Opinion ID: 2374012
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: right of professional employees

Text: 4-1 Nothing contained herein shall supersede the provisions of the School Laws of Pennsylvania, 1949, as amended, or other applicable laws and regulations. 4-2 An Employee will not be disciplined, reprimanded, reduced in rank, contractual compensation or contractual advantage without just cause. Any just [sic] actions asserted by the Board or any agent or representative thereof shall be subject to the grievance procedure herein described.
4-8 In conferences dealing with an unsatisfactory rating, demotion, suspension, or dismissal of an Employee, the Employee may invite a representative of the bargaining unit to be present. Except in an emergency, the Employee will be given at least 24 hours notice of the scheduling of such conference. Our analysis must first focus upon whether section 4-2 intended to encompass dismissal. If the agreement did not intend to encompass the question of dismissal, then such action is not arbitrable under the agreement and the arbitrator had no authority to address the question. Sley System Garages v. Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, Local 700, 406 Pa. 370, 178 A.2d 560 (1962). It is obvious from a reading of section 4-2 that it does not employ the term dismissal. Therefore we must determine whether the term discipline in section 4-2 of the Agreement was intended by the parties to include dismissal. If this was their intention, dismissals would be actions asserted by the Board . . . subject to the grievance procedure set forth in Article V of the Agreement. Such an interpretation is untenable for several reasons. Initially, it is clear that the language of the Agreement lends no support to the argument that the parties intended the term discipline to include dismissal of a professional employee for any purpose. At the outset, the Agreement makes it clear the parties intended not to supersede or contravene the provisions of the Code. See section 4-1. The Code specifically discusses termination of contract, § 11-1130, [6] dismissals, § 11-1127 [7] and discharge, § 11-1122. [8] The Code does not employ the term discipline, nor does it attempt to establish standards for its imposition. Thus, the use of the term discipline in the Agreement, consistent with the Agreement's stated intention of not superseding the Code, would appear to refer to actions other than termination of contract, dismissal and/or discharge, which are specifically provided for in the Code. Further, it is highly significant that, while the term dismissal is not used in section 4-2, which defines matters subject to mandatory arbitration, that word is found in section 4-8, which gives an employee the right to have a union representative present at conferences dealing with. . . dismissal. [9] (Emphasis supplied.) This explicit reference to dismissal in another section of the same Article refutes the contention that the parties intended dismissal to be subsumed by the term discipline in section 4-2. The significance of the omission of the term dismissal in section 4-2 is further highlighted by reading sections 4-2 and 4-8 together: The term demotion is employed in section 4-8, while a precise definition of that term appears in section 4-2, reduc[tion] in rank, contractual compensation or contractual advantage. Demotion is the only other type of Board action against a professional employee which entitles that employee to the procedural safeguards prescribed in sections 1127-1132 of the Code. Section 1151 provides: § 11-1151. Salary increases; demotions The salary of any district superintendent, assistant district superintendent or other professional employe in any school district may be increased at any time during the term for which such person is employed, whenever the board of school directors of the district deems it necessary or advisable to do so, but there shall be no demotion of any professional employe, either in salary or in type of position, except as otherwise provided in this act, without the consent of the employe, or, if such consent is not received, then such demotion shall be subject to the right to a hearing before the board of school directors and an appeal in the same manner as hereinbefore provided in the case of the dismissal of a professional employe. 24 P.S. § 11-1151 (Supp.1982-83) (Emphasis supplied). However, section 1151 of the Code differs from section 1122 of the Code in two important respects: (1) the hearing is at the employee's option and (2) no standard governing demotion is set forth in the Code. Thus, including demotion among the subjects of mandatory arbitration would not supersede or contravene any standard or procedure mandated by the Code. Cf. Rylke v. Portage Area School District, 473 Pa. 481, 375 A.2d 692 (1977). In contrast, an attempt to read dismissal as subsumed within the term discipline set forth in section 4-2 of the Agreement would contravene the mandatory provisions of sections 1122-1131 of the Code. Moreover, the essential distinction which must be drawn between dismissal and discipline must be ascertained not by resorting to a dictionary but by tracing the interplay between the Code and the Agreement. This relationship is carefully recognized in the Agreement itself. Whereas the school board's power to dismiss a professional employee is explicitly granted by the Code, the board's broad disciplinary powers are implicit in the board's statutory responsibilities. See Barth v. Philadelphia School District, 393 Pa. 557, 143 A.2d 909 (1958); Abington School District v. Yost, 40 Pa.Commw. 312, 397 A.2d 453 (1979); see generally 24 P.S. § 2-211. Section 510 of the Code confers the power to promulgate rules and regulations governing the conduct of employees, including professional employees such as tenured teachers: § 5-510. Rules and regulations; safety patrols The board of school directors in any school district may adopt and enforce such reasonable rules and regulations as it may deem necessary and proper, regarding the management of its school affairs and the conduct and deportment of all superintendents, teachers, and other appointees or employes during the time they are engaged in their duties to the district. 24 P.S. § 5-510 (Supp.1982-1983). The only limitations upon this rulemaking power are that rules and regulations be reasonable and relate to on-the-job behavior. The power to regulate conduct, of course, would be illusory absent a concomitant power to enforce rules through the imposition of some form of discipline. Yet the Code prescribes neither standards for imposing such discipline nor procedures to be employed in the disciplinary process. Thus an employee aggrieved by an unjust disciplinary action would have no recourse but the courts. A contractual provision such as section 4-2 fills this standardless void in the Code, protecting employees from unjust disciplinary actions by making grievances arising from such actions the subject of mandatory arbitration proceedings wherein a just cause standard is determinative. Such provisions serve as a check on a school board's undefined discretionary authority as well as a desirable alternative to litigation. Thus provisions such as section 4-2 complement rather than supersede the Code, and further the purposes of PERA. Once this definition of discipline is recognized, the function of section 4-2 within the Agreement and the statutory scheme becomes clear: The Code furnishes no criteria for the discipline, reprimand or demotion of a professional employee; section 4-2 establishes a just cause standard for such actions. Thus section 4-2 embodies a significant concession by the District with respect to a previously indefinite exercise of its authority. Finally, if arbitration were permissible under the Agreement notwithstanding the Board's compliance with the statutory dismissal process, section 4-2 would supersede the Code in violation of the express terms of section 4-1 of the Agreement and of section 703 of PERA, 43 P.S. § 1101.703. If the adjudicative processes and jurisdictional grants mandated under the Code were not exclusive, a decision of the Board to dismiss a professional employee would be rendered meaningless, as would any decision adverse to the employee rendered by the Secretary of Education, the Court of Common Pleas or the appellate courts. Those decisions would not be binding upon the employee should the Board's initial decision remain perpetually subject to relitigation by an arbitrator applying a different standard. Such a result would offend all notions of finality. Moreover, this Commonwealth's goal, in providing for arbitration of labor grievances, of avoiding labor litigation, would be frustrated. The availability of parallel remedies, each with full appellate rights, would indefinitely delay the dismissal of any professional school employee. To interpret the Agreement as intending this absurd result, therefore, would be irrational. See Unit Vending Corp. v. Lacas, 410 Pa. 614, 190 A.2d 298 (1963); Berke v. Bregman, 406 Pa. 142, 176 A.2d 644 (1962).