Opinion ID: 510615
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Resolution of Conflicting Statutory Provisions

Text: 30 Since, as an initial matter, section 709(g) of the Technician Act committed the establishment of work schedules to the unfettered discretion of the Secretary, the next question is whether that provision was implicitly repealed or confined by the subsequent enactment of the Schedules Act, which requires bargaining over work schedules. In other words, having found that there is indeed a conflict between the two statutes, we must decide whether Congress intended the specific provisions of the 1968 Technician Act or the more general provisions of the [1982 Schedules Act] to govern its resolution. New Jersey Guard, 677 F.2d at 283; see also Colorado Nurses, at 1488. 31 At this stage of our analysis, we return again to the reasoning of the court in New Jersey Guard: 32 Looking first to the statutory language, we immediately confront the preface to section 709(e) of the Technician Act, which explicitly provides that its terms apply Notwithstanding any other provision of law ... [emphasis added]. A clearer statement is difficult to imagine: section 709(e) must be read to override any conflicting provision of law in existence at the time that the Technician Act was enacted. Application of this statement is less certain, however, with respect to a statute such as theLabor-Management Act, adopted after the Technician Act. The drafters of section 709(e) can hardly be said to have had the Labor-Management Act specifically within their contemplation. Even so, the preemptive language is powerful evidence that Congress did not intend any other, more general, legislation, whenever enacted, to qualify the authority of the state adjutants general as set out in the Technician Act. The language does not preclude a subsequent change of heart on the part of Congress, but it does suggest that any qualification of the terms of section 709(e) would be accepted by Congress only after some consideration of the factors requiring or permitting such a change. 33 677 F.2d at 283. Clearly, the Third Circuit's reasoning is equally applicable to this case; we need only to substitute section 709(g) for section 709(e), Schedules Act for Labor-Management Act, and the Secretary of the Army for the state adjutants general, and our position in this case is identical. 34 We turn, therefore, to determine whether there is evidence that Congress specifically considered the possibility, in the Schedules Act, of curtailing the Secretary's discretion, under the Technician Act, over the work schedules of Guard technicians. The most persuasive evidence that it did is found in the definition section of the later statute. Although the Schedules Act itself does not specifically define the term employee, it adopts by reference the general definition of employee in section 2105 of title 5, which provides: 35 (a) For the purpose of this title, employee, except as otherwise provided by this section or when specifically modified, means ... an individual who is-- 36 (1) appointed in the civil service by one of the following acting in an official capacity-- 37 .... 38 (F) an adjutant general designated by the Secretary concerned under section 709(c) of title 32 [the Technician Act]. 39 In this case, then, as in New Jersey Guard and Wright, National Guard technicians come within the definition of a subsequently enacted statute that appears to conflict with the Technician Act. 40 In New Jersey Guard, the conflict was with the Federal Labor Act, which extends, as we have seen, to employees of Executive agenc[ies]. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 7103(a)(2)-(3). The Technician Act establishes Guard technicians as employees of the Departments of the Army and the Air Force, firmly within the Executive Branch. See U.S. Const. art. II, Sec. 2, cl. 1; New Jersey Guard, 677 F.2d at 281 n. 5. Although the Federal Labor Act exempts several named agencies, not including the Guard, the court held that insofar as it conflicted with the Technician Act, the Federal Labor Act implicitly exempted the Guard from its coverage. In Wright, the conflict was with the FLSA, which was amended in 1974 specifically to cover any individual employed ... as a civilian in the military departments. The court, still, was not persuaded that Congress had intended implicitly to repeal the inconsistent provision of the Technician Act. 41 To be sure, the definition in this case is arguably a better indicator of Congress's specific intent, inasmuch as it makes an express reference to the Technician Act. The reference, however, is indirect, if not oblique: the Schedules Act itself refers only to the broad, general definition of employee in title 5, which in turn refers to persons appointed by an adjutant general designated by the Secretary concerned under section 709(c) of title 32. We recognize that the legal effect of a provision incorporated by reference ordinarily is no different from that of a provision actually set forth in a statute. Here, however, we are looking for an indication that Congress had the National Guard in contemplation when it enacted the Schedules Act; and the incorporation of Guard technicians by a reference once removed is simply less telling evidence that Congress considered the Guard's unique situation than would be a specific inclusion of technicians eo nomine in the Schedules Act itself. 42 In addition to the conflict between section 709(g) of the Technician Act and the bargaining requirement of the Schedules Act, there is a second inconsistency between the two statutes suggesting that Congress did not have the Guard in mind when it enacted the Schedules Act. As we have mentioned, section 709(g) of the Technician Act clearly prohibits the Secretary from paying a premium to Guard technicians for overtime work. With equal clarity, however, the Schedules Act establishes methods for computing premium pay for employees working under alternative work schedules, 5 U.S.C. Secs. 6123, 6128, and prohibits agencies from agreeing to an alternative work schedule program which contains premium pay provisions which are inconsistent with [the method set forth in the Schedules Act]. Id. at Sec. 6130(b). Thus, if the Guard establishes an alternative work schedule through collective bargaining, and pays overtime compensation to employees working under that schedule, it violates the clear command of the Technician Act; if it establishes an alternative work schedule but, absent an employee's request for compensatory time off in lieu of payment, see 5 U.S.C. Sec. 5543, does not pay such compensation, it violates the equally clear command of the Schedules Act. We need not decide today, of course, which of the two provisions would be controlling. 1 Rather, the point is only that such an evident contradiction strongly suggests that Congress did not specifically consider the Technician Act, and the unusual employment status of Guard technicians, when it enacted the Schedules Act. 43 Moreover, neither the FLRA nor the intervenor has directed us to anything counter-indicative in the legislative history of the Schedules Act. 2 Borrowing and again adapting the language of New Jersey Guard, [t]here is no reference to the unique state-federal status of those employees; no recognition of any military aspects to the employment of National Guard technicians. In short, we can find no evidence whatsoever that Congress ... had within its contemplation the employment status of National Guard technicians [when it enacted the Schedules Act]. 677 F.2d at 285. 44 Therefore, the FLRA encounter[s] head-on the 'cardinal rule ... that repeals by implication are not favored.'  Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 549, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2482, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974) (quoting Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U.S. 497, 503, 56 S.Ct. 349, 352, 80 L.Ed. 351 (1936)). The force of this rule is greater still when it is urged that a specific statute has been repealed by a later but more general one. See Colorado Nurses at 1491. For, as the Supreme Court stated in Bulova Watch Co. v. United States, 365 U.S. 753, 758, 81 S.Ct. 864, 868, 6 L.Ed.2d 72 (1961) (quoting Townsend v. Little, 109 U.S. 504, 512, 3 S.Ct. 357, 362, 27 L.Ed. 1012 (1883)), it is familiar law that a specific statute controls over a general one 'without regard to priority of enactment.'  The Third Circuit applied this principle to the facts in New Jersey Guard as follows: 45 Congress in 1968 [in the Technician Act] turned its attention to the very class of federal employees involved in this dispute. It crafted with care precise provisions intended to meet concerns of federalism and military control that are duplicated nowhere else in the federal service.... One can only infer from this narrowly directed activity that Congress, upon consideration of the issue in dispute here ... decided that very matter, with explicit and specific language, in 1968. Turning to the [later] legislation, we are met with a statute addressing the employment concerns of all federal employees.... It appears inconceivable that Congress ... without a moment's thought as to the question of state control over the National Guard, or as to the needs of military discipline over Guard technicians in their dual status as civilian and military personnel, intended to eliminate, by mere implication, the controls that Congress carefully had imposed over those employees ... years earlier. 46 677 F.2d at 285-86; see also AFGE Local 2953, 730 F.2d at 1546-47. 47 Faced, as we are, with two conflicting statutes, we must do our best to harmonize them. Here, that harmony can be achieved only by reading the Technician Act as preserving a narrow exception to the broadly applicable bargaining requirement of the Schedules Act. 3