Court Opinion

ID: 9473755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:38:37.907389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:42.887882
License: Public Domain

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Congress’ apparent purpose in enacting section 13(c) was provisional — to cushion the impact on transit employees of a change from private to public sector employment. It may be that, as years pass from the time of public takeover, it becomes more appropriate to align municipal transit workers with other municipal employees rather than with persons who labor in the private sector. Cf. Local Division 589, Amalgamated Transit Union v. Massachusetts, 666 F.2d 618, 634 (1st Cir.1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1117, 102 S.Ct. 2928, 73 L.Ed.2d 1329 (1982). In that light, a collective bargaining scheme that would have been characterized “unfair” or “inequitable” in 1972 might appear just and adequate in 1990. But Congress did not provide for sunsetting section 13(c) and said nothing in the text of the provision to suggest that the essential process entailed in “the continuation of collective bargaining rights” should come to mean less as time goes by. I therefore concur in the court’s eompellingly reasoned decision.
MacKINNON, Senior Circuit Judge.
I concur in the foregoing opinion. To my mind the Georgia statute eliminates from the collective bargaining process just too many issues that have become generally recognized as basic and traditional “collective bargaining” issues. Collective bargaining is not a precise term and is open to some reasonable definition, but whether expressly defined or not, it implicitly includes a “good faith” requirement. However, collective bargaining does not necessarily require binding arbitration to ensure that bargaining will be carried out in good faith.