No. 12765 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA 

19 74 

THE STATE OF MONTANA, ACTING BY AND 

THROUGH THE DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS 

OF THE STATE OF MONTANA, 

Plaintiff and Appellant, 

PUBLIC EMPLOYEES CRAFT COUNCIL OF 

MONTANA, REPRESENTING THE MONTANA DISTRICT 

COUNCIL OF LABORERS, THE JOINT COUNCIL OF 

TEAMSTERS NO. 23, THE MONTANA MACHINISTS 

COUNCIL , OPERATING ENGINEERS , AND PA INTERS ; 

VIRGIL BUETTNER AS PRESIDENT OF SAID COUNCIL 

AND JAMES L. MURRAY AS SECRETARY-TREASURER 

OF SAID COUNCIL, 

Defendants and Respondents. 

Appeal from: District Court of the First Judicial District, 

Honorable Peter G. Meloy, Judge presiding. 

Counsel of Record: 

For Appellant : 

Jack Holstrom argued, and Daniel J. Sullivan appeared, 

Highway Legal Department, Helena, Montana 

For Respondents : 

Hilley and Loring, Great Falls, Montana 

Benjamin W. Hilley argued and Emilie Loring argued, 

Great Falls, Montana 

Submitted: November 18, 1974 

Decided : DE C 9 - x 7974 
Mr. Chief Justice James T. Harrison delivered the Opinion of the 

Court. 

This case involves a strike by approximately 285 teamsters, 

operating.eagineers, machinists, laborers, and painters employed 

by appellant Montana Department of Highways to perform all highway maintenance functions on interstate, primary, and certain 

secondary roads in the Butte, Great Falls, Missoula, Bozeman, and 

Helena areas, These employees were responsible for the repair, 

reconditioning, and general upkeep of roughly 3,000 miles of 

roads. Their major duties were: removing snow and ice from the 

traveled surfaces and applying traction materials such as sand 

and chemicals; patching, resurfacing, and regrading road surfaces; 

repairing bridges and other highway structures; repairing, replacing, or installing snow fences, culverts, ditches, fences, 

traffic safety devices, signs and signals, guardrails, and traffic 

delineators within right-of-way limits; stockpiling traction 

materials for snow season use; repairing and maintaining roadside rest areas, litter barrels, and campsites; repairing and 

maintaining state motor pool vehicles, snow plows, road patrols, 

caterpillars, and other equipment utilized in appellant's 

maintenance operations; and performing services during emergencies, 

such as assisting stranded motorists, removing obstructions (overturned vehicles, rock slides, etc,), and providing traffic control, 

Of necessity, these activities were performed on a 24 hour basis. 

The strike by respondent Public Employees Craft Council against 

appellant occurred on January 21, 1974, and appellant applied to 

the district court of Lewis and Clark County the same day for a 

temporary restraining order prohibiting the strike. The district 

court granted appellant's request and scheduled a show cause 

hearing to determine whether the strike should be permanently enjoined. Respondent filed a motion to dismiss appellant's complaint, 

and a show cause hearing thereon was scheduled for March 28, 1974. 
At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the allegations 

contained in appellant's complaint--including those relating to 

disruption of highway maintenance programs and injury to the 

health, safety, and welfare of the traveling public--were admitted. It should be noted here, however, that the issues 

before us and discussed hereafter in this opinion, do not involve 

injury to the health, safety and welfare of the traveling public. 

Nevertheless, the district court granted the motion to dismiss 

and dissolved the temporary restraining order. Appellant appeals 

from that order. 

There is but one issue: Did the district court err in 

determining that the maintenance employees of the Hontana Department of Highways have the right to strike under ~ontana's 

PublicEmployees Collective Bargaining Act ? 

The portion of the Public Employees Collective Bargaining 

Act in dispute, section 59-1603(1), R.C.M. 1947, provides: 

"Public employees shall have and shall be protected 

in the exercise of, the right of self-organization, to 

form, join or assist any labor organization, to bargain 

collectively through representatives of their own 

choosing on questions of wages, hours, fringe benefits, 

and other conditions of employment and to engage in other 

concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. free from 

interference, restraint or coercion. " (~mphasis added). 

This language is almost idential to that found in the Labor 

Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley Act), 1947, which at 

29 U.S.C.A., 5 157, provides: 

"Employees shall have the right to self-organization, 

to form, join, or assist in 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 * * *. " (Emphasis added). 

The phrase "concerted activities" does not appear in any 

other Montana statute, and this Court has never been called upon 

to interpret it. The phrase first appeared in the Norris-LaGuardia 

Anti-Injunction Act, 1932, at 29 U.S.C., 5 102; then in the 

National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), 1935, at 49 Stat.449, 

452; and again in the Taft-Hartley Act, 1947, 29 U.S.C.A., 5 157. 
Consequently, some forty years of federal interpretation 

is behind this language. The United States Supreme Court, as well 

as innumerable lower federal courts, has consistently held that 

It concerted activities" includes strikes. Automobile Workers v. 

~'~rien, 339 U.S. 454, 94 L ed 978, 70 S.Ct. 781; Bus Employees 

v. Wisconsin Board, 340 U.S. 383, 389, 71 Sect. 359, 95 L ed 364; 

Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, 348 U.S. 468, 75 S.Ct. 480, 99 L ed 546. 

These cases all involved state legislative attempts to limit the 

right to strike in the private sector. The Supreme Court found such 

efforts to be in conflict with the protections afforded by the 

Taft-Hartley Act and thus unconsitutional under the Supremacy 

Clause (Article VI) of the United States Constitution. In Bus - 

Employees, the Supreme Court stated: 

"We have recently examined the extent to which 

Congress has regulated peaceful strikes for higher 

wages in industries affecting commerce. Automobile 

Workers v. Ol~rien, 339 U.S. 454 (1950). We noted 

that Congress, in 5 7 of the National Labor Relations 

Act of 1935, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, ex ressly safeguarded for employees F: in such industries the right * * * to engage in * * * 

concerted activities for the purpose of collective 

bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, e.g., to 

strike. t It 

Appellant contends that a different interpretation of "concerted activities" ought to prevail here, since public rather than 

private employees are involved. The California Supreme Court considered the same proposition in Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit 

Authority v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 8 Cal.Rptr. 1, 

355 P.2d 905, 997. In that case the Los Angeles Metropolitan 

Transit Authority Act created a public authority for transportation 

of passengers in a four county area in and around Los Angeles. 

Stats. 1957, ch. 547, as amended by Stats. 1959, ch. 519. Subdivision (c) of section 3.6 of that Act provided that employees of the 

Transit Authority had the right, among others, to engage "in other 

concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or 

other mutual aid or protection." When the employees struck, the 

Transit Authority sought a declaratory judgment that they were 

without the legal right to strike because they were public employees. 
The court held unequivocally that the grant of the right to engage in 

I1 concerted activitiesff meant the same thing for public employees 

as it did for private employees, that is, it included the right 

to strike: 

"When legislation has been judicially construed 

and a subsequent statute on the same or an analogous 

subject is framed in the identical language, it will 

ordinarily be presumed that the Legislature intended 

that the language as used in the later enactment would 

be given a like interpretation. This rule is applicable 

to state statutes which are patterned after federal 

statutes. [Citing cases] Although the cases which 

have interpreted the italicized words involved private 

employees, the act before us incorporates the exact 

language, consisting of 16 words, found in the 

earlier statutes, and it is unlikely that the same 

words would have been repeated without any qualification in a later statute in the absence of an intent 

that they be given the construction previously adopted 

by the courts. I1 

We think similar standards of judicial construction apply in 

the present case. For example, section 19-102, R.C.M. 1947, provides : 

"Words and phrases used in the codes or other statutes 

of Montana are construed according to the context and the 

approved usage of the language; but technical words and 

phrases, and such others as - have acquired a peculiar and 

appropriate meaning in law, or are dekined in the succeeding 

section, as amended, are to be construed according to such 

peculiar and appropriate meaning or definition. " (Emphasis 

added). 

After more than forty years of construction by federal and 

I I state courts, concerted activities" indisputably has become a labor 

11 law term, a technical phrase which has acquired a peculiar and 

appropriate meaning in law". That meaning includes strikes. 

Appellant may wish that the statute read otherwise but this 

Court is not at liberty to amend our statutes. State v. Midland 

National Bankel= Mont. 339, 343, 317 P.2d 880. This Court concludes that ~ontana's legislature meant the phrase "concerted 

activities" to have a meaning identical to that found in analogous 

statutes of other jurisdictions. To hold otherwise would flaunt a 

cardinal principle of statutory construction. 

This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that employees under 

~ontana's Collective Bargaining Act, Sections 59-1601 through 

59-1616, R.C.M. 1947, are nowhere prohibited from striking. Two 
other classes of Montana public employees---nurses and teachers-- 

have specific restrictions or bans on their right to strike. See 

sections 41-2209 and 75-6120(2) (c) , R.C.M. 1947. 

We comment further that the purposes expressed in the nurses, 

teachers and public employees acts are similar. As to the nurses, 

section 41-2201, R.C.M. 1947, enacted in 1969, the purpose was 

expressed If* * * to encourage the practice of mutually and peacefully agreeing upon the establishment and maintenance of desirable 

employment practices * * *." 

In the teachers act, section 75-6116, R.C.M. 1947, enacted in 

1971, the purpose was expressed I' * * * to establish procedures 

which will facilitate and encourage amicable settlement of disputes. I' 

In the public employees act, section 59-1601, R.C.M. 1947, 

enacted in 1973, the purpose was expressed "* * * to encourage 

the practice and procedure of collective bargaining to arrive at 

friendly adjustment * * *." 

If the legislaturehd intended to limit respondent's right 

to strike, it could have done so expressly as it did with nurses 

and teachers, since as heretofore shown all this legislation had 

the same expressed purpose. 

Since respondent had the right to strike specifically granted 

its members by the legislature, the order of the district court 

dismissing the complaint and dissolving the temporary restraining 

order is affirmed. 

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Chief Justice.