Court Opinion

ID: 9753595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:19:56.66963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:38.939393
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge PELLEGRINI.
While the majority has issued a well-reasoned decision with which I do not disagree, I dissent because I would hold that the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction to decide who is or is not a firefighter because that is a constitutional question over which the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction.
In Erie Firefighters Local 293 of Inter. Ass’n. of Firefighters v. Gardner, 406 Pa. 395, 178 A.2d 691, 695 (1962), our Supreme Court, interpreting then Article 3, Section 20 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,1 which prohibited delegation of governmental functions, held that interest arbitration was an unlawful delegation of governmental authority.
As a result, a 1968 constitutional amendment was presented to the voters to amend that provision to allow interest arbitration for firemen and policemen by adding the italicized portion to that section below.
The General Assembly shall not delegate to any special commission, private corporation or association, any power to make, supervise or interfere with any municipal improvement, money, property or effects, whether held in trust or *839otherwise, or to levy taxes or perform any municipal function whatsoever. Notwithstanding the foregoing limitation or any other provision of the Constitution, the General Assembly may enact laws which provide that the findings of panels or commissions, selected and acting in accordance with law for the adjustment or settlement of grievances or disputes or for collective bargaining between policemen and firemen and their public employers shall be binding upon all parties and shall constitute a mandate to the head of the political subdivision which is the employer, or to the appropriate officer of the Commonwealth if the Commonwealth is the employer, with respect to matters which can be remedied by administrative action, and to the lawmaking body of such political subdivision or of the Commonwealth, with respect to matters which require legislative action, to take the action necessary to carry out such findings.
The General Assembly then enacted Act 111 in 1968, Act of June 24,1968, P.L. 237, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 217.1-217.10. Act 111 only dealt with how contract disputes proceeded to arbitration and did not include the normal subjects contained in collective bargaining statutes such as what constituted the appropriate bargaining unit.
To flesh out Act 111, in Philadelphia Fire Officers Association v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, 470 Pa. 550, 369 A.2d 259 (1977), a ease dealing with whether a separate bargaining unit should be created for fire officers, our Supreme Court held that Act 111 is to be read in pari materia with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act.
While under Philadelphia Fire Officers, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board can decide whether firefighters have the requisite community of interest to be included in a bargaining unit or have to have a separate unit, that jurisdiction does not extend to who is and is not a firefighter. That is, ultimately, a constitutional question which is resolved, in the first instance, by how the governmental entity classifies employees, i.e., if they call them firefighters, they are firefighters for purposes of Act 111. If the governmental entities remove employees from the fire department to another department and refuse to engage in interest arbitration, then an action has to be brought to a court to decide whether the employees who are removed are firefighters within the meaning of Article 3, Section 20, which is not within the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board’s jurisdiction.
Accordingly, I would vacate the order of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board.

. Now numbered Article 3, Section 3.