Town of Dedham v. Labor Relations Commission

• Decision Date: 10 June 1974
• Citation: 365 Mass. 392,312 N.E.2d 548
• Parties: , 86 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2918, 74 Lab.Cas. P 53,386 TOWN OF DEDHAM et al. v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 548

312 N.E.2d 548

365 Mass. 392, 86 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2918,

74 Lab.Cas. P 53,386

TOWN OF DEDHAM et al. v. LABOR RELATIONS COMMISSION et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

Argued Feb. 6, 1974.

Decided June 10, 1974.

Alexander Macmillan (Joellen D'Esti Bogdasarian, Boston, with him) for Labor Relations Commission.

Richard A. Gould, Town Counsel, Dedham, for Town of Dedham.

Michael A. Feinberg, Boston, for Warren W. Vaughan and others, interveners, joined in a brief.

Before TAURO, C.J., and QUIRICO, BRAUCHER, HENNESSEY and KAPLAN, JJ.

KAPLAN, Justice.

We face again the problem of meshing the new labor rights guaranteed to public employees with earlier provisions of law. ¹ On the present appeal we have to deal with an accomodation between the statute empowering the Labor Relations Commission to rectify alleged interference by municipal employers with the protected mutual-aid activities of their employees, and the older statute establishing the Civil Service Commission as a guard against arbitrary disciplining of classified employees by their public employers. The field is dynamic. While the present proceedings were taking their course, the labor statute was altered and recodified as from July 1, 1974. ² This will limit the practical effects for the future of a decision of this appeal.

1. Facts. On September 9, 1970, Warren W. Vaughan, a Dedham firefighter, one of the interveners-appellants herein, ³ engaged in a 'heated conversation' with the deputy chief of the fire department, James Hall, at the Dedham fire station. On September 14 the chief of department, John L. O'Brien, one of the appellees, Notified Vaughan that commencing that day he was suspended for five days with loss of pay for 'insubordination' toward a superior officer arising out of the incident with Deputy Chief Hall.

On September 23 Vaughan requested a hearing before a member of the Civil Service Commission pursuant to G.L. c. 31 § 43(e), as to whether the suspension was for 'just cause.' A week later, on September 30, Vaughan filed a complaint with the Labor Relations Commission charging a prohibited labor practice on the part of the appellees town of Dedham and its fire chief within the meaning of c. 149, § 178L(1), in that they had violated his protected rights under § 178H(1) to engage in activities on behalf of the firefighters for mutual aid free from interference, restraint, or corecion. ⁴

A Civil Service Commissioner held a hearing on October 20 attended by Vaughan and counsel, and on January 13, 1971, the Civil Service Commission notified the fire chief that the suspension was justified but that the penalty should be reduced to a two-day suspension with loss of pay. The present record on appeal does not indicate what issues were considered, nor are any particular findings set out. Meanwhile the Labor Relations Commission, after investigation by its agents, issued its formal complaint on November 5, 1970, against the town and fire chief. At a hearing on January 5, 1971, before a Labor Relations Commissioner, the town and fire chief moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the commission lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter. ⁵ The motion was not allowed. Testimony was taken and recorded, and the following facts as to the September 9 incident appeared, embodied in the 'Findings of Fact and Decision' of the commission, made part of its 'Decision and Order' contained in the record on appeal.

Vaughan was a member of the executive board and past president of Local 1735, Dedham Firefighters Association. He was off duty on September 9, when he got into the 'heated coversation' with Deputy Chief Hall in the presence of another firefighter. The subject was the duties to be performed by firefighters on holidays (such as Labor Day just passed). Vaughan objected to the men's being assigned window washing and similar chores and said this was in violation of the practice of 'holiday routine' by which the men were to be excused certain maintenance jobs. Deputy Chief Hall refused to discuss this issue on the ground that 'Vaughan was not running the Department.' Vaughan told the deputy chief that he was going to bring the matter up at the next union meeting. He advised the men not to do work on holidays in the future beyond the 'holiday routine.' He then left the fire station.

On evidence going beyond the immediate incident, the Labor Relations Commission also found that Vaughan had an excellent record as a firefighter. In processing grievances and negotiating on labor matters over the previous two years, he had had many heated discussions with the fire chief. Examining the circumstances surrounding the fire chief's decision to suspend Vaughan, the commission found that the chief had ordered the suspension for other than disciplinary reasons. It may be added that the commission found there had in fact been a right to a 'holiday routine' which had become vested by practice over a period of years despite 'rules and regulations' promulgated by the fire chief.

On the whole case, the commission concluded that the formal complaint it had issued was supported by the testimony. Accordingly, it issued its order in two parts: first, that the appellees, town of Dedham and its fire chief, cease and desist from interfering with their employees in the exercise of their protected rights under the statute; second, that they take affirmative action ⁶ to 'reinstate' Vaughan and make him whole by payment of the withheld salary, make available on request the records as to back pay, post a notice announcing their intention to comply with the directions to cease and desist and to reinstate, and notify the commission as to steps taken to comply with the order.

The appellees petitioned the Superior Court under the State Administrative Procedure Act, G.L. c. 30A, § 14, for review of the decision and order of the Labor Relations Commission. Although the pleader recited all plausible grounds of review listed in § 14(8), the two distinctive grounds that appear pertinent were lack of jurisdiction of the Labor Relations Commission, and lack of substantial evidence to support the decision. The judge of the Superior Court held for the appellees on the first ground, ruling that the matter was beyond the jurisdiction of the Labor Relations Commission and 'fell exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission' under c. 31, § 43; thus the appellees' motion to dismiss should have been allowed, and the commission's prohibited practice complaint was now to be dismissed. The judge rested essentially on c. 149, § 178N, which states that '(n)othing in sections one hundred and seventy-eight F to one hundred and seventy-eight M, inclusive (the sections of c. 149 setting forth the rights and duties of municipal employees, and the relevant responsibilities of the Labor Relations Commission), shall diminish the authority and power of the civil service commission, or any retirement board or personnel board established by law, nor shall anything in said sections constitute a grant of the right to strike to employees of any municipal employer.' The judge did not reach the question of substantial evidence. Appeal from the final decree was claimed by the Labor Relations Commission and the interveners, Vaughan and Local 1735.

2. Statutes. Until 1958, public employees in the Commonwealth, as in most States, had virtually none of the rights that had been widely guaranteed since the nineteen thirties to employees in private business to organize and bargain collectively and to be protected in the associated activities of asserting and negotiating grievances. Classified public employees were indeed entitled to the benefits of a civil service system, designed, according to the 'merit principle,' to bring nonpartisanship and rationality into the processes of hiring, promotion, transfer, and discipline. These employees were protected against arbitrary punishment, the usual issues being whether the charges made by the public authority as grounds for dismissals or suspensions--neglect of duty, incompetency, insubordination, venality, or the like--could be supported in fact. The question whether the charges were being used by the employers as excuses or masks for interference with the employees' rights to organize, present grievances, and so forth, had no particular place in proceedings before the Civil Service Commission because the rights themselves had not received recognition by law.

The civil service statute to this day does not in terms reflect labor rights of this character. Dismissal or suspension may be exacted only for 'just cause,' see G.L. c. 31, § 43, a formula that is not less than seventy years old. ⁷ The pattern of the procedure now is that the employee receives written notice from the 'appointing authority' of the reason for its action, whereupon the employee may request a hearing by that authority; ⁸ if the decision is unfavorable, he may request a hearing before a member of the Civil Service Commission, who reports his findings to the commission, which acts to affirm, reverse, or modify. From an adverse determination, the employee may petition for review by a District Court (or the Municipal Court of the City of Boston), with the appointing authority and the commission named as respondents. § 45. ⁹

Turning to the origin of the labor statute, the traditional hostility to organizational rights on the part of public employees gradually diminished in the post-war period, and in 1958 Massachusetts was among the first States to take steps--but they were quite ineffectual steps--to afford a measure of recognition to those rights. See St.1958, c. 460, adding G.L. c. 149, § 178D. The Presidential Executive Order of 1962 (No. 10988, 5 U.S.C.A. § 7301 at 300 (1967), replaced by No. 11491 (1969), as amended, 3 C.F.R. 262 (1973)) granting rights of collective bargaining to Federal employees added to the respectability and...