Court Opinion

ID: 9754886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:17:35.486102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:00.384863
License: Public Domain

Pashman, J.,
concurring. An exclusive majority representative of a unit of public employees is, by virtue of that *345status, charged with a fiduciary responsibility fairly to represent the interests of those employees. This duty of fair representation was the subject of statutory codification in the original Employer-Employee Relations Act (the Act), L. 1968, c. 303, N. J. 8. A. 34:13A-5.3. This Court recognized the interrelationship between the principle of exclusive majority representation and the duty of fair representation in Lullo v. Intern. Ass’n of Fire Fighters, 55 N. J. 409 (1970), where we noted that a majority representative
* * * cannot lawfully refuse to perform or neglect to perform fully and in complete good faith the duty, which is inseparable from the power of exclusive representation, to represent the entire membership of the employees in the unit.
[55 N. J. at 429]
See also Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 190, 87 S. Ct. 903, 17 L. Ed. 2d 842 (1967); Donnelly v. United Fruit Co., 40 N. J. 61 (1963); Belen v. Woodbridge Tp. Bd. of Ed., 142 N. J. Super. 486, 490-491 (App. Div.), certif. den. 72 N. J. 458 (1976); see generally Summers, The Individual Employee’s Rights Under the Collective Agreement: What Constitutes Eair Representation? 126 U. Pa. L. Rev. 251 (1977).
In response to this Court’s decision in Burlington Cty. Evergreen Park Ment. Hosp. v. Cooper, 56 N. J. 579 (1970), the Legislature enacted L. 1974, c. 123, § 1 granting the Public Employment Relations Commission exclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate and remedy unfair practices as therein defined. N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.4. As the Court notes, N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.4(b) does not expressly list a breach of the duty of fair representation as an unfair practice on the part of an employee organization, although it is arguably subsumed in N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.4(b) (1). The private-sector counterpart of that provision of the Act, § 8(b)(l),(A) of the Uational Labor Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158(b) (1)(A), has been held to encompass violations of the duty of fair representation. Miranda Fuel Co., 140 NLRB 181 (1962), enforcement denied, 326 F. 2d 172 (2 Cir. 1963). *346However, the United States Supreme Court has emphatically rejected the contention that the National Labor Relations Board’s assertion of jurisdiction over unfair representation claims preempts private suits by a victimized employee against the offending union. Vaca v. Sipes, supra, 386 U. S. at 176-188, 87 S. Ct. 903. Suits alleging a breach of the duty of fair representation were held not to be preempted by the National Labor Relations Board’s exclusive jurisdiction over unfair labor practices. Id. The Court refused to construe the unfair labor practice provisions of the NLRA to
” *■ * oust the. Courts of their traditional jurisdiction to curb arbitrary conduct by the individual employee’s statutory representative.
[Id., at 183, 87 S. Ct. at 913.]
We have intimated no view with respect to the question of the exclusivity vel non of PERC’s jurisdiction over unfair representation claims, as resolution of that issue is unnecessary to the disposition of this appeal. Hence, we need not consider whether the Supreme Court’s rationale in Vaca would be the proper approach to the exclusivity question in public employment labor relations in New Jersey. The fact that the existence of the duty of fair representation antedated PERC’s jurisdiction over unfair practices combined with the fact that the Legislature did not explicitly enumerate an unfair practice in N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.4(b) for unfair representation might suggest that the Legislature did not intend PERC’s role in remedying a majority representative’s breach of the duty of fair representation to be exclusive. However, resolution of this important question must await an appropriate future case.
Our disposition of this appeal should not in any way be construed as an implicit approval of the ruling of the Law Division, see ante at 335, that PERC’s jurisdiction of unfair representation claims is preemptive.
Pashman, J., concurring in the result.
*347For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Sullivan, Pashman, Clieeoed, Scheeibee and Handler and Judge Coneobd — -7.
For affirmance — Hone.