Court Opinion

ID: 9693337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:37:55.126317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:45.159115
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
I am unable to agree with the court’s approach but concur in the result. My problem with the court’s approach is its suggestion that transfer or reduction procedures based only on seniority would violate legislative intent. I find nothing in the statute to support that suggestion. It ignores the elaborate delineation of school board and teacher rights in chapter 279, and it violates the precept that the merits of a proposal are not relevant in interpreting the statute;
PERB’s interpretation should be upheld in this case on a different ground. If criteria for identifying persons to be transferred or terminated were not embraced in the terms “transfer procedures” and “procedures for staff reduction,” the parties would have no reason to bargain about the means of implementing transfers or staff reduction. It is essential to determine who is to be transferred or terminated before transfer or termination can occur. The association recognizes this in reaching outside these terms to the word “seniority” which is a separate mandatory bargaining topic. If a separate topic is somehow relevant, however, no reason exists to stop with seniority. Other listed topics such as wages, job classifications and health and safety matters would seem equally relevant. The fact is that the scope of each bargaining topic must depend on its own meaning.
I would hold that “transfer procedures” and “procedures for staff reductions” independently and necessarily include the duty to bargain over criteria to be used in determining who is to be transferred or terminated.
HARRIS, J., joins this special concurrence.