Court Opinion

ID: 9721947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:13:09.874204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:29.501542
License: Public Domain

COFFEY, J. (dissenting).
I agree with the holding of the trial court that the arbitrator usurped the prerogative of the city, acting through its public library officials, to establish job qualifications. The union filed a grievance on behalf of JoAnn Brewer, alleging that the library had violated art. VIII, sec. 3, of the collective bargaining agreement between the library and the union. The relevant portion of the section which the *110union claimed was violated dealt with vacancies not filed by transfers within the library system. Such vacancies were to be posted and employees given an opportunity to apply for them, according to art. VIII, sec. 2 of the collective bargaining agreement. Art. VIII, sec. 3 provided that the employee to fill the vacancy should be selected on the basis of seniority, work record and qualifications.
The vacancy for Library Assistant II was posted in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement. The posting set forth the required qualifications:
“Knowledge of books and authors; knowledge of the principles and practices of library science; ability to undertake public contact work involving familiarity with books ; ability to establish and maintain harmonious and effective working relationships with patrons and other employees; ability to operate a typewriter when assigned to cataloging, ordering, or similar duties; two or more years of college (liberal arts) or its equivalent as determined by management.”
JoAnn Brewer did not receive the promotion. Jill Gust was selected to fill the vacancy. It is not disputed that she met the requirement of two years of college in liberal arts. It is also undisputed that JoAnn Brewer did not. However, the union claimed that JoAnn Brewer’s eight years of work experience in the library was the equivalent of the educational qualification. The library disagreed. It exercised its management prerogative to determine that only formal education would be considered an equivalent of two years of college in liberal arts.
In 1973, there had been another dispute between the union and the library as to the requirement of two or more years of college as a job qualification. In 1973, the qualification standard had stated that two or more years of college was desirable. Nevertheless, the 1973 grievance was resolved on the basis that management *111had the right to insist on two years of college. Subsequently, the job classification was modified, so as to remove the statement that two years of college was desired and substitute the language in question, which made two or more years of formal schooling mandatory.
The question submitted to the arbitrator was stated by the parties as follows:
“Did the employer violate the parties’ 1977-1978 Collective Bargaining Agreement by denying the grievant the posted position of Library Assistant II and, if so, what remedy is appropriate ?”
The only question which the arbitrator was required to determine was whether the vacancy was filled on some basis other than seniority, work record and qualifications. The arbitrator did not decide this question. He went far beyond the scope of the submission, and ruled that the library had acted in an arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory manner by insisting on its posted and long-standing requirement of two years of college for the job classification.
The majority says the arbitrator implemented the library’s duty of fair and impartial administration of the promotion clause of the collective bargaining agreement by implying a duty to assess employee qualifications individually in a manner which was not arbitrary and capricious. Translated, this means that the arbitrator had the power under the submission to strike down educational requirements by determining, as he did in this case, that they were not necessary for the performance of the job. It should be stressed that there is no suggestion in this record or in the arbitrator’s decision that the library acted in bad faith toward JoAnn Brewer. The arbitrator’s decision that the two year college requirement was arbitrary is grounded on his conclusion that management did not present adequate reasons in *112defense of the educational requirement. But the determination of job qualifications is a decision reserved to management under the collective bargaining agreement, which provides in art. VI, sec. 1, that the library reserves the right to determine job description classifications. The evidence shows that these classifications include qualifications, and have for a number of years prior to the time this case arose. This was clear to the union as well as to the management, because the identical issue had arisen in an arbitration case in 1973, which the library won. The arbitrator’s decision cannot stand unless the majority is willing to say that the arbitrator may invalidate long-standing job qualification requirements applied by management in good faith in this dispute, not on the ground that there was any intent to discriminate against JoAnn Brewer, but on the ground that management had not proved the requirements were necessary to further a legitimate management objective. Apparently the majority is willing to say so. I am not.
For me, this case is controlled by our recent decision in Milwaukee v. Milwaukee Police Asso., 97 Wis.2d 15, 292 N.W.2d 841 (1980), where the court stated as follows:
“We must look to whether the arbitrator exceeded the limits of his power under the contract. If the arbitrator in effect undertook to amend the contract, to substitute his own discretion for that vested in one or another of the parties or if the arbitrator acted to dispense his own brand of justice the award will be vacated. . . . The arbitrator is free to give his own construction to ambiguous language in the collective bargaining agreement but he is without authority to disregard or modify plain and unambiguous provisions. . . . The award must ‘draw its essence’ from the collective bargaining agreement. . . .” (Citations omitted.) Id. at 26-27.
The majority distinguishes Milwaukee v. Milwaukee Police Asso., supra, on the ground that the Milwaukee *113arbitrator’s decision conflicted with the management rights given by statute, rather than by the contract. The majority implies that an arbitrator’s exclusive power of interpretation and construction does not extend to the construction of a statute. I disagree. The Milwaukee contract'incorporated the relevant statutes governing the duties and prerogatives of the police chief, expressly reserving matters covered by those statutes to him. The Milwaukee arbitrator was called on to construe and apply those statutes by virtue of his power to interpret the terms of the contract. His error was in ordering relief which usurped the power of the chief, in conflict with the statute, and therefore exceeding his power because he undertook to amend the contract. If the statute had been ambiguous on the question of the chief’s power to transfer a police officer to a particular assignment, the arbitrator’s construction of it would have been binding on the parties. A clear reservatioñ of management rights (or a clear declaration of union rights, for that matter) in a collective bargaining agreement is entitled to the same dignity as an unambiguous statute which is incorporated into the agreement. An unclear statute is subject to construction by the arbitrator, without court review, just as an unclear provision of the collective bargaining agreement is. The policy of our law favoring the resolution of municipal labor disputes by final and binding arbitration demands no less.
In the case at bar, the plain terms of the collective bargaining agreement reserved the establishment of job qualifications to management. Management’s decision, uniformly applied so far as this record indicates, to require two years of college as a prerequisite for the position of Library Assistant II was not arbitrable. Management was not called on to justify the requirement. I would hold that the arbitrator exceeded the limits of his power under the contract, in that he struck down quali*114fications which were a management determination under the contract, thereby modifying it. He had no power to do this, either under the contract or under the submission, which was restricted to the question of whether the contract had been violated by application of the longstanding requirement of two years of college. I would reverse the decision of the court of appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court.