Court Opinion

ID: 9538393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:35:58.728802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:50.219523
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I am in agreement with the court’s holding that those portions of the School District’s labor policy which place restrictions on affiliation and choice of bargaining representative are violative of the first amendment rights of non-eertificated school em*443ployees. My disagreement with the court’s opinion centers on the majority’s conclusion that the non-affiliation clause is severable.
In discussing presumptions of separability and inseparability in Lynden Transport, Inc. v. State, 532 P.2d 700, 711-12 (Alaska 1975), we quoted, with approval from Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 312, 56 S.Ct. 855, 873, 80 L.Ed. 1160, 1189 (1936), where the Supreme Court said in part:
Under the statutory rule, the presumption must be overcome by considerations which establish ‘the clear probability that the invalid part being eliminated the Legislature would not have been satisfied with what remains.’
In my view, non-affiliation is a paramount part of the structure upon which the Board’s labor policy rested. Before the remainder of the policy had any applicability, the employees’ organization had to meet the recognition requirement. I think it apparent that the non-affiliation clause was intended as a mandatory requirement for it embodies one of the two explicit requirements found in the recognition paragraph— the other being proof of majority representation. Thus, I conclude that it cannot be fairly said that the Board viewed the non-affiliation requirement as severable, “independent,” or “non-essential.”1

. In short, I have concluded that the burden of proof adopted in Lynden Transport, Inc. v. State, 532 P.2d 700, 711-12 (Alaska 1975), as applied in the instant case, leads to the result that the non-affiliation clause was not severa-ble. In reaching this conclusion, I assume ar-guendo that there is a statutory presumption of severability with regard to the Board’s labor policy, but find that the record establishes the “clear probability” that the Board “would not have been satisfied” with the labor policy without the non-affiliation clause.