Court Opinion

ID: 9655898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:24:56.843451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:23.173054
License: Public Domain

*361Thomas Gallagher, Justice
(dissenting).
1. The right to strike is not involved in this case. Respondent Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Local 59, AFL-CIO, in a separate action brought in the district court was enjoined from engaging in any strike. The federation did not appeal from this injunction and no issue is now presented involving the constitutionality of Minn. St. 179.51, prohibiting strikes; or of §§ 179.54 and 179.55, imposing forfeitures and penalties upon public employees who strike.
It is undisputed that some 1,613 employees of Minneapolis Special School District No. 1, including clerks, stenographers, nurses, building tradesmen, part-time teacher aides, janitor-engineers, and others, are covered by the 1965 Public Employees Labor Relations Act, L. 1965, c. 839. In addition, it is not disputed that some 6,500 faculty members of the University of Minnesota and several thousand faculty members of the five state colleges and all classified employees of the state’s public school boards are included within the act. But by virtue of c. 839, § 7 (Minn. St. 179.572), all public elementary and high school teachers are excluded from its terms.
2. In my judgment this exclusion constitutes a discrimination against such public elementary and high school teachers and is therefore unconstitutional. The majority seeks to uphold the validity of the exclusion upon the theory that “[a] statute should not be construed so as to extend its provisions to cover that which is specifically excluded by the legislature.” While this principle is well established, it can have no application where the constitutionality of the specific exclusion is in issue. Certainly if the exclusion is of itself unconstitutional, it cannot be upheld upon the theory that the language creating it is clear and definite.
The Minnesota Public Employees Labor Relations Act, L. 1965, c. 839, provides a mechanism whereby all public employees, except elementary and high school teachers, may participate in the formulation of personnel policies governing their employment. The purposes of the act and the public policy are defined in § 1 (Minn. St. 179.50) as follows:
“Unresolved disputes in the public service are injurious to the public, the governmental agencies, and public employees; therefore, adequate *362means should be provided for preventing controversies between governmental agencies and public employees and for resolving them when they occur. Because the paramount interest of the public and the nature of governmental processes make it necessary to impose special limitations upon public employment, it is incumbent upon governmental agencies to provide orderly procedures for the participation by public employees and their representatives in the formulation of personnel policies and plans to insure the fair and considerate treatment of public employees, to eliminate employment inequities, and to provide effective means of resolving questions and controversies with respect to terms and conditions of employment. It is the public policy of the state of Minnesota that governmental agencies, public employees and their representatives shall enter into discussions with affirmative willingness to resolve grievances and differences. Governmental agencies and public employees and their representatives shah have a mutual obligation to endeavor in good faith to resolve grievances and differences relating to terms and conditions of employment, acting within the framework of laws and charter provisions, and giving consideration to personnel policies, position classification and compensation plans, and other special rules governing public employment.”
Under these clearly expressed purposes and public policies I find no justification for differentiating between the benefited public employees and the excluded public school teachers. Many of the former are lawyers, doctors, professors, assistant professors, instructors, and administrators employed by the university and by the state colleges. They are professionals who may or may not have an interest in utilizing the protection and rights afforded by the act, but if they desire its protection, they may seek it. What valid reason is there for excluding public school teachers from these same benefits? Certainly they are in the same professional class as are teachers and instructors employed by the university or other state educational institutions.
To justify the exclusion of any particular group of citizens from the benefits of a legislative enactment, it must be shown that there is a substantial difference or distinction between the group excluded and the *363groups covered by the enactment. As stated in State ex rel. Bd. of Courthouse & City Hall Commrs. v. Cooley, 56 Minn. 540, 550, 58 N. W. 150, 153:
“The fundamental rule is that all classification must be based upon substantial distinctions, which make one class really different from another. * * * [Tjt must be based upon some natural reason, — some reason suggested by necessity, by some difference in the situation and circumstances of the subjects placed in the different classes, suggesting the necessity of different legislation with respect to them. By necessity is meant practical, and not absolute, necessity; but the characteristics which will serve as a basis of classification must be substantial, and not slight or illusory.” (Italics supplied.)
3. Chapter 839 created a new public policy which made sweeping changes in the laws relative to public employees by establishing for the first time certain rights and privileges for them. Obviously, the enactment was based upon the legislature’s carefully considered conclusion that public employees, including public school teachers, like their counterparts in private enterprise are subject to the same vicissitudes of rising prices, accident, illness, and old age. Everywhere people are seeking to assert a measure of control over the conditions under which they work and live. By its enactment of c. 839, the legislature recognized this and the right of some 160,000 public employees of the state to be represented by labor organizations of their choice in matters pertaining to their employment contracts. The exclusion of public school teachers from the benefits of this enactment, while at the same time leaving them subject to the forfeitures and penalties provided for in other statutory enactments now in effect, in my judgment constitutes a discriminatory treatment of this group which is entirely without a valid basis.
4. The majority seeks to justify this special classification for public school teachers on the ground that the “legislature has historically treated teachers as a different classification,” citing Minn. St. 125.17; 125.12; 354.05 to 354.14; 354.31 to 354.61; 125.03; the Civil Service Act, c. 43; the Veterans Preference Act, §§ 197.45 and 197.46; and the Public Employees Retirement Act, c. 353, as statutes illustrative of this. While *364these statutes demonstrate that teachers, like most classifications of public employees, have working conditions distinct to them with respect to tenure, continuing contract rights, retirement benefits, and the like, if the validity of statutory classifications under a public employees labor relations act is to be tested by such factors, then the same distinctions as applied to hundreds of other classifications of public employees, each with distinctive working conditions, would justify the exclusion of any one of such classifications from the benefits of the act, and the possible loss of the benefits to be derived from a general enactment covering all public employees.
5. It also seems clear to me that the exclusionary provision embodied in § 7 of the act constitutes a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution, which provides that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Under this amendment, it is well settled that all residents of a state have the right to equal treatment and that a state must act without discrimination as to any of them. While a state is not under a duty to provide specific benefits, privileges, or services for its people, if it chooses to do so it must do so on an equal basis for all of them. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U. S. 337, 59 S. Ct. 232, 83 L. ed. 208; McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co. 235 U. S. 151, 161, 35 S. Ct. 69, 71, 59 L. ed. 169, 174. As stated in Quaker City Cab Co. v. Pennsylvania, 277 U. S. 389, 400, 48 S. Ct. 553, 554, 72 L. ed. 927, 929:
“* * * The equal protection clause does not detract from the right of the State justly to exert its * * * power or prevent it from adjusting its legislation to differences in situation or forbid classification in that connection, ‘but it does require that the classification be not arbitrary but based on a real and substantial difference having a reasonable relation to the subject of the particular legislation’” (Italics supplied.)
Here I can find no real and substantial difference between public elementary and high school teachers, and many of the other classifications of public employees now covered by c. 839.
6. Collective bargaining between public employees and local, state, or Federal government agencies is no longer a novelty. Under presi*365dential executive order,1 531 exclusive recognitions covering over 700,000 Federal workers were given by Federal agencies to various unions representing Federal employees by November 1965 and it was recognized that such workers were authorized to bargain collectively through unions of their choice. Weisenfeld, Public Employees — First or Second Class Citizens, 16 Labor L. J. 685, 691. The American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, with which the respondent local is affiliated, has conducted collective bargaining elections in school systems in Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as in numerous smaller cities and communities. The Minnesota Legislature by its enactment of c. 839 has recognized this trend and adopted it as a part of the public policy of the state. No reason whatever exists for excluding public school teachers from this public policy, or for granting other public employees of a similar professional character rights and privileges denied to public school teachers.
In my judgment § 7 of c. 839 is unconstitutional. Such a determination, of course, would not invalidate the remaining provisions of the act. State ex rel. Foster v. Naftalin, 246 Minn. 181, 74 N. W. (2d) 249; Hunter v. Zenith Dredge Co. 220 Minn. 318, 19 N. W. (2d) 795.

 Exec. Order No. 10988, 27 F. R. 551.