Court Opinion

ID: 9857548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 15:16:39.574551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:48:16.964164
License: Public Domain

Conford, P. J. A. D.
(temporarily assigned), dissenting. This case originated in a scope-of-negotiations proceeding *118filed with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) by the respondent policemen’s union. Its complaint was that the employer township refused to negotiate grievance procedures to be used in cases of disciplining policemen for infractions and to incorporate such procedures in the collective labor agreement between the parties. A disciplinary procedure was in existence by reason of regulations adopted unilaterally by the township. The township refused the union’s request on the ground that discipline did not concern terms and conditions of employment and that negotiated grievance procedures need only concern matters included in the -collective agreement. PERC responded with a ruling which, as I read it, does not specifically decide whether the union’s request is justified, since it does not address that request- in terms. However the implication of the decision seems to favor the union as it rejects the township’s argument that negotiated grievance procedures may not include items not constituting a mandatory subject of negotiations under the criteria of Dunellen Bd. of Ed. v. Dunellen Ed. Assn., 64 N. J. 17 (1973). The decision also stresses the breadth of the statutory language: “Public employers shall negotiate written policies setting forth grievance procedures by means of which their employees or representatives of employees may appeal the interpretation, application or violation of policies, agreements and administrative decisions affecting them * * (emphasis added).
PERC held, citing Lullo v. Intern. Assoc. of Fire Fighters, 55 N. J. 409, 419 (1970), that the foregoing quoted language was mandatory and imposed an affirmative duty on employers to “provide a forum by means of which public employees or their representatives may appeal the interpretation, application or violation of policies, agreements and administrative decisions affecting them.” However PERC made it clear that the extent of the grievance machinery to be adopted and whether it should include binding arbitration as a last step was subject to voluntary agreement of both parties.
*119If the PERC decision means that regulations concerning discipline of policemen are a mandatory subject of negotiation of grievance procedures, I am in accord with it. It is not fairly disputable, in my judgment, that disciplining of policemen for infractions involves "administrative decisions affecting” the officers. If, as the township contends, the range of permissible grievance procedure negotiations were confined to appeals concerning substantive provisions in the collective agreement, the statutory intent could have been met by reference to appealing disputes as to "agreements,” without including reference to "policies” and “administrative decisions.” To me, the natural meaning of the latter terms, in the light of the background of the subject in the constitutional guaranty of the right of public employees to present their "grievances and proposals,” Const. 1947, Art. I, Par. 19, strongly suggests that if in fact an “administrative decision” adversely impacts upon an employee, it is then, even if not strictly a matter of terms and conditions of employment in the narrow Dunellen sense, within the range of the subject matter of written grievance procedures which the parties "are mandated to negotiate.”1 See Lullo v. Intern. Assoc. of Fire Fighters, supra, 55 N. J. at 437.
I am only in partial agreement with PERC and with the Court, if I understand its opinion, as to the extent of grievance procedures to which the employer need agree. I concur in the view that agreement may be confined to specified stages of grievance prosecution, perhaps even to only a first-stage presentation. The obligation to negotiate does not imply an obligation to arrive at agreement for any given number of steps in the grievance procedure so long as there is bona fide interchange of views and proposals be*120tween the parties. But I would qualify the power of the employer to agree to binding arbitration as the terminal stage of a grievance procedure if the subject matter of the grievance entailed the exercise of inherent managerial judgment or discretion. That, for example, would apply with respect to the disciplining of an employee policeman — the issue here directly presented. It would contravene public - policy for an arbitrator to be enabled to supersede the discretionary determination of an administrative officer vested with statutory authority to determine the discipline to be imposed upon a policeman for an infraction of rules and regulations.2 But I would see no objection to an arbitration to determine the disputed question of fact as to whether an infraction had been committed. Such fact-finding is not an inherent managerial function.
Consequently, to the, extent that PERC’s opinion would allow agreement for binding arbitration as to decisions resting in managerial discretion, I disagree with it.
My dissent from the Court’s adjudication in this case is based upon its holding that grievance procedures may concern only such “ ‘policies, agreements or administrative decisions’ which affect the terms and conditions of public employment as that concept has been defined in our cases.” (p. 108). This would limit grievances to the area of mandatory negotiation defined in Dunellen Bd. of Ed. v. Dunellen Ed. Assn., supra, and therefore absolutely exclude from the grievance machinery matters predominantly of managerial policy even if also, appreciably affecting employees. See 64 N. J. at 29, 31. I believe this determination is fundamentally erroneous. The wliole cast of the statutory section, N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.3, connotes that “grievances” is a different subject of legislative concern and treatment from that of terms and conditions *121of employment. The latter is nowhere defined. To the contrary, the subject matter of grievance procedures required to be negotiated is expressly defined as appeals respecting disputes over “policies, agreements and administrative decisions affect[ing]” the employees. Since “terms and conditions” of employment are normally incorporated in the “agreement” of the parties, the use by the Legislature of the terms “policies” and “administrative decisions” in addition to “agreements” in the grievance part of the statute plainly indicates an intent that grievances could properly concern more than terms and conditions of employment.
It is, moreover, obvious that a whole array of items can “affect” employees, as such, beyond the narrow confines of terms and conditions of employment as closely circumscribed by Dunellen. So to limit the subject matter of grievance procedures would, in my judgment, stifle a healthy and stable labor relations atmosphere in the public sector and tend to defeat the originally stated purpose of the employer-employee relations act, i. e., “to promote permanent, public and private employer-employee peace * * *.” N. J. S. A. 34:13A — 2.
I am convinced that the practical implementation of the statutory provisions for negotiation of grievance procedures now widely practiced throughout the State is to comprehend areas of employment grievance beyond the limits of the Dunellen criteria of mandatorily negotiable terms and conditions of employment. I believe that PERO soundly perceives this to be the fact and that its holding here (subject to the qualification as to arbitration stated above) is consonant not only with the statutory intent but also with sound principles of employer-employee relations in the public sector.
For affirmance as modified — Chief Justice Hughes and Justices Sullivan, Pashman, Clifford, Schreiber and Handler — 6.
Concurring in part and dissenting in part — Judge Con-ford — 1.

All of tbe foregoing discussion assumes that any agreement as to grievance procedure in this area does not necessarily supersede any affirmative remedy an employee might have under the Civil Service statutes since N. J. S. A. 34:13A-5.3 precludes denying any employee any rights under Civil Service laws or regulations.

My view might differ if a statute expressly permitted binding arbitration in the situation posed. Cf. L. 1977, c. 85 (N. J. S. A. 34:13A-16f. (4)), permitting binding arbitration even in permissive areas of contract negotiation as to police and firemen.