Opinion ID: 1701879
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Kind of Power Delegated.

Text: The statute makes a well-defined, limited grant of power to the panels. Thus, in addition to the strictures on the ways in which panels may act, supra, the areas in which they act are fairly limited to wages and conditions of employment. IX  ANALYSIS OF APPLICATION A. Proximity to Elective Process. Collective bargaining in the public sector is part of the public process, and thus persons bearing the ultimate political responsibility must not isolate themselves from the process. While it is not necessary that elected officials themselves do the arbitrating, citizens should be able to identify every elected official responsible for the result of the arbitration  either because he was an arbitrator or appointed the arbitrator. The present case presents two alternative approaches to appointment. First, the law provides that parties to the dispute may select their own arbitrators and these arbitrators may select the third. This would present a situation similar to our hypothetical of minimum accountability on this point. It would be a weak argument for constitutionality when weighed with the other criteria. Since, however, as a point of fact, the city did not select an arbitrator, making impossible the joint selection of the third, the chairman of MERC appointed the arbitrator/chairman, the second method. The MERC chairman is an appointee of the Governor, making proximity of the appointing authority to election by the people very close. Although the appointing authority is not elected, he or she is appointed by the highest elected official in the state. Furthermore, the chairman of MERC is the Governor's primary representative in employment relations. Public responsibility therefore is of a high order. The fact of the matter is that appointment by the chairman of MERC created considerable political accountability in this case. If the chairman of MERC had appointed as arbitrator/chairman a person who would have given away the store, the possibility of either chairman or Governor not receiving complaints from the City of Dearborn or Dearborn citizens would be very remote indeed. We end up with the situation then where one alternative method of appointment tends strongly to unconstitutionality but the other strongly toward constitutionality. However, in construing the constitutionality of statutes we must seek to save what we can of public policy expressed in the statute. People v Bricker, 389 Mich 524, 529; 208 NW2d 172 (1973). The public policy of this state as expressed in the arbitration statute has been to proscribe strikes of public employees and to substitute instead a system of binding arbitration. The Legislature, as the representative of the people, has offered two alternative methods of constituting the panel to help realize this goal. Thus, both are part and parcel of the same statute. Both are means to the end of achieving this legislative goal. We may, if we have to, sever the unconstitutional method without sacrificing the statute. B. Sufficiency of Standards of Delegation. The task toward which the statute is directed is the resolution of complex contractual problems which have been somewhat refined by the process of collective bargaining and negotiation. The issues involved are as disparate as the towns and cities which are the battlegrounds of these labor disputes. While the area of labor arbitration by definition therefore assumes a situation where flexibility is essential, such flexibility must be maintained within the context of legislatively-defined standards. The significance of legislative standards is appropriately seen as a check on the unfettered exercise of authority. Such restrictions not only serve to prevent arbitrators from imposing their own social and economic philosophies on the parties and therefore on other citizens, but also are an affirmative statement of what the people and their representatives in the Legislature deem important. Properly drawn, with appropriate directives as to their use, such standards are capable of providing much of the safeguard we need to prevent giving away the store. Of statutes requiring arbitration upon request of one party, Michigan is one of only three states (the others are Nebraska and Wisconsin) containing criteria for guiding the arbitrators. As we noted in part IV, particularly note 6, we observed that the standards relate to providing wages, hours and other conditions of employment as good as but not out of line with persons in public and private employment in comparable communities. We noted particularly the requirement to review the financial ability of the governmental unit to meet proposed costs. 72 Col L Rev 1192, 1200, fn 41. While the Michigan law gives arbitrators a great deal of freedom in determining which criteria are most applicable to a particular case, the consensus is that the arbitration panels are using these standards and have, in written opinions, rationalized their decisions in terms of these categories. See, e.g., Smith, Edwards, Clark, Labor Relations Law in the Public Sector, 833-858. Further restriction on the untrammelled exercise of power is the provision for judicial review. MCLA 423.242; MSA 17.455(42). While not as broad as the South Dakota appeal de novo, 72 Col L Rev 1192, 1204, fn 73, the Michigan statute covers all appropriate bases for review from an arbitration award, without permitting the relitigation which would whittle away at the binding authority behind the arbitration concept. Thus, it is clear, the restrictions on the authority of arbitrators are both apparent and real, and serve effectively to close the gap between the people and the arbitrators. C. Length of Tenure and Character of Job. It is suggested that the statutory system gives rise to a kind of hit-and-run decision-making process which permits the city to first insulate itself from unpopular decisions by delegating them elsewhere, and then further insulating itself by leaving no one around to take the blame. However, long tenure does not guarantee publicly conscientious and accountable public servants, nor does short service automatically equate with irresponsibility. As we have seen too many times in the past, development and perpetuation of a bureaucracy may be but another method of insulating and camouflaging the real decision-maker. The issue is that of responsibility to the people. The Legislature has resolved this in the past, and may choose to do so in the future, with both long- and short-term bodies. We should not have overmuch concern with the temporal nature of the arbitration panels. There is much to be said for selecting an arbitrator with particular expertise concerning a specific dispute, perhaps an arbitrator with roots in the community involved. Long terms in office could conceivably, by removing the arbitrators from everyday relationship to the parties, militate against this important type of responsibility. While all parties are working on an ad hoc short-term basis, all are engaged as well in long-term relationships in the field of arbitration with other employers and employees. The arbitrator is in a profession where his reputation for impartiality and reasonableness is important to future employment, whether by these parties or someone else. He has to maintain the short-term and long-term confidence of both sides, or else suffer an inability to perform well in this and other appointments. The public employer remains responsible for the quality of its labor negotiators, and in the event of arbitration, for the performance of its appointed representative, for the effectiveness of its presentation to the arbitration panel, for the reasonableness of its offer, and for its role in the maintenance of the type of employer-employee relations which avoid open warfare and extremism. Further, it is doubtful that the citizens of the governmental unit will long tolerate an administration which consistently proves itself unable to resolve labor problems without crisis. The union must maintain its long-term credibility, or else its demands will be met with a jaundiced eye and the union leadership itself will suffer because of a loss of confidence by its membership and the community. The short period during which arbitrators operate is a period of high visibility, where publicity is focused on the process of bargaining. While their role in the appointment strengthens the accountability of the appointers, such public attention also serves to strengthen the accountability of appointees. They are the focal point of general interest during this intense session of activity, and attempts to do otherwise than follow the legislative mandate will be, at the very least, soundly criticized. The tripartite arbitration setup is more properly thought of as a kind of adversary proceeding, rather than the type of labor court which results from a permanent tribunal setup. [19] The latter was not the legislative intent in designating arbitration panels to achieve impasse resolution. The Legislature was undoubtedly familiar with the success of compulsory arbitration by ad hoc panels specially chosen to cope with a given impending crisis. They were choosing from history rather than trying to make history. [20] D. Kind of Power Delegated. The Legislature made only a narrow grant of power, consisting of submission of unresolved issues on wages and working conditions to a panel and a decision by that panel made according to legislatively-mandated standards which is final and binding on both parties. It is apparent that by the time problems reach the arbitration panel, the issues already have been sharpened by the process of negotiation. The panels operate with a great deal of independence within this narrow spectrum, but a well-articulated series of standards and a broad provision for judicial review serve to channel these efforts. Individuals to whom such limited discretion is delegated require less accountability than recipients of a broad, unlimited grant of power. The greatest discretion is properly exercised only by officials elected directly by the people, where accountability is accordingly greatest. Where less-independent operation is possible, accountability must still be present, but it may be less. The three criteria we have discussed, supra, operate within the framework of this fourth one, and, at the same time, all four relate with one another. Ultimately, a subjective judgment is required to determine whether all four factors balance one another in a network which constitutes a delegation with sufficient accountability. Thus, a statute delegating a narrow grant of power need not contain as direct lines to the electorate as one where the power was far broader. Further, if the narrow power is defined by well-drawn standards and adequate provision for judicial review, other requirements, such as permanence in office, are concomitantly lessened. Such is the scheme drawn by the Michigan compulsory arbitration statute. X  CONCLUSION In this case this Court is confronted with the possible unconstitutionality of a comparatively new but highly effective device in maintaining good public employer-employee relations and labor peace, on the one hand. On the other hand is the possibility of a significant erosion of our publicly accountable form of government by a device whose greatest effectiveness, some say, is its substitution of outside, non-politically accountable impartial experts to resolve conflicts by making decisions which could be embarrassing to responsible public officials whose everyday business is to deal with such matters. This Court would be shirking its duty if, in heeding Chief Justice BUSHNELL'S quote of Justice Brandeis, To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility, 322 Mich 332, 340, we blindly gave a carte blanche to the introduction of any system of compulsory arbitration. On the other hand, it would be equally reprehensible not to make a serious effort to visualize the constitutional area in which the Legislature can properly operate to draw up compulsory arbitration schemes. If we push through the thicket of language which has grown up around this issue, we find what we are all really concerned about is not what the Legislature can or cannot give away, and what the circumstances of such donations should be, but rather, what the people can or cannot give away. What the people cannot give away seems to be public responsibility and accountability in the management of its business, whatever the managers are called. We feel that a sufficient combination of protection because of political accountability through the type of appointment, legal accountability through sufficient standards of delegation, and personal accountability of the manager through length of tenure and public exposure of the job, balanced by the importance and breadth of the power granted, safeguards the public in this respect. Professor Frank Cooper's analysis, weighing the advantage of delegation against the hazards involved [to] make a pragmatic judgment as to whether the constitutional protections have been observed, could be applied in the actual facts of this case somewhat as follows: A. Advantages of Delegation. 1  Continuation of successful and effective labor-management tool that has prevented costly work stoppages which could produce crisis situations. 2  Support of important legislation responsive to a specific constitutional authorization. B. Hazards. 1  Selection of the panels is outside ordinary political processes. However, appointment of the arbitrator chairman controlling the swing vote by the gubernatorially top appointed labor relations official, the chairman of MERC, guarantees high public visibility and accountability. That the employer and employee representatives can combine to outvote the arbitrator/chairman is really immaterial, for the only reason for arbitration was their previous inability to agree. The proximity of the appointment to the electoral process guarantees a high degree of political accountability. 2  Arbitrators operate independently. However, the statute's very specific and ample standards of delegation of authority plus specifically provided judicial review insures a high degree of legal accountability. 3  While the tenure of the job is brief, suggesting personal lack of accountability, there are several countervailing factors. First, arbitrators are a highly professional group, trained for and proud of their impartiality and professionalism. Their ability to acquire future employment requires sufficient impartiality to be acceptable to both labor and management. Second, fire and police compulsory arbitration most often takes place in the focus of intense public and media scrutiny. Third, the appointee while independent is constrained by the legal standards just considered and responsibility to his appointer to stay within the law. In sum, therefore, while the length of tenure is too short to impose any considerable degree of personal accountability, professionalism, the public atmosphere in which police/fire compulsory arbitration is usually carried out, the legal standards and respect for the appointing authority all tend to indicate there is probably a considerable degree of personal accountability. 4  The job is important but the areas of discretion suitably delimited. Summing up we believe this case presents us an important and successful social experiment carefully drafted by the Legislature in specific response to the Constitution with the hazards of delegation carefully protected against by the provision of a high degree of political and legal accountability and substantial degree of personal accountability. We therefore feel that there has been no violation of the constitutional proscription against delegation of power to a non-publicly accountable person where the appointment to the panel of the arbitration/chairman is made by the chairman of MERC. While the other appointment alternative of co-option of the arbitrator/chairman by the municipal and employee representatives is not factually before us, our analysis indicates that the first hazard factor of political accountability is not at all well satisfied by this form of co-option. Except as the representative of the municipality may be an elected officer or appointed by one, the distance of the panel from the election process is apt to be considerable. It is doubtful whether the strong legal accountability plus some personal accountability presents a strong enough counterweight to the weakness of the political accountability factor. In any event that question is left for future appropriate decision. As applicable to the instant facts, 1969 PA 312 is not an unconstitutional delegation to a non-publicly responsible arbitration panel. We would therefore affirm and permit the act to operate and industrial peace to reign under the stated condition. We affirm. No costs a public question. SWAINSON, J.W. FITZGERALD, and LINDEMER, JJ., took no part in the decision of this case.