Opinion ID: 2086340
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Method of Chairperson Selection

Text: Under § 5, as originally enacted, the chairperson selection system alternatively permitted either appointment by the parties' delegates alone or, in the event of their default, appointment by the MERC chairperson. Obviously, there was very little political accountability in the first alternative as that approach shielded the private selectors from both public scrutiny and the democratic form of government's greatest sanction  the vote. The line of political accountability drawn between the private representatives and the public was very far from direct. The second alternative, however, presented quite a different accountability perspective since that alternative required MERC intervention in the selection process. By appointing the panel chairperson, it could be presumed that the MERC chairperson  a direct appointee of the Governor with the Senate's advice and consent  would exercise great concern for the Governor's political welfare as well as the chief executive officer's concern for good public service. This alternative precluded isolation from the public process and cleared the way for direct public expressions of satisfaction or dissatisfaction to those individuals ultimately responsible for the panel members' decisions. The present § 5 selection system, as amended by 1976 PA 84, has eliminated the minimally accountable first alternative of delegate selection and expressly retained the second alternative's spirit of public accountability through its provision for MERC selection of a chairperson from a MERC-appointed permanent panel. Albeit tempered by the parties' right of exercising a peremptory veto, [54] § 5 focuses the power of chairperson appointment in the commission alone to the exclusion of either the parties' delegates or the MERC chairperson as earlier provided. Furthermore, the MERC appointee is no longer chosen at large but must have been earlier screened by, appointed to, and selected from a permanent panel of MERC arbitrators established by the commission, a gubernatorially appointed body. Considered together, these significant amendments fix a high order of political accountability in the chairperson appointment scheme. Indeed, the majority of jurisdictions which have considered this question have found accountability; [55] those which have ruled otherwise have done so primarily on the basis of distinguishable constitutional provisions. [56] Little interference exists in that line of public accountability connecting the Governor, MERC, the panel chairperson and the MERC permanent Panel of Arbitrators. Should the appointees give away the store or otherwise invite unfavorable comment, [57] the electorate may easily express dissatisfaction by directing complaints to the Governor as well as the gubernatorially appointed MERC Commissioners. These complaints may ultimately be couched in the democratic form of government's greatest sanction  the vote. The city's argument that political accountability is absent since the MERC Commissioners and panel members are not directly accountable to the people of the specific community over which arbitral authority is exercised proves entirely too much. [58] Read carefully, the city's principal objection to Act 312 is really directed at the underlying legislative wisdom of formulating a state-wide policy governing resolution of inherently local public-sector labor disputes. Thus, the city claims that the relationship of the Act 312 panel  including the MERC appointed chair  to the City of Detroit electorate is diluted by the §§ 4 and 5 panel selection process. This argument blinks the reality that the role of both the Act 312 arbitrators and the MERC appointing authority is to effectuate a state labor policy as formulated by the state Legislature serving the state electorate. Work stoppages by municipal police and fire departments, although primarily local in situs, were legislatively deemed to pose a threat to the state's public health, safety and welfare. Should the people be dissatisfied with the accountability aspect of the engineered scheme which must necessarily transcend local boundaries, the onus is upon the state's electorate, including the locally affected voting population, to exercise its political will.