Court Opinion

ID: 5164799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-02 03:23:13.469141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:48.242730
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
I agree that the 1980 opt-out resolution of the Kodiak Island Borough is invalid. I *1115reach this conclusion on the basis of the fact that the resolution was untimely, coming as it did more than seven years after the effective date of PERA. This court has not established a specific time limit for a public employer to exempt itself from PERA. However, we have made it clear that “a public employer which chooses to opt out of PERA must do so promptly, rather than at its leisure.... ” Anchorage Mun. Employees Ass’n v. Municipality of Anchorage, 618 P.2d 575, 579 (Alaska 1980) (opt-out resolution passed one month after municipal entity was created held timely). Although we have never set a definite outside limit after which a municipality’s attempted opt-out would be considered untimely, it seems clear to me that the 1980 resolution of the Borough is necessarily beyond any reasonable limit.
I do not think that today’s opinion is on sound ground in concluding that awareness of substantial organizational activity by employees necessarily precludes an employer from rejecting PERA. The point of State v. City of Petersburg, 538 P.2d 263 (Alaska 1975), is that an employer should not be able to change the rules by which organizational contests are conducted in the midst of a contest. In the present case the contest was over. The organizational election had been held and the union had lost. Despite the fact that the Borough was aware of these events, recognizing the opt-out as valid would not be unfair because the opt-out did not interfere with ongoing organizational activities.