Opinion ID: 1982034
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Mandatory or Permissive Character of the Union's Proposal.

Text: Well-established general principles govern our determination whether a specific collective bargaining proposal is mandatory or permissive. Mandatory topics are restricted to those specifically delineated in Iowa Code section 20.9, which provides: The public employer and the employee organization shall meet at reasonable times, including meetings reasonably in advance of the public employer's budget-making process, to negotiate in good faith with respect to wages, hours, vacations, insurance, holidays, leaves of absence, shift differentials, overtime compensation, supplemental pay, seniority, transfer procedures, job classifications, health and safety matters, evaluation procedures, procedures for staff reduction, in-service training and other matters mutually agreed upon.... (Emphasis added.) We have narrowly and restrictively construed this statutory list of mandatory subjects of bargaining. See Charles City Education Association, 291 N.W.2d at 667; City of Fort Dodge v. Public Employment Relations Board, 275 N.W.2d 393, 398 (Iowa 1979). Our restrictive reading of section 20.9 is consistent with the broad rights reserved to public employers in Iowa Code section 20.7, which in pertinent part provides: Public employers shall have ... the exclusive power, duty, and the right to: 1. Direct the work of its public employees. 2. Hire, promote, demote, transfer, assign and retain public employees in positions within the public agency. . . . . 4. Maintain the efficiency of governmental operations. . . . . 6. Determine and implement methods, means, assignments and personnel by which the public employer's operations are to be conducted. . . . . The union contends that its proposed Working Environment and Safety contract provision falls within the health and safety matters language of Iowa Code section 20.9. It urges that the proposal, even when read literally, is very modest in scope and would require that the employer merely review existing manpower needs in the light of national and state standards designed to promote and preserve the health and safety of law enforcement officers. The city, in response, argues that the proposal at its core infringes upon the reserved rights of the employer to assign personnel to specific tasks, determine manning requirements, and maintain efficient and economic governmental operations. We must take the proposal at its face value. It is not for the PER Board or a court on judicial review to rewrite the parties' contract proposals. This union proposal, if written into the parties' collective bargaining agreement, would impose on the city the duty to review the number of officers on the force and the assignment of those officers to certain tasks. The city would be required to develop guidelines for backup assistance in emergency situations. The proposal clearly would impinge on the management rights which section 20.7 reserves to the city as a public employer. The PER Board has consistently found contract proposals similar to the union's proposal here to be permissive in character even though they also reflected health and safety concerns. See City of Ottumwa, 81 PERB 1891 (1981); City of Newton, 78 PERB 1322 (1978); City of Dubuque, 77 PERB 964 (1977). In City of Dubuque, where the disputed union proposal called for two-man patrol cars or, alternatively, a minimum of eleven one-man cars for patrol operations, the PER Board provided the following thoughtful and persuasive analysis: There is no question that the proposal before us relates directly to the establishment of manpower needs and the deployment of personnel by the City, matters which are indeed considered managerial prerogatives not normally subject to mandatory bargaining. At the same time, it cannot be disputed that, in the broadest sense of the term, the safety of any individual policeman could in some manner be enhanced by an increase in the total number of personnel. The issue, then, is whether the predominant characteristic of the proposal is one of safety, and thus a mandatory subject, or manpower, and thus permissive. It is our opinion that the subject is predominantly one of manpower. Simply stated, we perceive a staffing policy such as the one before us as having only a speculative and uncertain impact on safety in most instances. Accordingly, although the general subject of safety as a means of protecting employees beyond the normal hazards inherent in their work is a mandatory subject of bargaining, and although the manpower requirements of a particular operating circumstance might fall within that category, it is our judgment that staffing, in and of itself, is not sufficiently related to safety so as to include it as a mandatory subject. Rather, it is predominately an element of managerial determination and governmental policy bearing on the extent and quality of service to the public. Id. at 3-4. The PER Board quoted those two paragraphs in its written decision in this case, then held that the union's bargaining proposal here was permissive even though having safety ramifications because the proposal specifically relates to the level and deployment of manpower.... The district court on judicial review upheld that ruling, concluding that the union proposal impermissibly intrudes upon the policy-making decisions of the employer, especially those set out in section 20.7(6). The district court further explained: While the health and safety of the patrol officers should be a very real concern of the employer, it does not necessarily follow that the proposal by the union is the method that should be used by the employer to arrive at the decisions concerning such matters. The PER Board and the district court have both correctly construed Iowa code sections 20.7 and 20.9 as they apply to the union's proposal here in question. Their reading of the statute and this proposal mirrors our own. AFFIRMED.