Court Opinion

ID: 9711071
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:24:00.016233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.039663
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the Court, but for reasons that differ somewhat from those given in the majority opinion, that the Mars Area School District should have engaged in collective bargaining as to the termination of employment of the paid teacher aides, and that its failure to do so constituted a violation of Section 1201(a)(5) of the Public Employe Relations Act.1 (“PERA” or “the Act”). I cannot agree, however, for the reasons explained in part II hereof, that the District by its conduct also transgressed Section 1201(a)(1) of the Act. I would not therefore reinstate the order of the Board as it is written.2
I.
Less than two months before the School District, by unilateral action, terminated the positions of the paid teacher aides the District had recognized the bargaining unit of its employees and their collective bargaining representative, the Association, through the formal process of collective *305bargaining and the negotiation of a labor agreement. The contract included provisions for the wages, hours and working conditions of the employees covered by the bargaining unit, and was executed, presumably in good faith, on May 8, 1972, reciting an effective date of July 1, 1972. Four days before the effective date of the agreement the School District acted to dismiss the teacher aides.
I believe that where, as here, a public employer negotiates and enters into a collective bargaining agreement the continued existence of positions recognized by the agreement for and during its term may fairly be said to come within the meaning of “terms and conditions of employment” under Section 701 of the PERA, 43 P.S. § 1101.701. While the contract did not specifically guarantee work for any employee, it can only be read to embody a tacit understanding by both parties that the positions which the agreement recognized would, in fact, continue. Indeed, the contract language, while sparse, suggests that it was intended as an extension of the practice with respect to the paid teacher aides program which had obtained in the preceding year.3 No support for the School District’s action can be found in the management rights provision which is silent on any anticipated changes in the use of paraprofessional personnel.4 In such a situation, it is entirely reasonable to conclude *306that the security of these positions falls within the language of Section 701 as a bargainable item. This is particularly true where, as here, the employer is uniquely in a position to know or anticipate during the collective bargaining process the need, such as may be caused by budgetary constraints, for immediate further changes of its use of its employees.5
What has been said makes it necessary to reject the School District’s contention that its decision to terminate the employment here involved fell within the purview of the unilateral decision-making power reserved to management under Section 702 of the PERA, 43 P.S. 1101.702. In striking a balance between the values sought to be conserved by Sections 701 and 702, respectively, of the Act it is necessary, as the opinions in State College6 made clear, to gauge the impact of an issue on the respective interests of employees and employer. In that case I ventured to express the “impact test” for striking a balance between those two sections in terms which differed somewhat from those used in the majority opinion. I suggested that “the factors to be balanced in determining the susceptibility of an item to collective bargaining are the probable effects of the granting or refusal of the item upon (a) the individual performance by the teachers of their duties as such, and upon (b) the *307school board’s overall operation of an educational system within its district.” I further stated that “[i]f the effect of the granting or denial of a request [for bargaining] would be more direct, immediate and substantial upon the teachers’ individual performance of their duties than it would be upon the school board’s overall operation of an educational system, the item should be considered negotiable.” 461 Pa. at 515, 337 A.2d at 272 (concurring opinion of Pomeroy, J.). The State College majority would find the issue bargainable if its impact “on the interest of the employee in wages, hours and terms and conditions of employment outweighs its probable effect on the basic policy of the system as a whole.” 461 Pa. at 507, 337 A.2d at 268. Whichever formulation be utilized in the case at bar, I am satisfied that the termination of the paid teacher aides, with a resultant savings to the School District of $25,000, or less than one percent of its overall budget, did not affect the “functions and programs”, see Sec. 702 of the Act, of this particular public employer so as to remove the item from the duty to bargain under Section 701; nor was the determination whether the program could or should be continued, with or without modification, of any major significance to the overall operation of the Mars Area School system in ways other than financial. The termination of the aide positions did, however, have an immediate, direct and drastically adverse effect on the employees involved. I agree, therefore, that the employer’s action in terminating the employment of the complainants unilaterally, without bargaining, was in violation of the Act.
II.
While I agree that the School District was properly held to be in violation of the Act for “[refusing to bargain collectively in good faith” see the PERA Sec. 1201(a)(5), 43 P.S. 1101.1201(a)(5), I cannot agree that the Board was correct in also finding that the School District was guilty of “[interfering, restraining or coercing employes in the exercise of their rights guaranteed in Article IV of this act.” Sec. 1201(a)(1), 43 P.S. 1101.1201(a)(1). Indeed, the record is *308barren of any acts of interference, restraint or coercion whatever by the employer in its dealings with the employees. I thus dissent from the Court’s direction that the Board’s order be reinstated as written.
The majority appears to find justification for the Board’s order with respect to § 1201(a)(1) in the Board’s finding that the School District replaced the teacher aides with volunteers. As both courts below determined, however, the record does not support this finding. Their conclusion is validated by reference to background information not adverted to in the majority opinion.
It is important to note that the School District’s utilization of a volunteer aide program predates the present controversy, having been begun in late 1967 or early 1968. At that time, volunteer aides were assigned to specific teachers. The aides performed tutorial and clerical work under the teachers’ supervision, but performed no supervisory functions themselves. During the 1971-72 school year, there were approximately seventy7 such aides working in the School District on a purely voluntary basis. The volunteers chose their own work schedules and were free to quit any time without notice.
The inception of the paid teacher aide program came about not long before the negotiation of the instant agreement. In 1971 a few persons who formerly worked as part-time cafeteria supervisors were hired as full-time employees and redesignated as teacher aides. Their numbers were increased, the scope of their duties enlarged and the length of the work day extended to seven and one-half hours. As previously stated, in the 1971-72 school year there were eleven paid teacher aides working in the School District. Their supervisory duties consisted of monitoring students on the playground, in the cafeteria, in study hall, in the hallways of the schools, in the libraries, in the busloading areas and during auditorium programs. In addition, the aides performed general clerical work for the professional *309staff and assisted teachers with tutorial and housekeeping duties in the classrooms.
Following termination of the eleven teacher aide positions there was no “engaging of volunteer aides” to do the work of the paid aides, as the Board erroneously found. Rather, the school district simply continued in effect its five year old policy of using volunteer aides. Thus the record shows that after the complainants were discharged, (1) the volunteer aides continued to do what they had done previously, some of which overlapped with what the paid teacher aides did; (2) some of the tasks performed by the paid teacher aides were taken over by the teachers in accordance with the practice in the School District before the paid teacher aides were hired; and (3) if the tasks of the paid teacher aides were not absorbed by volunteer aides or teachers already on the staff, they were not performed at all. In light of these undisputed facts, it is quite inaccurate to declare, as the Court does, that “volunteers substantially replaced teacher-aides,” Opinion of the Court, ante at 303, or to suggest that the degree of utilization of volunteers that continued after the discharge of the paid aides was an interference, restraint or coercion of the paid aides in the exercise of their rights.
Although the record does not support a finding that the School District replaced paid teacher aides with volunteers or that the District by any other conduct was in fact guilty of interfering with, restraining or coercing its employees, the majority seems to hold that a violation of Sec. 1201(a)(1) of the Act may nevertheless be found from the refusal to bargain relative to the termination of the paid teacher aide program and positions. See Opinion of the Court, ante at 1076. But that refusal, all are agreed, is a violation of Sec. 1201(a)(5), “[rjefusing to bargain collectively in good faith”. Nothing in the PERA suggests or warrants the conclusion that this failure, without more, is to be deemed also a violation of the entirely separate first clause of § 1201(a), “interfering, restraining or coercing employes.” The Court’s sole basis for such a tour de force is three totally inapposite federal cases relative to the National Labor Relations Act, *310which the Court transports into our interpretative case law pertaining to Pennsylvania’s PERA. But as the Court has said in State College, supra, our leading case dealing with the problems which inhere in Sections 701 and 702 of the Act, while federal decisions may provide some guidance in view of the linguistic similarities between parts of the NLRA and PERA, “it does not necessarily follow that federal precedent relating to private employment is particularly helpful in resolving difficulties in the public sector.” 461 Pa. at 499, 337 A.2d at 264. See also, Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board v. Employees’ Committee of the Wilkinsburg Sanitation Dept., 463 Pa. 521, 345 A.2d 641 (1975). It is clear to me that subsection (1) of § 1201(a) of the Act is primarily directed at employer frustration of union organizing efforts rather than at employer refusal to bargain.8 At any rate, each of the four clauses of Sec. 1201(a) specifies a discrete type of activity which the Act expressly forbids. While in a given case the illegal conduct may offend more than one of the prohibited acts, I see no virtue or warrant, absent some factual basis not present here, in escalating one clear violation, (refusal to bargain), into another violation, (interference, restraint or coercion).
For the above reasons, I dissent from the mandate to reinstate the order of the Board as written. Rather, I would vacate the orders of the Commonwealth Court and the court of common pleas and remand to the Board for the entry of an order consistent with this opinion.

. Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, No. 195, art. XII, § 1201(a)(5), 43 P.S. § 1101.1201(a)(5) (Supp.1978).

. The Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board’s “nisi order,” issued on June 6, 1973, became the final order of the Board on September 27, 1973. The order directed the School District to do the following:
“1. Cease and desist from, in any manner, interfering, restraining, or coercing its employes in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Article IV of the Public Employe Relations Act and specifically to cease and desist from preventing employes from engaging in their lawful concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection within the meaning of Section 1201(a)(1) of the Act.
“2. Cease and desist from refusing to bargain collectively with Mars Area Association of School Service Personnel/PSSPA/PSEA over elimination of paid teacher aides and engaging volunteer aides to do their work within the meaning of Section 1201(a)(5) of the Act.”

. The paid teacher aide program had been commenced during the 1971-72 school year by the hiring of eleven persons whose loss of employment is the occasion of this litigation. Appendix “A” of the labor agreement entered into on May 8, 1972, provided as follows with respect to teacher aides:
“V. Teacher Aides
“Teacher aides shall receive an increase of seven percent (7%) in the salary they received in the 1971-72 school year, for 185-day teacher work year as scheduled by the Superintendent for the 1972-73 school year. The teacher aides work day shall consist of seven and one-half (7V2) hours as scheduled by the Superintendent.”

. This clause of the agreement (paragraph III) reads as follows:
“Regardless of anything to the contrary contained in this agreement, the employer reserves and retains the sole and exclusive right to determine and administer school policy, to operate and manage the work, and to determine all matters of inherent managerial policy, which shall include but shall not be limited to such *306areas of discretion or policies as the functions and programs of the Employer, standards of services, its overall budget, utilization of technology, the organizational structure and selection and direction of personnel, and the Employer further expressly reserves any and all rights and duties imposed upon it by the School Code or any of the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

. In January of 1972 the Pennsylvania Department of Education published a document entitled Guidelines for Program Development, Employment and Utilization of Education Paraprofessionals. This publication restricted or prohibited the use of paid teacher aides as they were being utilized in the Mars Area School District and indicated that there would have had to be modification of the paid teacher aides program to bring it into conformity with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The School District, however, did not purport to base its termination of the program on the directive of the Guidelines.

. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board v. State College Area School District, 461 Pa. 494, 337 A.2d 262 (1975); id. at 461 Pa. 512, 337 A.2d 270 (concurring opinion of Pomeroy, J., joined by Jones, C. J.).

. This number dropped to fifty during the 1972-73 school year.

. A finding of a violation of Section 1201(a)(1) necessarily requires a finding of interference with or restraint or coercion of employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by Section 401 of PERA, 43 P.S. § 1101.401. That section is the “employe rights” provision of the statute, and provides as follows:
“It shall be lawful for public employes to organize, form, join or assist in employee organizations or to engage in lawful concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection or to bargain collectively through representatives of their own free choice and such employes shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities, except as may be required pursuant to a maintenance of membership provision in a collective bargaining agreement.”