Court Opinion

ID: 9707619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:16:46.180835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:35.809980
License: Public Domain

Krivosha, C.J.,
concurring.
While I concur completely with the result reached by the majority in this opinion, I believe that this case points up to us the error of our holding in General Drivers and Helpers Union v. City of West Point, 204 Neb. 238, 281 N.W.2d 772 (1979), in which I joined with the majority. In General Drivers we first held that the burden is on the moving party to demonstrate that existing wages are not comparable to the prevailing wage rate. We then went on to hold that the Commission of Industrial Relations could not obtain evidence on its own motion unless the moving party had first made a prima facie case by satisfying the burden of proof of establishing non-comparability of wages with prevailing conditions, and if the moving party failed to make a prima facie case, the action should be dismissed. On further reflection I now think that we have imposed a rule which is contrary to the entire scheme of the industrial relations law in Nebraska. The purpose of the *283law is to insure continuous, uninterrupted, and proper functioning and operation of governmental services. See Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-802(1) (Reissue-1978). In attempting to do so the Legislature has struck a balance. On the one hand, public employees are prohibited from interrupting the delivery of public services by strike or other means. On the other hand, to protect the economic interests of such public employees, there has been developed a statutory scheme whereby an administrative agency is authorized to resolve public sector employer-employee disputes. To therefore suggest that if the employees fail to make a prima facie case, the government employer in some manner is 'then absolved of its statutory obligation to pay comparable wages is to ignore the entire scheme. The Commission of Industrial Relations is not a court; it is an administrative agency. See Nebraska Dept. of Roads Employees Assn. v. Department of Roads, 189 Neb. 754, 205 N.W.2d 110 (1973). As such, it should be authorized and permitted to operate as an administrative agency, authorized to consider all of the evidence, whether brought by the employer or brought by the employee. The purpose of the act is to attempt to adjust labor disputes in the public sector as quickly as possible and not to engage in meaningless legal technicalities. Here, we have an example of employees in 1984 still attempting to adjust wages earned in 1981 because of a belief on the part of the employer that the employee failed to make a “prima facie case.” I cannot believe that the purpose of the public sector law, or the public for that matter, is benefited by such procedure; and if the act does not make that as clear as I believe it does, it should be made clear. I would have overruled that portion of General Drivers and Helpers Union v. City of West Point which holds that a petition may be dismissed at the close of the employees’ case if they have failed to make a prima facie case.
Grant, J., joins in this concurrence.