ... to interfere with, restrain or coerce public employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed in section 9." In turn, § 9 of the PERA2 states:
It shall be lawful for public employees to organize together or to form, join or assist in labor organizations, to engage in lawful concerted activities for the purpose of collective negotiation or bargaining or other mutual aid and protection, or to negotiate or bargain collectively with their public employers through representatives of their own free choice.
After a hearing, the MERC hearing referee determined that the ISD violated PERA subsection 10(1)(a) by interfering with Johnson's rights to join a union and to seek the union's assistance for a salary increase when Frederick told Johnson that she would lose her job if she joined the union. The hearing referee found that Johnson was engaged in protected activity when she sought to become a member of the bargaining unit and when she sought the union's assistance in obtaining a wage increase. The hearing referee did not give credit to Johnson's version of the conversation about Caimi's negative view of unions, but concluded that, even if Frederick's testimony regarding her conversation with Johnson were believable, her statements to Johnson constituted "an unlawful threat." The hearing referee then commented:
The threat to terminate Johnson's position was clearly conveyed. Although the threat to eliminate Johnson's position is tied to her receiving teachers' pay, not to her becoming part of the bargaining unit, Frederick made no effort to distinguish the two. The message which Caimi wanted Frederick to convey, and the message which apparently got through to both Johnson and Adams, was the same: stop pushing the issue of Johnson's inclusion in the unit/salary increase, or Johnson will end up without a job.
The hearing referee recommended that the ISD be ordered to do the following:
In late February 1999, the MERC issued a decision and order adopting the hearing referee's decision and recommended order concerning the ISD's treatment of Johnson, stating:
After carefully reviewing the record as a whole, we find that the totality of the evidence supports the [hearing referee's] conclusion that the statement constituted a threat in violation of Section 10(1)(a) of PERA. The clear import of the statement is that Johnson's position would likely be eliminated if she continued her efforts to become a member of the Union and seek the Union's assistance in obtaining a salary increase. As noted by the [hearing referee], there is no evidence in the record to suggest that the Employer would be forced to terminate Johnson if she were to receive the same salary as a teacher, or that circumstances outside the ISD's control might cause the Employer to eliminate Johnson if her position was in fact included in the unit. See NLRB v. River Togs, Inc., 382 F.2d 198 (C.A.2, 1967).
The union's cross appeal involves the ISD's decisions to form a public school academy for its defunct plastics manufacturing program and to prevent the union from bargaining on behalf of the employees at that public school academy. The ISD created the plastics program in the 1980s and operated it at its Technical Educational Center (the TEC) until 1992, when the ISD discontinued the program because it could not produce graduates who were sufficiently trained to secure jobs in the industry. In early 1996, representatives of local plastics manufacturing companies approached the ISD about reinstating the program. The representatives informed the ISD that they needed well-trained employees and were willing to commit time and money to work with the ISD to create a program that would achieve this goal. Caimi told the representatives that if they were interested in starting a plastics program, they should consider organizing a public school academy under the relevant part of the Revised School Code.3
In March...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Taylor Sch. Dist. v. Rhatigan, Docket No. 326128.
...Van Buren Co. Ed. Ass'n, 309 Mich.App. at 639 . We review de novo MERC's legal rulings. St. Clair Intermediate Sch. Dist. v. St. Clair Co. Ed. Ass'n, 245 Mich.App. 498, 513, 630 N.W.2d 909 (2001).MERC has been entrusted with the interpretation and enforcement of PERA, an area of the law tha......
-
City of Lansing v. Carl Schlegel, Inc.
...than a scintilla of evidence, it may be substantially less than a preponderance.'" St. Clair Co. Ed. Ass'n v. St. Clair Co. Intermediate School Dist., 245 Mich.App. 498, 512-513, 630 N.W.2d 909 (2001), quoting In re Payne, 444 Mich. 679, 692, 514 N.W.2d 121 (1994). Legal conclusions made by......
-
Mount Pleasant Pub. Sch. v. Mich. Afscme Council 25, Afl-Cio
...the record is discretionary, and is therefore, reviewed for an abuse of discretion. St. Clair Co. Intermediate Sch. Dist. v. St. Clair Co. Ed. Ass'n, 245 Mich.App. 498, 519–520, 630 N.W.2d 909 (2001). AFSCME filed a motion to reopen the record to introduce the school district's vendor-relat......
-
Van Buren Cnty. Educ. Ass'n v. Decatur Pub. Sch.
...in order to carry out the Legislature's intent to the fullest extent possible." St. Clair Co. Ed. Ass'n. v. St. Clair Co. Intermediate Sch. Dist., 245 Mich.App. 498, 518, 630 N.W.2d 909 (2001).A. PERA"The PERA governs the relationship between public employees and governmental agencies." Mac......