Court Opinion

ID: 9752128
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:38:03.16272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:08.171721
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(dissenting).
*100While it may be, as the majority suggests and the appellants argue, that the City of Johnstown was dilatory in the negotiation process, it is clear that appellant’s failure to meet the time deadline for arbitration requests imposed by Section 3 of Act 111, Act of June 24, 1968, P.L. 237, No. 111, 43 P.S. § 217.3 (Supp.1975-1976), is due to its own failure to preserve its rights under Act 111. I cannot agree that in such circumstances the mandatory time deadline for arbitration requests is rendered inoperative. I must therefore dissent.
Section 3 of the Act, 43 P.S. § 217.3 (Supp.1975-1976) provides:
“Collective bargaining shall begin at least six months before the start of the fiscal year of the political subdivision or of the Commonwealth, as the case may be, and any request for arbitration, as hereinafter provided, shall be made at least one hundred ten days before the start of said fiscal year.”
And Section 4 of the Act, 43 P.S. § 217.4(a) (Supp. 1975-1976) provides in part:
“(a) If in any case of a dispute between a public employer and its policemen or firemen employes the collective bargaining process reaches an impasse and stalemate, or if the appropriate lawmaking body does not approve the agreement reached by collective bargaining, with the result that said employers and employes are unable to effect a settlement, then either party to the dispute, after written notice to the other party containing specifications of the issue or issues in dispute, may request the appointment of a board of arbitration.
“For purposes of this section, an impasse or stalemate shall be deemed to occur in the collective bargaining process if the parties do not reach a settlement of the issue or issues in dispute by way of a written agreement within thirty days after collective bar*101gaining proceedings have been initiated. . . .” (Emphasis added).
In this case the union initiated the collective bargaining proceedings by its letter to the City dated June 28, 1974. No settlement agreement was in hand thirty days thereafter, and a “stalemate or impasse” in the statutory sense had therefore occurred. It was then the right of either party, under Sec. 4 of the Act, supra, to request arbitration of the disputed issues. The right to make this request ended with the deadline set by Sec. 3 of the Act, i. e., 110 days before the start of the next fiscal year of the City. The time period available between those two statutorily fixed dates was forty-six days. In my view, either party which did not request arbitration in that period forfeited its right to do so.
As ably explained by Judge Blatt in her opinion for a unanimous Commonwealth Court, the mandatory time deadlines of Act 111 are grounded in sound public policy:
“Under Act 111, policemen and firemen throughout the Commonwealth obtained bargaining rights which they had not previously enjoyed. A careful analysis of the provisions of the act reveals that the legislature intended to and did establish a very specific and detailed time schedule for the exercise of those rights, a timetable specifically keyed to the public employer’s next fiscal year. For example, the times for the beginning of collective bargaining, for the request for arbitration and for the effective date for any legislation necessary to effectuate the agreement are all computed or determined by counting back from the first day of the subsequent fiscal year. In the case of arbitration, the legislature clearly intended and provided that all arbitration proceedings should be started early enough (i. e. 110 days) before January 17 to be completed in time for the governing body to prepare an appropriate budget and to enact the necessary implementing legislation before the beginning of the new fiscal year.
*102“It is obvious under the act that time is of the essence in collective bargaining between policemen and firemen and their public employers. . . . Act 111, we believe, is designed to protect not only the rights of the collective bargaining agent and of the employer but of the public as well to efficient government through the timely adoption of municipal budgets and of necessary implementing legislation. If the Union here had felt that the City was dilatory in commencing negotiations, it should have taken appropriate action to compel compliance within the timetable provisions of the act. Unfortunately, however, although perhaps in good faith, the Union was also dilatory, and has consequently forfeited here its right to binding arbitration by its failure to act in a timely way.” International Association of Firefighters, Local 463 v. City of Johnstown, 21 Pa.Cmwlth. 223, 226, 344 A.2d 754, 755-756 (1975).
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the Order of the Commonwealth Court.