Case Name: BOARD OF REGENTS of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RELATIONS COMMISSION, State of Florida, and United Faculty of Florida, Respondents
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1979-03-20
Citations: 368 So. 2d 641
Docket Number: No. EE-413
Parties: BOARD OF REGENTS of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RELATIONS COMMISSION, State of Florida, and United Faculty of Florida, Respondents.
Judges: SMITH, Acting C. J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 368
Pages: 641–645

Head Matter:
BOARD OF REGENTS of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RELATIONS COMMISSION, State of Florida, and United Faculty of Florida, Respondents.
No. EE-413.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
March 20, 1979.
Rehearing Denied April 30, 1979.
Cass D. Vickers of Thompson, Wads-worth, Messer, Turner & Rhodes, Tallahassee, for petitioner.
William E. Powers, Jr., Michael M. Switz-er, and Patricia A. Renovitch, Tallahassee, and Ken Megill, for respondents.

Opinion:
ERVIN, Judge.
Petitioner, Board of Regents of the State of Florida, filed petition for a writ prohibiting PERC from holding an evidentiary hearing pursuant to § 447.307(3), Fla.Stat. (1977), on United Faculty of Florida's petition to be certified as the collective bargaining agent for several categories of graduate research and teaching assistants. Approximately 1,800 graduate assistants, who teach at least 12% of the undergraduate courses in the state university system, are within the proposed collective bargaining unit. The Board moved to dismiss the petition on grounds that, as a matter of law, students were not under PERC's jurisdiction due to the provisions of § 447.501(2)(f), Fla.Stat. (1977). PERC denied the motion without prejudice to the Board's renewing it at a later date. The Board then filed its petition with us for a writ prohibiting PERC from holding the hearing. Finding that review of final agency action would not provide the Board an adequate remedy, we treated the petition as one seeking review of intermediate agency action under § 120.-68(1). The proceedings were stayed, except for PERC's hearing and order, finding that graduate assistants are both students and public employees and that § 447.501(2)(f) does not impede "organization of graduate assistants by an employee organization." The Board argues that PERC's order misconstrued statutory law by determining graduate assistants were "public employees" within the definition in § 447.-203(3), since they were not barred from collective bargaining by the provisions of § 447.501(2)(f). We affirm.
The Board of Regents is included within the definition of a public employer under § 447.203(2), while a public employee, defined by § 447.203(3), is one "employed by a public employer," subject to certain specific exceptions which do not include graduate assistants. The Board argues that since the graduate assistants are primarily students, § 447.501(2)(f), pertaining to unfair labor practices on behalf of public employee organizations, excepts them as public employees. That section provides that a public employee organization, its members or agents, are prohibited from "[ijnstigating or advocating support, in any positive manner, for an employee organization's activities from high school or grade school students or students in institutions of higher learning." PERC interpreted the intent of the statute as prohibiting "the exploitation of students by their teachers, . . ., who might otherwise take advantage of the dependent nature of the student's posture in the student-teacher relationship in order to coerce from the students as unwilling pawns in organizational activities in which the students have no economic interest." PERC concluded that on the facts before it no such exploitation was present; that the public employee organization was not seeking the support of the students and the advancement of someone else's economic interest, but rather was soliciting employees, who" also happened to be students, to support the union's activities on behalf of the same employees whose support was solicited.
PERC's interpretation of the statute is within its range of discretion. We have on numerous occasions commented upon PERC's responsibility to define and implement public employees' substantive rights under PERA, and we are forbidden by § 120.68(12) from substituting our judgment for that of the agency on an issue of discretion. See Seitz v. Duval County School Board, 346 So.2d 644, 646 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977); Pasco County School Board v. PERC, 353 So.2d 108, 116 (Fla. 1st DCA 1977).
AFFIRMED.
SMITH, Acting C. J., concurs.
MELVIN, J., dissenting.